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THE ANDOVER CASE :
¦WITH AN
Introductory Historical Statement;
A CAREFUL SUM.MARY OF THE
ARGUMENTS OF THE RESPONDENT PROFESSORS;
AND THE FULL TEXT OF THE
ARGUMENTS OF THE COMPLAINANTS
AND THEIR COUNSEL,
TOGETHER WITH THE
DECISION OF THE BOARD OF VISITORS!

Furnishing the nearest available approach to a Complete
history of the whole matter.

BOSTON :
STANLEY AND USHER, Publishers,
171 Devonshire Street.
1887.

Copjfright, 1887,
By Stanley & Usher, Boston, Mass.

CONTENTS.

PAGE
Introductokt Statement  v
Historical Statement  ,  vii
SU.-UMARY OF the EESPONDENTS' ARGUMENTS  XVii
Argument of Hon. Asa French  3
Aegument op Eev. J. "W. "Wellman, d.d  15
Akgument of Eev. O. T. Lanphear, d.d  78
Argument of Eev. H. M. Dexter, d.d  104
Closing Argument by Hon. E. E. Hoar  175
The Judgment op the "Visitors  191
Eeport op the Trustees  193

INTEODUOTOEY STATEMENT.

It is not the fault of the complainants in the recent* Andover case
that a complete and impartial account of the same, including the en
tire arguments on both sides, has not, long since, been given to the
public. Immediately after the conclusion of the hearings, the chair
man of the committee of certain of the alumni was approached by
one of the professors, and subsequently by a message from one of
the trustees of the seminary, with a proposition to cooperate in such
a publication ; to which he readily assented on the basis so presented.
Some weeks after, this proposition, for some reason, was formally
withdra-wn. For the convenience of the Visitors, however, all the
arguments on both sides were printed, and the complainants pub
lished a small edition of theirs, which was soon exhausted and
another was called for. Having waited some months in vain for any
further movement on the other side toward a joint volume, and the
public interest being aroused afresh by the publication of the de
cision of the Honorable Board of Visitors, the committee of certain
of the alumni have now decided to reissue the arguments on their
side presented to that Board, prefaced by the briefest history of the
case, and such a Hsumi of the pleadings on the other side as may be
helpful in enabling those unacquainted with the facts to comprehend
the bearing of every part, appending thereto the finding of the
Visitors ; thus bringing 'within the reach of libraries and intelligent
students of such matters all the materials indispensable to some
clear comprehension of a case unique in the annals of American
civil and ecclesiastical law and history.
The condensed statement of the defence of Professor Smyth and
the other professors, and of the arguments of their distinguished
counsel, which follows, has been prepared by the author of the report
made in The Congregationalist, — the fairness of which was at the
time the subject of special remark, — corrected and somewhat enlarged
by reference to the volume of reports printed by the respondents.
In the absence of that complete, though it would have been
voluminous, presentation of the case, which it would have seemed
the part of 'wisdom to make jointly, it is believed that the present

issue offers to the public the best means which are likely to be avail
able at present for comprehending this most important and interest
ing matter in its entirety.
It should not be forgotten that, in the order of the hearings, the
statements and arguments of Professors Tucker, Harris, Hincks, and
Churchill, while for convenience here grouped ¦with the others on
the same side, in point of fact followed after the closing of the case
of Professor Smyth, and, by agreement, 'without reply from the
complainants.

HISTOEIOAL STATEMENT.

The Theological Seminary at Andover was opened for service
28th September, 1808. The pressure of feeling hostile to Evan
gelical religion was then so strong in the Legislature that it was
feared it would prove impossible to procure a charter for a wholly
new institution of the quality desired ; and so the Seminary was
engrafted upon Phillips Academy, which had there been existent
since 1778, with a charter deemed safely susceptible of expansion
and modification sufficient to the new load. The institution was
thus deliberately started, so to speak, as a compromise with an
academy. But there was also a further and much more impor
tant compromise vitally connected with its origin. The friends of
Orthodoxy then existed in two schools, essentially one, but ear
nestly differing as to several points : to wit, the old Calvinists and
the Hopkinsians, or new Divinity men. Each of these sections,
in the Providence of God, had been led to regard it as of great
consequence, especially in view of the then recent defection of
Harvard College from the ancient faith, that a school distinctively
for the teaching of theology be established in New England ; and
the Calvinists, under the lead of Dr. Morse, of Charlestown, and
his friends, had secured the promise of large moneys from good
people at Andover for the purpose of starting such a school upon
the academy foundation there as a basis ; while, at fhe same time,
the Hopkinsians, under the lead of Dr. Spring, of Newburyport,
had considerable expectations of funds for a like purpose, in that
vicinity. When, however, it became known that two such
"academies," as they called them, were in contemplation, there
grew up immediately and extensively a strong feeling that it
would be much better in moral effect, as of course it would be
financially, for both to be merged in one strong and well-funded
institution. Negotiations for this purpose were entered upon and

vm
vigorously carried forward. Should such union take place, the
necessities of the proposed connection with Phillips Academy
made it imperative that the Hopkinsians be the party to give up
their special plans and remove, transferring their money, good
will, and men — for their chief instructor had been already se
lected — from Newburyport to Andover. They were reluctant to
do this, in any case, and they were especially solicitous lest they
might not secure all the safeguards which seemed to them essen
tial for the theological security of such a transaction . Two years
or so were spent in writing and rewriting, in conference, and in
joumeyings often, before all the details could be satisfactorily
adjusted. The mass of correspondence, not long since published
in the Appendix to the History of the Seminary, by Dr. Woods,
shows how intense was the solicitude, how eager the anxiety, and
how scrupulous the conscience of both parties, in perfecting those
arrangements by which this consolidation was at last effected ;
and particularly how minute and solemn was the care devoted to
the Creed, in the endeavor — so far as human foresight could
make anything secure — to settle it that in no possible way should
either party ever get advantage of the other, or their joint bounty
fail of being forever administered in the interest of what they
considered to be truth, and to the confutation and destruction of
what they looked upon as error.
The Hopkinsians, who were giving up their own special and fav
orite plans, and putting their money into the hands of those from
whom they had been in some degree theologically separated, felt
that there was one element of weakness, if not of real danger,
inherent in the first compromise which had engrafted the Seminary
upon Phillips Academy ; which was, that, by the charter of that
institution, " a major part" of its Trustees " shall be laymen" a
condition eminently reasonable and proper for the management of
a purely secular academy for boys, but open to serious question
when the institution came to be devoted to the higher functions
of Divinity, and it was made the duty of those Trustees to select
instructors between shades of theology, and to decide as to fitness
in the eases of persons whose natural scope of thought, culture,
and labor must be Necessarily above their own, and as to which
they could not be expected to be experts. The Newburyport men"
Rrere unwilling to run the risks of this, without some compensa
tive provision. And so they proposed the creation of a Board of
Visitors which should be supreme over the Trustees, and furnish a

IX
Court of final resort, competent to correct errors in the lower
Board, and to represent the Founders forever in the oversight of
the just management of their funds, and of the instruction which
• those funds should provide. Only when this arrangement had
been mutually consented to, and as fully accepted for the one
party as for the other, did the consolidation take place and theJ
Seminary begin its work.
The arrangement thus agreed upon requires, when a Professor
has been elected by the Trustees, that that election shall, within
ten days, be presented to the Visitors ; and not until confirmed by
them — excepting only that no action thereon by them for the space
of twelve months from the commencement of the vacancy which
it is intended to fill furnishes a practical confirmation — does
the election become legal and the transaction complete. Thesel
\ Visitors are further entrusted with the power to determine, inter- ]
Wet, and explain the Statutes of the Seminary, to redress griev
ances, to hear appeals from decisions of the Trustees, to reverse
their censures, to declare void their rules and regulations when
inconsistent with the original Statutes, to take care that the Pro
fessors perform faithfully their duties, and to admonish or remove
I them for misbehavior, heterodoxy, incapacity, or neglect of duty
— and so on. It is, moreover, expressly charged upon them that
no man be continued as a Professor who shall not continue to
I approve himself a man of sound and Orthodox principles in di-
[ vinity, agreeably to the Creed on which the institution is founded.
For purposes of convenient reference, that Creed is here reprinted.
It was first proposed and adopted by the Associate Founders [the
Hopkinsians] , and afterwards accepted word for word by the
original Founders [the old Calvinists] , and thus jointly made the
unchangeable legal basis of the doctrine to be taught in the insti
tution forever. We say "unchangeable" because the following
injunction became a part of the solemn contract between the
parties, namely : —
It is strictly and solemnly enjoined, and left in sacred charge, that every
article of the above said Creed shall forever remain entirely and identically the
same, without the least alteration, addition, or diminution.
This Creed is as follows : —
the creed.
I believe that there is one and but one living and true GOD ; that the word of
God, contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, is the only
perfect rule of faith and practice ; that agreeably to these Scriptures God is a
Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in his being, wisdom, power, holiness.

justice, goodness, and truth ; that in the Godhead are three Persons, the Father,
the Son, and the Holy Ghost; and that these Three are One God, the same
in substance, equal in power and glory; that God created man, alter his own
image, in knowledge, righteousness, and holiness; that the glory of GOD is man's
chief end, and the enjoyment of God his supreme happiness; that this enjoy
ment is derived solely from conformity of heart to the moral character and will of
God ; that Adam, the federal head and representative of the human race, was
placed in a state of probation, and that, in consequence of his disobedience, all
his descendants were constituted sinners; that by nature every man is personally
depraved, destitute of holiness, unlike and opposed to God; and that, previously
to the renewing agency of the Divine Spirit, all his moral actions are adverse
to the character and glory of God ; that, being morally incapable of recovering
the image of his Creator, which was lost in Adam, every man is justly exposed
to eternal damnation ; so that, except a man be bom again, he cannot see the
kingdom of God ; that GOD, of his mere good pleasure, from all eternity elected
some to everlasting life, and that he entered into a covenant of grace, to deliver
them out of this state of sin and misery by a Redeemer; that the only Re
deemer of the elect is the eternal Son of GOD, who for this purpose became
man, and continues to be God and man in two distinct natures and one person
forever ; that Christ, as our Redeemer, e.'cecuteth the office of a Prophet, Priest,
and King; that, agreeably to the covenant of redemption, the SON of GOD, and
he alone, by his sufferings and death, has made atonement for the sins of all
men; that repentance, faith, and holiness are the personal requisites in the Gos
pel scheme of salvation; that the righteousness of Christ is the only ground of
a sinner's justification ; that this righteousness is received through faith ; and
that this faith is the gift of God ; so that our salvation is wholly of grace ; that
no means whatever can change the heart of a sinner, and make it holy; that
regeneration and sanctification are effects of the creating and renewing agency
of the Holy Spirit, and that supreme love to God constitutes the essential
difference between saints and sinners; that by convincing us of our sin and
misery, enlightening our minds, working faith in us, and renewing our wills, the
Holy Spirit makes us partakers of the benefits of redemption; and that the
ordinary means, by which these benefits are communicated to us, are the word,
sacraments, and prayer ; that repentance unto life, faith to feed upon Christ,
love to God, and new obedience, are the appropriate qualifications for the Lord's
Supper ; and that a Christian Church ought to admit no person to its holy com
munion, before he exhibit credible evidence of his godly sincerity; that perse
verance in holiness is the only method of making our calling and election sure ;
and that the final perseverance of saints, though it is the effect of the special
operation of God on their hearts, necessarily implies their own watchful dili
gence ; that they, who are effectuuUy called, do in this life partake of justification,
adoption, and sanctification, and the several benefits which do either accompany
or flow from them ; that the souls of believers are at their death made perfect in
holiness, and do immediately pass into glory ; that their bodies, being still united
to Christ, will at the resurrection be raised up to glory, and that the saints will
be made perfectly blessed in the full enjoyment of God to all eternity; but that
the wicked will awake to shame and everlasting contempt, and with devils be
plunged into the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone forever and ever.
I moreover believe that God, according to the counsel of his own will, and
for his own glory, hath foreordained whatsoever comes to pass, and that all
beings, actions, and events, both in the natural aud moral world, are under his
providential direction; that God's decrees perfectly consist with human liberty;
God's universal agency with the agency of man; and man's dependence with

XI
his accountability ; that man has understanding and corporeal strength to do all
that God requires of him; so that nothing, but the sinner's aversion to holiness,
prevents his salvation ; that it is the prerogative of God, to bring good out of
evil, and that He will cause the wrath and rage of wicked men and devils to
praise Him ; and that all the evil, which has existed, and will forever exist, in
the moral system, will eventually be made to promote a most important purpose
under the wise and perfect administration of that Almighty Being, who will
cause all things to work for his own glory, and thus fulfil all his pleasure. —
And farthermore, 1 do solemnly promise that I will open and explain the
Scriptures to my Pupils with integrity and faithfulness; that I will maintain and
inculcate the Christian faith, as expressed in the Creed by me now repeated,
together with all the other doctrines and duties ol our holy Religion, so far as
may appertain to my office, according to the best light God shall give me, and in
opposition, not only to Atheists and Infidels, but to Jews, Papists, Mahometans,
Arians, Pelagians, Antinomians, Arminians, Socinians, Sabellians, Unitarians,
and Universalists ; and to all heresies and errors, ancient or modern, which may
be opposed to the Gospel of Christ, or hazardous to the souls of men; that by
my instruction, counsel, and example, I will endeavor to promote true piety and
Godliness ; that I will consult the good of this Institution, and the peace of
the Churches of our Lord Jesus Christ on all occasions ; and that I will religiously
conform to the Constitution and Laws of this Seminary, and to the Statutes ol
this Foundation.
After nearly three quarters of a century, mainly of quiet pros
perity, those troubles arose in the institution which issued in the
trial which this volume describes.
In March, 1882, it was announced that Rev. Newman Smyth,
D.D., then of Quincy, 111., had been elected by the Trustees of
the Seminary at Andover, to the Abbot Professorship of Chris
tian Theology in that institution, which had been some time before
left vacant by the resignation of Professor E. A. Park, D.D.
On the 22d April following, this election was negatived by the
Board of Visitors. The Trustees then immediately elected him
instructor in Systematic Theology for one year, but he declined to
serve. A few months later Eev. George Harris, of Providence,
R. I., was elected by the Trustees to the same chair, and was
confirmed by the Visitors. In the public discussion which ac
companied these transactions, it became obvious — and partly
through a letter from six of the Professors themselves which was
published in the Congregationalist of 12th April, 1882 — that
views were held by them, and that they claimed and defended
the right to hold views, which were extensively regarded as
differing in important particulars from those of the Founders
of the Seminary as defined in its Creed, and not less from those
which had been uniformly taught in the institution by their pre
decessors in office. At a later date other changes took place

xu
which increased the number of Professors whose teachings on
various doctrines, and preeminently as to the matter of Probation
after Death, awakened serious solicitude among many of the
Alumni ; as indeed among many other warm friends of the Semi
nary, and of evangelical truth in general. In January, 1884,
these Professors started The Andover Beview, through the pages
of which, from that time to the present, they have been even
more boldly and distinctly advocating these peculiar views, some
of which also they have emphasized by reprinting them in book
form in the volume called "Progressive Orthodoxy."
Feeling that, as a matter of conscience, he could not allow
these things to go on longer in silence, on 12th January, 1886, Rev.
J. W. Wellman, D.D., one of the Board of Trustees, at a regular
quarterly meeting of that body, brought up the matter in the
form of a preamble and resolution, as follows : —
'Whereas, it is publicly alleged that some teachings in the Theological Seminary
at Andover, and some opinions of Professors in that Seminary, especially as
recently avowed by them iu their own periodical, are not in harmony with sound
doctrine as expressed in the Creed which the Founders and Donors ol this insti
tution made the unalterable condition ol the gilts which were committed in
sacred trust to this Board; and
'Whereas, also, by such public and repeated allegations, the minds of loyal
graduates are seriously disturbed, and the confidence of Christian people in
the integrity of the Seminary is becoming impaired, and the good of this Institu
tion, and the peace of the Churches of our Lord Jesus Christ are thought to be
imperiled; Therefore, to the end that such rumors and fears may be set at rest by the
authority to whose decision, in accordance with Article Tenth of the Additional
Statutes, all such questions are to be submitted, namely : the Board of Visitors,
Besolved, That the Board of Visitors be respectfully requested to examine
and consider whether any of the teachings or opinions of any ol the Professors
conflict with, or fail to " maintain arid inculcate," in any of its parts, the Creed
of this Seminary.
We are informed by Dr. Wellman that, according to the usual
practice of the Board, its members, one after another, expressed
their opinions in regard to the resolution thus offered. Every
member present, with the exception of its mover, declared himself
to be opposed to the resolution, some saying that, if there were
need of any such investigation, the Trustees should make it ;
others that, were such a resolution to be passed, it would lead the
public to suppose some need for such investigation existed, which
they did not believe — all agreeing thus informally against the
proposition. Dr. Wellman then said: "Gentlemen, you have

XIU
refused my request, as you had a right to do. But I cannot rest
here. I do not know what I shall do. But if there be anything
which I can rightly do to save Andover Seminary to the service of
the faith which it was founded to maintain, I shall do it."
A month before, in The Andover Review for December, 1885,
its five editors — all of them Professors in the Andover Seminary
— had referred, with some feeling, to the fact that they were pop
ularly accused of divergence in their teaching from the creed to
which they had subscribed, and had added that, under the circum
stances, they felt warranted in referring their censors to Rom.
/xiv, 4 [" Who art thou that judgest another man's servant? to j
\his own master he standeth or faileth"]. This was, not unnatu
rally, interpreted as being a substantial assertion by them that so
long as the Visitors — to whom, by the statutes, the Professors
are made responsible for their continued Orthodoxy — found no
fault with their doctrinal position, no one of the Alumni, or other
person, had any right to question it. Such a declaration awak
ened solicitude among certain of the Alumni, and on the 28th
of that month a meeting was held, which, reassembling by
adjournment in the January following, considered the whole
subject with care and prayer. Dr. Wellman communicated to
them his action in the Board of Trustees and its ill-success.
After much consideration, it seemed to him, and to these Alumni,
that no course remained open but, in compliance with the organic
law of the Seminary, as indeed with former precedents in its his
tory, for them to make appeal to the Honorable Visitors and
request them to look into the subject.
Applying to them for permission so to do, the 7th July, 1886,
was assigned as the date for the liearing asked. At that time
Dr. Wellman and a Committee of the Alumni thus acting, con
sisting of Drs. H. M. Dexter and O. T. Lanphear, with others,
appeared. They stated that it was not their purpose to present
formal charges against any Professor, but only — as more fully
explained in the introduction to the argument of one of them
subsequently — to call the attention of the Visitors to circum
stances which seemed to need investigation, leaving their Honor
able body to take such action, if any, thereon, as their judgment
of the facts and of their duty might require. The complainants
— if then they could rightly be called such — simply asked leave
to read, in the hearing of the Visitors, three or four statements
of what were believed to be facts, which statements, for the

XIV
convenience of the Board, and that, ipsissimis verbis, they might
be placed at once in the hands of the Professors, they had
had privately printed. The Visitors, however, decided neither to
receive nor hear these papers, but directed Dr. Wellman and the
Committee to reduce what they felt constrained to offer in com
plaint to the form of definite charges ; instructing the Secretary
of the Board to forward such charges, when formulated and filed
with him, to the Professors implicated, and to cite them to make
answer to the same within fifteen days. This was done, and all
parties were summoned to a hearing, 25th October, at the United
States Hotel in Boston.
The charges thus filed against the five Professors who conduct
The Andover Beview, namelj' : Professors E. C. Smyth, D.D.,
W. J. Tucker, D.D., George Harris, D.D., E. Y. Hincks, D.D.,
and J. Wesley Churchill, A.M., were sixteen, as follows, namely:
That they hold, maintain, and inculcate : —

1. That the Bible is not the only perfect rule of faith and practice, but is
fallible and untrustworthy even in some of Its religious teachings.
2. That Christ, in the days of His humiliation, was merely a finite being —
limited in all his attributes, capacities, and attainments.
3. That no man has power, or capacity, to repent without knowledge of the
historic Christ.
4. That mankind, save as instructed in a knowledge ol the historic Christ, are
not sinners, or, il they are, not ol such sinlulness as to be in danger ol being
lost. 5. That no man can be lost without having had knowledge ol Christ.
6. That the Atonement of Christ consists essentially and chiefly in His becom
ing identified with the human race through His Incarnation ; in order that, by
His union with men, He might endow them with the power to repent, and thus
impart to them an augmented value in the view of God, and so propitiate God to
men, and men to God. »
7. That the Trinity is modal, and not personal.
8. That the work of the Holy Spirit is mainly limited to natural methods and
within historic Christianity.
9. That without the knowledge of the historic Christ, men do not deserve the
punishment of the law, and that therefore their salvation is not "wholly of
grace." 10. That faith ought to be scientific and rational, rather than Scriptural.
11. That there is and will be probation after death for all men who have not
in this world had knowledge of the historic Christ.
12. That this hypothetical belief in probation after death should be brought to
the front, exalted, and made central in theology and in the beliefs of men.
13. That Christian missions are not to be supported and conducted on the
ground that men who know not Christ are in danger of perishing forever, and
must perish forever unless saved in this life.
14. That a system of physical and metaphysical philosophy is true which by

XV

lair inlerence neutralizes the Christian doctrine as taught in the Creed of the
Seminary. 15. That there is a " New Theology better than the Old," which we appre
hend is not in harmony with the Creed, but fatally opposed to the same.
16. That the said Professors hold and teach many things which cannot be
reconcUed with that Orthodox and consistent Calvinism which the Statutes
require ol them, and to which they stand publicly committed; and that, in
repeated instances, these Prolessors have broken solemn promises made when
they subscribed to the Creed.
At this hearing the Professors made answer by counsel. They
raised seven points of objection against the procedure, namely :
(1) that the jurisdiction of the Visitors is solely appellate, touch
ing nothfng which does not go up to them from the Trustees ; (2)
that similar proceedings of earlier date were then pending before
that lower board, which must take precedence ; (3) that the com
plainants had no legal standing before the Visitors ; (4) that the
Professors could not legally be proceeded against jointly ; (5)
that the charges were too vague to need any answer ; (6) that
some of them were outside the Creed of the Seminary and, there
fore, of the Visitorial jurisdiction ; and (7) that, generally, all
the proceedings were irregular and insufficient. These points
were argued affirmatively, with much ability and at great length,
by Prof. T. W. Dwight, LL.D., of the Columbia Law School, New
York City, and by ex-Governor William Gaston, LL.D., of Boston,
and were replied to much more briefly by Hon. Asa French and
Hon. E. R. Hoar, on the part of the complainants. The Visitors
subsequently sent to all parties the following judgment on these
preliminaries, namely : —
The Visitors are unanimous in the opinion : That they have original jurisdic
tion in the premises ; that no proceeding is pending before the Board ol Trustees
lor the same alleged offences ; and that the complainants are rightly before the
Board by its permission and authority ; but we deem it proper that the charges
should be amended so as to proceed against the respondents individually and
separately, and that such charges as are indefinite should be made plain.
Voted, That the complainants comply with the foregoing order on or before
the eighth of November next.
It should be said here that the Honorable Board of Visitors, as
at present constituted, is composed of Rev. Julius H. Seelye,
D.D., LL.D., President of Amherst College; Rev. William T.
Eustis, D.D., pastor of the "Memorial Church" in Springfield,
and Hon. Joshua N. MarshaU, of Lowell.
The complainants complied with this order, and amended their
action so as to proceed separately against each of the five Pro-

XVI
fessors. They further modified their charges against those gen
tlemen by slight verbal changes in several, whose nature will
sufficiently appear in the arguments which follow ; by uniting the
eleventh and twelfth, reducing their number to fifteen in all ; and
by appending many citations from " Progressive Orthodoxy " and
other writings for which those Professors are responsible, in ex
planation and support of the same. In due time answer was
made. Each Professor, in general, insisted that the charges were
too misleading and indefinite to require or enable answer, and
denied that the beliefs charged are held, or that, if held, they are
inconsistent with the Creed of the Seminary.
The public hearing on these amended charges commenced before
the Visitors, in the United States Hotel, on Tuesday, 28th Decem
ber, 1886, and was continued through Wednesday, Thursday, and
Friday, the case of Professor Smyth being first taken up. They
were fully argued, on the part of the Professors, by Professor
Dwight, of New York, Prof. S. E. Baldwin, of the Yale Law
School, New Haven, Hon. Charles Theodore Russell, of Cam
bridge, an ex-Visitor, and ex-Governor William Gaston, of Boston ;
and on the part of the complainants by ex-Judges Hon. Asa French
and E. R. Hoar, as counsel, with the aid of Mr. A. H. Wellman,
and by Dr. J. W. Wellman, as a protesting Trustee, and Drs. O.
T. Lanphear and H. M. Dexter, for the Committee of certain of
the Alumni. As the subject-matter of complaint was essentially
the same in each case, it was agreed that the arguments should
not be repeated in the cases of Professors Tucker, Harris,
Hincks, and Churchill, but that each of them should make a state
ment for himself on Monday, 3d January, the complainants
waiving reply to the same. On that occasion Dr. Eustis was
prevented from being' present ; but by agreement of all parties
who were in attendance the hearing was proceeded with in his
absence, a verbatim reporter taking note of all that was said
for his perusal.
The hearings being thus ended, the case was taken under ad
visement by the Board of Visitors ; not, however, without consid
erable delay, growing out of the fact that several weeks elapsed
before the two volumes containing the complete arguments on
each side could be printed and placed in their hands.
Their decision was adopted at their annual meet'ug in Andover
on the evening of Anniversary Day, 16th June, 1887, and concludes
this volume.

SUMMAET OF THE EESPONDENTS' AEGUMENTS.

PROF. t. w. d-wights argument.
Professor Dwight opened the case of the respondents in a learned
address, the delivery of which occupied more than four hours.
Having reviewed the history of the complaint, he urged that in
such a case both parties should have an interest in the matter,
that the charges had not been properly specified, and that no
offence had been committed over which the Board of Visitors has
original jurisdiction. The matter is one for the Trustees to act
upon, and it cannot be dealt with lawfully here while action ia
pending before them. The only charge is the much too vague one
of heterodoxy, and that only by implication. What is heterodoxy?
It is a deviation from the common belief, and not from a special
creed. The Visitors have no power of removal because of teach
ing hostile to the Creed. The Founders never meant to threaten
the Professors as with the sword of Damocles, whenever they
occupied their lecture-rooms. This case is purely legal, and has
to do with the enforcement of charitable trusts. It is monstrous
to bribe men to teach what they do not believe. In the name of
all educators, we object to putting shackles upon education. If
the Andover Creed is to prevail, it should have a liberal interpre
tation. It never has been interpreted judicially as to the specific
meaning of its phrases. In the Norris case it was decided that
the creed of 1807 and 1808 must be interpreted in harmony with
the foundation of 1778, which declares that loyalty is required,
not to a creed, but to the Christian religion. The Professors are
not only to teach, but to teach " according to the best light which
God shall give them." The Creed abounds in legal terms from
the old Roman law, of which the best has to be made. This
court must not adopt an astute, narrow, and uncharitable decision.
No Professor on the Associate Foundation is obliged to assent to

X'VIII
th3 Shorter Catechism. The relation of this catechism to the
Creed then was dwelt upon, in the effort to show that Congrega
tional usage has been to go directly to the Scriptures. From
John Milton and John Robinson down, there has been an ever-
increasing tendency towards liberality, and the Founders of the
Seminary were in sympathj' with it. A sketch of the foundation
of the institution then was given, after which the speaker endeav
ored to show that Samuel Phillips, Jr., the Founder, attempted to
build upon the basis of John Locke's system, then some sixty
years old, which was eminently, tolerant. It also was argued that
because most of the Shorter Catechism is incorporated in the
Associate Creed, as was shown by comparing them in parallel
columns, the Creed was intended to serve as a substitute for the
catechism. No man can accept both in full. The respondents
cajinot be, as the prosecution demands, Orthodox and con
sistent Calvinists, for Calvin held to a limited atonement only.
Furthermore, whatever the Professors have published in " Progres
sive Orthodoxy " and Tlie Andover Beview has no bearing ; only
what they have taught their pupils is relevant. In reference to
the charge of teaching the theory of probation after death, several
points were taken, their substance being that this doctrine follows
naturally from that of a universal atonement, that the Creed con
tains nothing opposed to it, and that it should be taught
! guardedly as probable. Missions, he added, have thriven under a \
a gospel not of fear, but of love. What is to be the effect on the ^
people if the doctrine of universal atonement be treated as prac
tically a mockery ? The objection to the reply that the heathen
have the light of nature is that it introduces two methods of treat
ment of men by God, and assumes that He treats most men by
the worst method. The Congregational creed of 1883 also incul
cates liberty. PROF. E. c. Smyth's defence.
The sole charge against me is one of heterodoxy. A suit for
breach of trust would lie properly against the Treasurer, or Trus
tees. I hold that the Creed of the Seminary does not bind the
institution to an antiquated phase of belief, but leads logically to
those adjustments of thought and belief which are now necessary,
and leaves an open path for such as the future may require. It
was a compromise. It is clothed in phraseology to interpret which
accurately requires much special learning. At certain points its

XIX
silences are even more expressive than its utterances. It is not
the symbol of an antiquated phase of theology. I desire to secureN
for others after me the rights of a reverent scholarship in the )
study of' God's Word. I believe my interpretation of the duties
and rights of a Professor at Andover to be the only true one
according to the Creed and Statutes of the Founders. I wish to i
/ meet the complainants squarely on the narrowest lines they may
( select. But their complaint is wholly futile and void.
They must prove that I hold beliefs inconsistent with a valid
acceptance of the Creed, or that I have violated my promise to
" maintain and inculcate the Christian faith as expressed in the
Creed. ... so far as may appertain to my office, according to
the best light God shall give me, and in opposition to" various
heresies, etc. The first requirement pertains to belief, the second
to official conduct in matters of faith. They must prove that I
have ' ' maintained and inculcated " an alleged belief, and in my
work as a Professor, and then that it is contrary to my obligation to
the Creed. I have tried to show upon what elements of truth
heresy has been thriving, and how it could be cured by the larger
truth, rather than to attack it directly. I must be proved to have j
failed in my teaching. I would not draw a fine distinction here,
however. But in the field of literature I am amenable to your\
(jurisdiction only so far as my publications can be proved to be I
Ncontrary to my official obligation to the Creed. I am chargeds
/ with heterodoxy upon nearly all the distinguishing doctrines of 1
Vour religion. One signer is a Trustee, and has attended nly theo
logical examinations. He should know that I do not teach a
" modal" Trinity.
/ The first particular charge is that I hold, maintain, and inculcate
that the Bible is not the only perfect rule of faith and practice,
but is fallible and untrustworthy, even in some of its religious
teachings. How does the evidence show this ? The editorial in
The Andover Beview, " The Bible a Theme for the Pulpit," was
/ written to uphold the doctrine of the Creed. The quotations made
against me from this article have been garbled and misused.
They only show that sometimes in the book the word " imperfec
tion," or its equivalent, is used, whereas in the Creed the word
"perfect" is used. But it is not thereby shown that the book
[ aflirms to be imperfect what the Creed says is perfect. To me
^he Bible is the Word of God. The perfection ascribed to it in
the Creed is one of use and function ; that is, it is the only perfect

XX

/..

guide in faith and practice. The history of the use of the terms
in question then was sketched briefly by the speaker, in defence
of his position.
The next charges are, he continued, that I teach that Christ,
in the days of His humiliation, was limited in all His attributes,
and was not God and man ; and that no man has power to repent
without knowledge of God in Christ. Upon these points. Pro
fessor Smyth claimed to have been gravely misrepresented, and
read extracts in support of his claim. He then passed to the
/'fourth charge, namely, of maintaining that mankind who have
\not heard of Christ are not sinners, or at any rate, such sinners
as to be in danger of being lost. This and the fifth — of main-
(taining that no man can be lost without a knowledge of the
historic Christ ; the sixth — of maintaining that Christ's atone-
f ment consists in His becoming identified with the human race in
V the Incarnation ; the seventh — of maintaining that the Trinity is
(modal or monarchian, and not a Trinity of Persons ; the eighth —
of maintaining that the work of the Holy Spirit is chiefly confined
to the sphere of historic Christianity ; the ninth — of maintaining
that, without the knowledge of the historic Christ, man does not
' stand under the law ; and the tenth — of maintaining that faith
, ought to be scientiflc and rational, rather than Scriptura,!, — he
answered briefly by denial, explanation, citation of other passages,
etc.
/ The eleventh charge — of maintaining that there is, and will be,
' probation after death for all men who do not decisively reject
1 Christ in their earthly life, and that this should be emphasized
I and made central in systematic theology — was considered more at
length. Said Professor Smyth, a caveat was entered against being
misunderstood on this point, aud was given marked prominence,
in the book. The theory of future probation is not presented as
an essential question in theology, but only as an appended
inquiry, an inference from a doctrine or fundamental principle.
It is a temporary question, for the time will come when all men
will hear the gospel. I claim liberty under the Creed to hold
whatever a true interpretation of the Scriptures, and the revela
tion which God constantly makes of Himself in creation, provi
dence, and redemption, may make probable, and with a degree 'of
faith as exactly proportioned to the available evidence as I can
measure. I deny that in what I hold on the doctrine of probation
/ there is anything inconsistent with the Creed. God as revealed

XXI
(in Christ is to me central in theology. Upon the subject of
Eschatology the makers of the Creed used only Biblical language,
A and made no interpretation of it. On that point the Creed
I contains no explicit declaration, and has only the meaning of
I Scripture, which it quotes. I claim that this disposes finally and
'conclusively of the whole question. All the probabilities are
that, if the framers of the Creed had meant to pronounce upon
the doctrine, they would have done so distinctly.
/ Again, the Creed contains no implicit declaration adverse to
(the tenet that those who have had no opportunity to learn of a
Saviour in this life may be granted such opportunity in the other
life. The argument of the complainants is confused and self-
f contradictory. It is contended by them that the Creed implies
/ that all who are saved are saved in this life. This is an attempt
f to flnd in the Creed a doctrine which is not taught in the place
^ where it properly belongs. The object of the article cited is not
to affirm, nor does it assert, that the effectually called are called
in this life. It does not deal at all with the number of the elect.
Moreover, the conclusions reached by this method of proof re
quire us to discard it, because they are absurd. We have sup
posed ourselves to be developing one of the most characteristic
principles of the Creed, the universality of the religion of the
cross of .Christ, and this is covered and made prominent in the
Creed. Furthermore, my pledge is imperative to unfold the Scriptures
" according to the best light God shall give me." I accept the
Creed as it is written and as a whole. Otherwise taken, it would
be self-contradictory. I accept it " for substance of doctrine,"
using. this phrase in no loose sense, and in no larger sense than
\that in which it was used when the framers of the Creed were still
alive. Many former Professors, including Professors Stuart and
Park, have signed the Creed, repudiating the doctrine of Eternal
Sonship as understood by the framers. It must not be overlooked
(that the Creed is a union creed ; that it contains traditional phrase
ology which was accepted in its traditional meaning by some at
least of those who entered into the union, and that these men
approved of this language being taken by other men with a new
meaning, and that those who thus took it consented that such
language should remain in the Creed. I accept the Creed ini
/its historical sense. But I do not mean that opinions it does not
I contain may be read into it because they were entertained at the

XXII
time when it was written. I mean that its language must be
interpreted historically ; that whenever traditional language is
departed from and new phraseology introduced, we are brought
into special contact with the intention of the Founders. The
¦Creed was not intended to forbid progress. It incites to progress.
/Many of its terms are way -marks of progress along the line
vof theology.
Here Professor Smyth exhibited a copy of the Creed printed
in different sorts of type, in order to indicate its different sources.
There is room, he then continued, for a progressive inter
pretation and systemization of the truths of the Creed, and
they may be adjusted to a larger knowledge and life than
were open to its framers. I plead for no license of interpretation,
(but for breadth, insight, and justice. Is the Seminary committed
to the maintenance of transient opinion, or is there a truer inter
pretation of the Creed? When I signed the Creed, I supposed
/that my view was accepted generally at Andover, and was a part
yof its history. The Creed had been the means of union of Orthodox
Congregationalists. Its general structure and the clause about
new light indicate the same thing. The Constitution of the Sem
inary implies the Founders' faith in the advancement of religious
knowledge. The character of the advisfers of the Associate
Founders, their humility, their faith in doctrinal progress, and
the school of theology to which they belonged, concur to the same
result. I have not violated my obligations under the Creed, even
upon a close and technical construction of them. And if, as I
maintain, the Creed is' a summary of principles which are to be
applied and developed from generation to generation, I have
done something far better and more faithful than a literal repeti
tion of them — I have used them, and with them have confronted
, present great and important questions of religious thought and
Vlife. It is now proposed to remove almost an entire Faculty.
Yet frequent articles from the best thinkers of England and Ger
many find the solutions of the difficulties of Eschatology in the
doctrine of the intermediate state. God has put this question
^ before the Church to-day. The Creed admits all that I and my
I, associates have contended for.

XXIU
testimony of DK. NEWMAN SMYTH AND PROFESSORS HARRIS,
HINCKS, AND TUCKER.
In reply to questions asked by Professor Baldwin, Rev. New
man Smyth, D.D., stated that, when he was an Andover student.
Professor Park, on approaching the doctrine of Eternal Sonship,
stated that here we come to a point of divergence between the old
and the new divines, and the latter do not assert dogmatically a
thing which should be asserted figuratively. Professor Park also
aflBrmed that the word " Son" should be predicated of Christ in
his humanity rather than in his divinity, as denoting the constitu
tion of Christ's person in the incarnation in the human life. He
also asserted, of course, the divine distinction — the Logos doc
trine. Dr. Smyth then added the substance of his statement to
the Visitors in 1882, about accepting the Seminary Creed, to the
effect that he could accept and subscribe to it as a whole, inter
preting its clauses by comparison among themselves and in accord
ance with the terms of subscription understood by him to have
been usual, as sanctioned by the Visitors. He could not subscribe
to the Creed if required to take each clause and article by itself.
He specified, as an iUustration, the clause relating to the Federal
Headship.
f Professor Harris then testified that,) before his inauguration,
being questioned, together with Professor Hincks and Professor'
Taylor, by the Visitors, and the Creed being read to them, The •
objected to accepting some portions of-the Creed — referring for
example to Federal Headship and a Limited Atonement — but
that he and they offered, after an explanation by Dr. Eustis of
the sense in which the Visitors hold these doctrines, to take the
Creed with this previous statement: " I accept this Creed as ex-\
/pressing substantially the system of truth taught in the Holy/
VScriptures." No objection was made, and upon his inauguration
this , form of statement was used ; while before the Visitors he
also had stated that he recognized the liberty of belief in the
possibihty of a future probation for those who do not have the
Gospel here, but had not personally reached a conclusion as to
the truth of the doctrine.
Professor Hincks corroborated the recollections of Professor
Harris, adding that the Visitors stated that they did not take the
Creed verbatim et literatim. Professor Tucker also declared that
at his inauguration in 1880 he made this statement before signing

xxiv
the Creed : " The Creed which I am about to read, and to which I
shall subscribe, I fully accept as setting forth the truth against
the errors which it was designed to meet. No confession so elab
orate, and with such intent, may assume to be the final expression
of truth, or an expression equally fitted in language or tone to all
times." To this statement no objection was made.
PROFESSOR Baldwin's argument.
/ Professor Baldwin urged that there is no evidence that Pro-
Vfessor Smyth has taught the obnoxious doctrine. In the Con
gregational body there are two schools, one represented by Tlie
Congregationalist and the other by The Andover Beview. The
point at issue is the interpretation of the statutes of the Seminary.
The Creed emphasizes the constant revelation of Himself by God.
It is a nineteenth century creed joined to a seventeenth century
/creed, and where they differ the former must control. To under-
V stand the Creed one must read between the lines. It is no matter
whether a particular doctrine was, or was not, in the minds of the
Founders, if the language of the Creed does not forbid it. The
(principle of the famous Dartmouth College case applies to this one ;
that is, it is only necessary that the Creed cover the doctrine. The
/Board of Visitors always has shown catholicity in interpreting tlife
\Creed. The doctrine of a future probation has been found useful
to many minds in opposition to agnosticism. It will be impossible
to secure professors hereafter except upon the construction of the
Creed which we favor, and the Supreme Court may f-eel bound to
interfere, according to the doctrine of cy pres, and cause the
funds to be applied to some other use, as near to the purpose of
the donors as possible. HON. C. T. EUSSELL's ARGUMENT.
Mr. Russell opened with reminiscences of his own service as
one of the Visitors, aud devoted himself specially to showing,
from the history of the institution and the decision of the Su
preme Court in the Norris case, that ample liberty of interpretation
of the Creed always has been, and now ought to be, allowed.
Said he : Since 1844, no Professor on the Associate Foundation
has been compelled to take any other than the Associate Creed.
/ This Board often has so decided. The issue is whether Professor
i Smyth has done or taught anything proving his subscription to

xxv
this Creed for the past thirteen years to be dishonest, unintelligent,
evasive, or criminal. Does he teach anything inconsistent with
sound Calvinism, and therefore heterodox? In taking the Creed,
room must be allowed for sincere and honest differences of
opinion within reasonable limits. Otherwise, the framers of it
were heterodox towards each other. The Creed was made for the
Seminary, and not the Seminary for the Creed. It was made iron
clad enough to be secure, yet broad enough to tolerate Orthodoxy.
The speaker then argued at length from the Norris case. This
case, he believed, settles the right of interpreting the Creed
liberally. But, only two months after the decision of Judge
Thacher, the seven years' experimental coalition of Trustees and
Visitors ended. Theu was the time for a change to have been
made, had one been desired. But the union involving the Asso
ciate Foundation was made perpetual, although Moses Brown,
the subsequent Founder of Professor Smyth's chair, then was a
Visitor. Four years later he established this professorship, know
ing well of the liberal construction which the Supreme Court had
put upon the Creed. Other Professors have been charged with
heresy, but never put upon trial, and the Visitors in 1882 only
rejected Rev. Newman Smyth, D.D., because of alleged intel
lectual and literary unfitness, although he then was well known as
an advocate of probation after death. Three fourths of the
funds of the institution have been given to the Seminary since the
liberal construction of its Creed. If the respondents should be
convicted, the disintegration of the Congregational denomination
is to be feared. EX-GOVERNOE GASTON'S ARGUMENT.
Ex-Governor Gaston warmly commended the character and
ability of his client, Professor Smyth, and went on to urge that,
were this a suit for breach of trust, it ought to have been brought
by the heirs of the donors. This is a prosecution for non-con
formity to a certain creed. Its logical outcome is that you are
asked to decide that falsehoods may be taught at Andover. The
complainants must prove something. But no pupils of the re
spondent have been brought here to testify against him. Who
shall say that he does not believe all the doctrines of the Creed,
when he says that he does ? The Creed is not narrow and
bigoted, but, taken in its entirety, as it ought to be, it is broad

XXVI
and elastic. The extracts presented by the other side do not
violate the Creed, if they be taken fairly. There never was a
time in the history of Andover when fewer charges of heresy
could have been made than now. If you fetter or trammel or
admonish these gentlemen, the days of their usefulness at Andover
wiU be over. To do either would be an outrage. You are before
the tribunal of intelligent, honest. Christian public opinion.
PEOF. W. J. TUOKEE's STATEMENT.
I and the respondents who may follow me adopt the views
of Professor Smyth as to the Creed of the Seminary and the terms
of subscription to it, and also his answer to the charges and speci
fications of the complainants. I am charged with heterodoxy,
and with not being " an Orthodox and consistent Calvinist." I
accept fully my share of editorial responsibility. Between what
I teach and what I publish I make only this distinction : I try to
teach according to the natural proportion of truth. I publish
according to the demands of public necessitj', subject only to the
requirements of the Constitution and Creed of the Seminary. My
defence covers first my personal, and secondly my official, relation
to the Creed. The theology of the book " Progressive Orthodoxy "
is a natural and legitimate outcome of the Seminary Creed, es
pecially as to the theory of probation. We came to our chairs
from the pastorate, not from fields of speculative thought,
but from contact with men, and we brought with us those concep
tions of Christian truth which we have since tried to unfold. I
am conscious of holding no other Gospel to-day than that which
I held in my active ministry. I speak now as an alumnus, rather
than as a professor. I am an Orthodox and consistent Calvin
ist, but I do not put Calvin above Christ. Calvinism emphasizes
the "power of God unto salvation," but, in its older and higher
forms, it limits the application of the power. The Creed gives to
this idea of power breadth and freedom. The current which runs
through the Creed is Calvinism, and the Creed widens its banks to
accommodate the current. The natural culmination of the Cal
vinism of the Creed is the hope which I entertain without equivo
cation, the hope that God will cause all souls to come into some
real relation to Christ's atoning sacrifice before any soul passes
into the eternal condemnation, and I protest against being charged
with heterodoxy on this account. The complainants' theory is

XXVII
more like Unitarianism than mine is. The method of the theology
which is called in question also best satisfies the requirements of
the Creed in respect to the conduct of my professorship. I ac
cepted the Creed at my inauguration as setting forth the truth
against the errors designed to be met. Men's difficulties are not
so much with the doctrine of future punishmentitself , as with errors
in the m.inner of its presentation. "Progressive Orthodoxy"
emphasizes the present as the time to repent, and the fact that
to offer salvation without the previous offer of Christ would be
useless. I ask for no charitable construction, but for information
how to deal with the Creed in teaching men to preach. The
Seminary now has forty-eight students, and is second in numbers
of the four in New England in respect to regular students. Its
funds were increased intelligently by $80,000 during the past
year, and the full quota of men is offered to the American Board.
PROF. GEORGE HARRIS'S STATEMENT.
When it was proposed to me to become the Abbot Professor, I
was a pastor in Providence. I had not made a thorough exami
nation of the Andover Creed. When I made one, I was favorably
impressed with its breadth of statement on the doctrines of the
Bible, the Person and Work of Christ, and Eschatology. It goes
no farther than to indicate the religious function of the Bible,
and it distinguishes the Word of God from the Scriptures, or
writings, that contain it. It expresses the doctrine of the Person
of Christ in the statement of the Symbol of Chalcedon, the best
ever framed. The doctrine of the Atonement is stated generally,
and with complete reserve as to its phUosophy. The doctrine of
Eschatology is uttered in more materialistic language than I should
have chosen, but presents no other difficulty. I had not then ac
cepted the opinion for which I now am blamed, but I did not
understand that I must definitely reject it. I believed that under
the Creed there is liberty to hold the opinion that those who do not
have the Gospel in this life may have it in the life to come. I
never had believed, nor do I now believe, that any man has a
second probation under the Gospel. I had some difficulty with
the doctrines of Federal Headship, Natural aud Moral Ability,
Election, etc. But I decided that the statements of these stand
for essential facts and doctrines, the substance of which is more
real to me than the utterances of the Creed themselves. I sub-

xxv 111
mitted my difficulties to the Board of Visitors, and they agreed
that the Creed should be taken as expressing substantially the
system of truth taught in the Holy Scriptures. AVe are opposed
by the complainants not so much because our doctrines are an
tagonistic to the Creed, as because our opinions differ from their
own. I have decided that, in the case of the Abbot Professor, a
legal reference to the Catechism is appropriate, but that the Creed
determines the sense in which those portions of the Catechism
shall be taken which are found in both instruments. The hypoth
esis which I entertain as to probation removes some serious objec
tions, and harmonizes certain essential doctrines of the Gospel
with the Providence of God ; but it is of secondary rather than
primary value, an inference from essential doctrines rather than
an essential doctrine itself. The most serious charge against me
relates to the Atonement. Its author understands the Creed to
be committed to the "governmental" theory. But whatever is
true in that theory is included in the presentation of the subject
in "Progressive Orthodoxy." My language also has been
misquoted, as certain citations prove. The two parties to this
dispute approach the truth from opposite sides, or the one from
the outside and the other from the centre within. It is perhaps
easier for the former to state beliefs clearly, but the latter party is
more in line with the vigorous movement of modern religious
thought. The Founders represented both parties. The phrase as
to the unalterableness of the Creed has been misunderstood.
It was only meant to prevent legislation by the Trustees or
Visitors. PROP. E. Y. hincks's STATEMENT.
My work is the interpretation of the Scriptures. This includes
tracing out the leading thoughts as well as the subordinate ideas.
The meaning of the language of the inspired writers is to be
ascertained by the use of the best grammatical, etymological, and
illustrative helps at one's command. As to historical questions,
the laws of research in one field must govern it in all fields. But
my study is ruled by the conviction that the Scriptures are supev-
naturally given, and carry the absolute authority of our divine
Redeemer. They are the prime source of Christian knowledge,
and the final test of Christian belief. All parts of a revelation
relate to its centre, and this implies historical study, the faithful
use of historical methods, and the honest recognition of results.

XXIX
My language also has been misquoted. Both my belief and teach
ing have been true to the principles of the Creed, but the Creed
does allow some liberty in its interpretation. The Founders re
garded the Bible as the depository of divine truth, and must have
expected progress in respect to its interpretation. The require
ment of a renewal of subscription shows that they recognized a
necessary movement of mind in the study of divine truth, and
meant that progressive study should be within the great lines of
the Creed. PROP. J. W. CHUECHILl's STATEMENT.
I do not seek, in replying to the charges against me, to evade
my share of editorial responsibility, nor to imply that I am not
in perfect sympathy with the spirit and aim of the movement
known as "Progressive Orthodoxy," although I do not accept
every inference from some of its positions, I have availed myself
of the occasion of this trial to secure a decision v^hether the
Jones Professorship, which I occupy, is or is not strictly under the
control of the Board of Visitors. I accept fully Rev. Dr., D. T.
Fiske's exposition of the Seminary Creed. I took that Creed, as
Professor Phelps told me that he and others had takeU it, " in its
historic sense and for substance of doctrine." But no creed can
cover all the subjects of theological inquiry and discussion that
constantly emerge in the gradual development of the aspects of
truth. I cannot believe that every soul's life in the Fatherhood
of God will have its moral discipline ended with its earthly
career ; but undoubtedly there are souls existing both in this
world and the next that forever will resist the Divine purpose and
means in discipline. The spiritual results in holy character in
the great multitude of the redeemed in the eternal world are the
same, in my view of the future life, that the advocates of a con
tinued probation for the mass of the evangelically unprivileged
hope to see gloriously realized. The hypothesis of Continued
Probation does not militate against the distinguishing and essen
tial doctrines which the Seminary Creed affirms, and I claim for
my colleagues their liberty of opinion, teaching, and discussion
concerning it. I also believe there is reason and Scripture in it.

ARGUMENT OF HON. ASA FRENCH.

Mr. President, and Gentlemen of the Board of Visitors :
I HAVE listened with very great interest, with instruction, and I
trust, also, with profit, to the learned and eloquent arguments
which have been addressed to you by the other side. Neverthe
less, much of what has been said by counsel — they will pardon me
for saying — has seemed to me to be somewhat discursive, and
wholly outside of the real question at issue in this case. And it
may not be inappropriate, at this stage of the proceedings, after
two full days have been consumed in presenting these arguments,
to recall the maxim of good old Dr. Witherspoon, of blessed mem
ory. It was this : —
"In public speaking, avoid all hard words; if you have any
thing to say, say it, and, when you have said it, stop."
I shall endeavor, Mr. President, in what I shall say, to conform
to this excellent maxim.
Much complaint has been made by the learned counsel that we
gave them no sufficient notice beforehand of what our charges were
— that we made no formal opening at this trial, but contented our-
.selves with putting in our documentary evidence, and there rested.
And they would have it understood that we have thus taken an
unfair advantage.
It is the first time in my observation that such able and eminent
gentlemen of the bar as represent the Respondent here, have
argued a question for ten mortal hours without knowing what tlie
issue was, and that a Respondent, speaking in his own behalf, has
occupied nearly half that time in attempting to refute ambiguous
charges, which were, nevertheless, so clear to his apprehension
that he could denounce them as frivolous and utterly groundless !
Why, there is not a single person who has read these charges
and specifications, as they have appeared in the public prints, who

does not know, and know exactly, what the charges are which this
Respondent is called upon to meet.
It was not, Mr. President, until after the commencement of this
trial, that I had expected to take any part in the discussion. The
questions at issue seemed to belong so largely to the domain of
theology, to the true interpretation of the Andover Creed, and the
proper construction to be put upon the published writings of the
Respondent when examined in the light of that Creed, that I did
not feel myself competent to render any assistance to this Reverend
and Honorable Board in the discharge of the grave and solemn
duty which devolves upon it.
But, at the suggestion of my associates, I venture to comment
briefly upon some of the points raised by the other side.
Need I say, Mr. President, that our evidence and arguments are
addressed to this tribunal, and not to the public, for with you, and
you alone, rests the determination of this momentous question.
However pleasant the applause of the crowd, we are not now seek
ing for that, but rather to convince you. Gentlemen of the Board,
that the substantial charges set out in this complaint have been
sustained, and that Professor Smyth has "maintained and incul
cated" doctrines inconsistent with, and subversive of, the Andover
Creed, — a fact which these complainants conscientiously and reli
giously believe, the epithets and sneers of the Respondent, and
some of his counsel, to the contrary notwithstanding.
I shall indulge in uo unkind words — (I regret that they have
felt it necessary to do so) — for I harbor no unkind feelings.
The learned counsel who opened this case for the defence ' com
mented with much severity upon the form in which it was flrst
brought to your attention. He grew quite facetious, also, over the
fact that one of the signers to the original paper presented to you,
had appended the word " Trustee " to his signature, aud that they
had air represented themselves to be a "Committee of certain of
the Alumni," whereas in the amended complaint no such words
of designation were used, but their names only were affixed, and
that by attorney.
And he plainly charged that the claim on their part that they
were acting as representatives of anybody else was an assumption
and a pretence. "Studied duplicity" was the courteous term
which he applied to it; and he added that " conduct like this at
the Bar would gain the scorn of the legal profession;" and that^
' Prof. T. W. Dwight.

the signers had "forfeited the confidence of aU candid, truth-
speaking men ! "
This is strong language towards such eminent gentlemen as ap
pear in this complaint, and it is unpardonable language, unless
supported by the facts.
What are the facts, and in what does this " studied duplicity "
consist ?
On the 6th of July, of the present year, the original complaint
was presented to this Board, signed by these three gentlemen as a
committee of certain of the Alumni, and by one of them. Dr. Well-
man, as a Trustee of PhUlips Academy, which nobody denies that
he was and is.. Nowhere does he claim, even by inference, in this
proceeding, to act for any other member of that Board, and any
suggestion to the contrary, whensoever, or by whomsoever, made,
is absolutely without foundation.
It would have been entirely competent and proper for them to
file these charges in their individual capacity, but they chose the
other form because, in fact, they had been selected as a committee
for the purpose ; and the deliberate declaration of three gentlemen,
whose integrity and veracity the counsel has the honor of ques
tioning for the first time, I put against his unsupported imputation !
Having thus called the attention of your Honorable Board to
these charges, they understood that their duty in the premises was
ended, and that you would proceed with the investigation in your
own time and way.
Due notice of the complaint was given to the Respondent, and
to his co-Respondents, — (for they were all joined in that com
plaint) , — and they were called upon to make answer. But, instead
of an answer to the merits, admitting or denying the charges, there
came a paper, prepared by able and acute counsel, in the nature of a
demurrer, or plea in abatement, setting up every conceivable techni
cal objection to the consideration of these charges by your Board.
Whether this course was taken because they, or their counsel,
distrusted the wisdom, integrity and impartiality of this tribunal, or
because they preferred a tribunal which had already prejudged the
case, or for whatever other reason, I know not.
These objections were, —
1. That this Board has not original jurisdiction of the subject
matter.^ 1 The Supreme Court of this State, Chief Justice Parker deUvering the opinion, in the
Murdock case, 7 Pick. 303, expressly decides that the Board has original jurisdiction over
such matters.

6
2. That, even if this Board has jurisdiction, the Trustees of
the Institution were already considering the same charges, and
that, by well settled rules of law, the later proceeding must give
way to the earlier.^
3. That the case is not presented according to the law laid
down in the Murdock case, and that the Complainants have no
legal standing in Court.
4. That the Respondents cannot legally be joined in the same
complaint. 5. That the charges are too indefinite and vague.
6. That some of the specifications relate to matters not in the
Creed, and so are not under the jurisdiction of the Visitors, and —
7. That the proceedings are irregular in other respects.
Now, Mr. President, we make no complaint at this course on the
part of the Respondents. They had an undoubted legal right to
resort to it, and so to prevent, if possible, a hearing upon the real
questions at issue ; and I refer to it only as a part of the history
of this case, and because we have been charged with being " tech
nical and narrow ! "
At the hearing upon these objections, October 28th, the Com
plainants appeared, and, through counsel, admitting that they had
no legal right to conduct the trial on the charges, submitted them
selves to the direction of the Board.
And whatever part we have since taken in these proceedings
has been with your approval, at your request, and as your
servants. The dilatory pleas, to which I have referred, after full argu
ment, were all overruled, except that your Board decreed that the
charges should be so amended as to proceed against the Respond
ents separately, and that such charges as were indefinite should
be made plain by further specifications.
In compliance with this decree, the amended complaint was pre
pared as it now stands. It contains no new matter, except as it
sets out quotations from published articles and works of the Re
spondents in support of the charges.
1 On Jan. 12, 1886, Dr. Wellman presented to the Board of Trustees, of which he was a
member, a resolution, reciting, in substance, that, whereas, it was understood that doctrines
were being inculcated by certain Professors at the Seminary not in accordance with the
Creed, therefore the Board of Trustees 7'equesl the Board of Visitors to investigate the mat
ter. The Trustees having declined to adopt this resolution, on the 6th of July following, the
XJresent complaint was tiled before the Visitors. No similar complaint has ever been pend
ing before the Trustees.

In that form, simply for convenience, it was signed by counsel
on behalf of the Complainants. I had no doubt then, nor have I
any now, that this was a perfectly legal and proper act. At any
rate, I assume the entire responsibility of it, for the Complainants
had nothing whatsoever to do with it.
So much, Mr. President and Gentlemen, for the full preliminary
history of this case, — and so much for that charge of duplicity
and deceit.
Passing from this subject, let us ascertain, if we can, the theory
on which this case is defended, because client and counsel do not
appear to be in perfect accord upon that point.
The key-note of the defence, as sounded by the same counsel in
his opening, was an attack upon the Creed. He had not a single
word in commendation of it.
Let me make a few quotations from his printed argument upon
this point : —
It [the Creed] is meant as a clog upon instruction and may turn out to
be a prohibition against instruction in the truth. It says to a body of teach
ers: " You must not teach doctrines because they are true, but because we,
the founders, impose them upon you." . . .
The teacher is thus emasculated and the growth of the scholar is one
sided and dwarfed. In the name, not only of the professors under trial, but
of all teachers of the land, including, X hope, the Chairman of this Board,
I respectfully protest against such shackles of iron upon education. —
[Printed Argument of Prof. Dwight, pp. 19, 20.]
They [the professors] are met at the entrance with a ponderous Creed,
smelling of antiquity and the outcome of the fiery struggles of ancient days
— contests of which we have little or no knowledge and, with what we have,
as little sympathy. Its words are technical o,nd uncouth. Its clauses are
confused and contradictory. — [p. 20.]
To tie an institution to such a creed seems like anchoring a vessel in
the swift current of a flowing stream amid the mud and rubbish of bygone
ages ; so the Phillipses, Browns and Abbots, noble in their intentions and
sincere Christians, but erring in sound judgment, bedded their little institu
tion on the hills -of Andover among the mud and rubbish qf extinct contro
versies. — [pp. 20, 21.]
I admit that there is a color for the view that some portions of the creeds
of Aug. SI, 1807, and March 21, 1808, . . . represent to an extent what may
fairly be called the intolerance of orthodoxy. . . . — [p. 45.]
Elusive phrases viere sought for. — [p. 47.]
The Andover Creed does not represent the original seamless robe of Cal
vinism, but, rather, Joseph's coat of varied colors, — one patch of royal
purple in its very centre, one wholly colorless, viz., the ' corporeal strength '
to repent, surrounded, it may be, by a dark, cold border of unmitigated Cal
vinism. — [pp. 58, 59.]

8
Again, " The Andover Greed is the most mysterious of all." —
[p. 59.J
Upon page 37, he speaks of it as a ''dreary Creed " ; and upon
page 67, "They [the founders] for a special reason established a
creed mainly remarkable for its glaring inconsistencies."
He even declared that it was impossible to reconcUe this Creed
with the Westminster Catechism, thus putting himself in antago
nism with the opinion of the Board of Visitors in 1844, upon which
so much stress is laid by the Respondent, in which they say that
they can see no inconsistency between the two. [Woods's History
of Andover Theo. Sem. p. 430.]
That opinion held, it is true, that a professor upon the Associate
Foundation — as is Prof. Smyth — is not required to subscribe
to the Westminster Catechism, as is required in the case of a pro
fessor upon the Original Foundation.
While we attach little or no importance to this opinion as appli
cable to the present case ; that it was subsequently dissented from
in carefully written opinions by such eminent authorities as Dr.
Woods, Dr. Dana, John H. Clifford, Chief Justice Joel Parker,
Prof. Simon Greenleaf , Judge Theron Metcalf, and Samuel Farrar,
certainly impairs its weight.
Now the necessary logical conclusion from this part of Prof.
Dwight's argument is, that the Andover Creed ought to be ignored
and put aside whenever it conflicts with the new theology ; and
that whatever doctrine any professor can honestly declare is better,
" according to the best light God has given him," should be sub
stituted in its place, — a proposition which, under the perfectly
well established principles of law relating to charitable trusts, is
utterly indefensible.
But the learned counsel still further insists that the words
"¦maintain and inculcate," wherever they occur in the Associate
Creed to which Prof. Smyth is required to subscribe, are to be
interpreted as applying only to the work of instruction in the Semi
nary, or, to put it more tersely, in the language of his associate,
Prof. Baldwin, '¦'¦'When ive tea,ch this doctrine [probation after
death] to our pupils, it will be time to make this charge."
In other words, any professor in the Andover Seminary may
advocate every conceivable heresy in the public press, but, if he is
prudently silent upon the subject in his lecture-room, he cannot be
molested !
From such sentiments it is refreshing to turn to the position of

9
the Respondent, as explained by himself, for he repudiates them,
as an honest man should and must. In his exceedingly able and
scholarly defence, he met the questions presented in a frank and
manly way, and did not attempt to skulk behind any cover which
his counsel had set up for him, and I thank him for it. He avows
his full belief in the Creed, as he interprets it, and admits that to
publicly advocate doctrines repugnant to that Creed anywhere, or
in whatever manner, would be a violation of his obligation.
We do not concur either in his rule of interpretation or in the
soundness of his conclusions ; but we do concede that, upon his
admissions, the issue is fairly presented.
That issue is this, (and, after the discussion to which we have
listened for the past two days, it is well to recall it) : —
In the years 1807 and 1808, at Andover, upon two foundations,
which in the latter year were brought under the same Declaration
of Faith, was established, in connection with Phillips Academy, a
Theological Seminary, which has been maintained to the present
time. Intelligent, benevolent. God-fearing persons gave liberally of
their substance to endow it.
They knew what they believed and intended to be taught in that
Seminary. My brother Dwight, it is true, thinks, that if they could have
listened to his argument, they might have modified their views.
But, unfortunately, perhaps, for them, and possibly for the world
at large, they were denied that privilege, and were compelled
to proceed with such assistance as was then attainable, or, in the
language of that much abused phrase in the Creed so often
repeated in the arguments for the defence, " according to the best
light God had given them." Tlieir purpose was to insure the
inculcation of the religious tenets which they entertained, so long
as their money should be used to support the Seminary.
They therefore prescribed a Declaration of Faith, to which every
professor was required to subscribe on entering office, and to re
peat every five years thereafter.
With prophetic vision they looked forward to the time — possi
bly to this very time — when some acute lawyer should insist that
the Creed which they were framing with so many prayers " smelt
of antiquity," was intended as " a clog upon instn-uction," that its
words were "technical and uncouth," and its clauses "confused
and contradictory," aud, therefore, that in some way it must be

10
brushed aside to make way for a " new departure ! " It may be,
even, that they anticipated the contingency that some professor in
the Seminary, under the plea that he had accepted the Creed " for
substance," and in a qualified sense, would claim the right to " hold
and inculcate" the doctrine (or dogma) of probation after death,
for example.
And, in order to guard in the most stringent manner against
such a possibility, they inserted this provision immediately foUow
ing the Creed : — •
It is strictly and solemnly enjoined, and left in sacred charge, that every
Article of the above-said Creed shall forever remain entirely and identically
the same, without the least alteration, addition or diminution.
Could more vigorous language be found to express the determi
nation on the part of the Founders that this Creed was never to be
stretched nor curtailed, to admit of the teaching of any doctrines
not plainly sanctioned by it !
Prof. Smyth has voluntarily taken upon himself the obligation
which the Andover Creed, thus strictly guarded, imposes.
Has he fulfilled that obligation according to its true interpretationi
is the grave question which you, Mr. President and Gentlemen, are
now called upon to decide.
I am not, for a single moment, even suggesting bad faith, or
wrong motives, on his part : our case does not require it, and, if it
did, there is nothing in the evidence to justify any such imputation.
That Christian charity which has not been accorded to us, we freely
extend to him.
If, with the best intention, and from the purest motives, he has
come short of the requirements of that obligation, in any essential
particular, the charge against him is made out.
Nor will it be a sufficient answer to say, " I acted according to
the best light God has given me," because what is "light" to
one man raay be utter darkness to another. 'The Fouu(iers set up
in their Creed the beacon which they intended should' illumine the
path of the Seminary for all coming time. And so the question
continually recurs, " Is, or is not, the doctrine in question conform
able to the Creed?" And that is the sole test. I have said that we
are bound to show a violation in some essential particular in oider
to maintain the charge. We are not here contending for non-esstu-
tials. And it is not claimed by the other side that our allegations
come within that category. I need not occupy the time in citing

11
authorities to show with what extreme solicitude the courts seek to
uphold charitable trusts, especially trusts for religious purposes.
A charitable donation for religious purposes must be applied
to sustain the purposes and doctrines of the donor as indicated by
him. The books are full of cases to this point.
There can be no question that the Andover Founders had the
right to prescribe, in the strongest terms, the conditions of this
trust, and that the courts are bound to carry out those conditions
" as indicated by the donors."
And it is wholly immaterial to the inquiry whether, or not, any
alteration in the terms of this trust might not, under other circum
stances, be expedient. Our sole duty is to ascertain the intention
of the Founders, as declared by them when they established the
trust, and to faithfully carry out that intention.
The claim is set up, that this was a compromise creed, and,
therefore (this is the logic of counsel) , a contradictory creed.
Is it conceivable, Mr. President, that Samuel Abbot, Phcebe
Phillips, John Phillips, Moses Brown, WiUiam Bartlet and John
Norris, deliberately adopted a creed, the sole purpose of which
was to secure sound religious instruction in that Seminary so long
as the sun and moon should endure, knowing that it contained
doctrinal statements so utterly repugnant, one to the other, that
no honest man could subscribe to them without qualification, or
reservation ! The idea is preposterous ! As you are aware, they
expressly reserved to themselves the visitorial power, which you
now exercise, during their lives. Let us suppose that some Pro
fessor, who was being inducted into ofiice in their presence, after
repeating the prescribed obligations, had added, " but I wish it
understood that I hold to the doctrine of probation after death,
and claim the right to inculcate it, this Creed to the contrary not
withstanding ! " With what consternation, think you, would such
a proposition have been received by them ! Now, Sir, I do not
pBopose to enter upon the, fleld of theological discussion by so
much as a single step. Had I contemplated doing so, I should
have abandoned the idea at once, after listening to the efforts in
that direction of some of my legal friends on the other side ! The
Reverend and eminent gentlemen who are to follow me are fully
competent for that work.
Nor shall I incur the risk of weakening, by dwelling upon (for
no one can add emphasis to it) that admirable and conclusive argu
ment by Prof. Park, entitled "The Associate Creed of Andover

12
Theological Seminary," upon which some attacks have been made
by counsel for the defence.
I have been taught to love and revere that noble man from my
childhood. I wish he were here in person to defend himself,
which, notwithstanding his years, he is still abundantly able to do
against all comers. But I put that argument against all that has
been urged here in criticism of it, and confidently abide your
judgment. I desire, in conclusion, briefly to call your attention to the
decision in the Norris case, (12 Mass. 546), upon which so much
stress has been laid by counsel for the defence, and which they
have held up to you as if it was conclusive upon this whole ques
tion. They talked so loudly and confidently about it that I began
to think at one time that we should have a motion to stop these
proceedings summarily upon its authority !
Let us see what that case is, and what it decides.
Mary Norris, widow of John Norris, one of the Associate
Founders, by her last wiU, executed Mch. 21, 1811, gave a legacy
of thirty thousand dollars to the Trustees of Phillips Academy,
stipulating that it should enure particularly and exclusively to that
part of the Theological Institution called the "Associate Founda
tion," so far as it might be consistent with the constitution of the
Associates of that Institution.
The payment of this legacy was resisted by the executor, the
chief objections being,
1. That a corporation cannot take and hold property as a
trustee ; and,
2. That the Trustees of the Academy could not under the Act
of June, 1807, hold such a bequest unless it was consistent with
the original design of the Founders of the Academy, which, it was
claimed, this was not.
We are concerned onlj' with the latter objection. And the Court
held that (I quote the head-note of the case) : "A liberal con
struction will be given by the Court to bequests for the support of
Christianity ; and objections drawn from technical theology will
have little weight, when urged in avoidance of such bequests," a
principle of law too well established for any one to call in question.
The Court, having in view the importance of, upholding this trust,
decides that there is nothing in the terms of the bequest incon
sistent with the original design of the Founders.
The language used by the learned judge who gave the opinion is

13
authority just so far as it was necessary to the decision of that case.
Beyond that it is obiter dictum, and viewed in that light the case has
no bearing here.
But we are met with still another ingenious, but equally untenable,
proposition. This decision was rendered in 1815. Moses Brown,
so say the counsel, established the Brown Professorship, which
Prof. Smyth now fllls, four years later, and must have done so
with full knowledge of that decision. And from this you are
asked to infer that he thereby signified his approval of it.
To which we answer, that the only question settled by the Nor
ris case in which he was interested was, whether the purpose which
he had in view in founding this Professorship would be upJield by
the Court. And that question was satisfactorily answered by this
case. Still further the argument is pressed, that, because the Founders,
who survived several years after Mrs. Norris's legacy had been
sustained, as we have shown, nevertheless permitted to remain un
changed the original provision in their Statutes, giving an appeal
to the Supreme Court from any decree of the Board of Visitors, the
inference is plain, that they were willing to leave the final decision
of all questions affecting this trust with that Court.
Now, in the light of the Murdock case (7 Pick. 303), which came
before the court in 1829, where the opinion was rendered by Chief
Justice Parker, it is difficult to see how the learned counsel can set
up such a claim. That was a proceeding, on appeal to the Su
preme Court " from a decree of the Board of Visitors of the Theo
logical Institution in Phillips Academy in Andover, removing the
appellant from the office of Brown Professor of ecclesiastical his
tory in that institution."
And it was expressly held, that the Court had no power to re
verse the decision of this Board on matters of fact, for this would
be to make the Court the Visitors of the corporation, instead of
the Visitors themselves appointed by the Founders ; but that the
authority of the Court is limited to the inquiry whether the Visitors
have exceeded the limits of their jurisdiction, or have acted con
trary to the statutes of the Founders. For instance, if the grounds
alleged for removal are such as the statutes of the Seminary
prescribe, the Court will not examine into the question whether
the Visitors have erred in their conclusions from the evidence, —
for that is exclusively within their jurisdiction, — but only whether
they have observed the forms of laiv.

14
So far, then, from the inference being what it is claimed to be,
it is perfectly clear that the Founders, from the very outset, never
intended to allow, even to so exalted a tribunal as the Supreme
Judicial Court of Massachusetts, the right to revise, or set aside,
the decrees of this Honorable Board upon an issue like the one
now pending, whether a Professor has forfeited his position by
reason of "holding and inculcating" doctrines inconsistent with
the Creed.
Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Board, I have done. It
has been my aim in what has been said by me to consider the ques
tion in its legal aspects only, and to answer, so far as I was able,
with limited preparation, the objections raised by the learned coun
sel who have conducted the defence. How far I have succeeded
in this purpose, you must judge. Fortunately, before such a tri
bunal, any shortcomings of counsel will not be permitted to endan
ger his cause.
We are not seeking to repress free thought, or free speech, but
to maintain Andover on the Bock where the Fathers planted her.
The welfare of this great institution is in your keeping. — No
words of mine can magnify the importance of the issue.
God give you the strength and wisdom to discharge your solemn
duty in such a manner as shall do impartial and exact justice, not
only to this Respondent, but, also, to that great body of the Chris
tian public in whose affections this Institution is enshrined, and
whose prayers are with you to-day, and, finally, to the blessed
memory of the pious Founders of Andover Seminary.

ARGUMENT OF REV. J. W. WELLMAN, D.D.

To the Beverend and Honorable, the Board of Visitors in The
Theological Seminary at Andover.
Gentlemen, — It devolves upon me to sustain, by evidence
and argument, a part, and only a part, of the complaints, which
a Committee of certain of the Alumni of the Seminary, with myself,
have felt constrained to bring before you, against some of the
theological beliefs and teachings of Rev. Egbert C. Smyth, D.D.,
Brown Professor of Ecclesiastical History in said Seminary.
It seems important to make a preliminary statement respecting
the questions which we are to submit to your honorable Board.
We acknowledge the supremacy, on the broad field of religious
inquiry, of the question : What is the revelation which God is
inaking to man in his Word, in Christ, in Christianity, and in his
works of creation and providence? We believe in the transcend
ent importance of ascertaining what is true and what is false in
the wide domain of religious beliefs. But here and now, in the
case before you, the primary and doininant question is not whether
the theology at present taught at Andover, and called the New
Theology, or Progressive Orthodoxy, is true or false. Nor is it
the question whether this or that Professor is a heretic as judged
by some ecclesiastical standard, creed or law, or even by the com
mon faith of the Christian Church. The chief and vital question
is this : Whether the Constitution and Statutes of Andover Theo
logical Seminary permit a man, placed as Professor upon one of
its foundations and supported by its funds, to believe, maintain
and inculcate what is called "The New Theology" and "Pro
gressive Orthodoxy." This is the primary and dominating ques
tion with us, and the one which we respectfully commend to your
serious consideration.
In bringing this question before you, however, we shall need
15

16
quite often to raise two other questions : First, what is the theology
which the Constitution and St.atutes of our Seminary require
should be believed and taught by all men occupying its Chairs?
In other words, what is the Andover Theology ? Secondly, wliat
is the Theology recently, and for the first time, maintained and
inculcated by Andover Professors, and which is affirmed to be
"neio" and "progressive.''' In other words, what is the "New
Theology ' ' ? These two secondary questions must be constantly
before us in our attempt to find a true answer to the main and
decisive question, which is : Do the Constitution and Statutes of
Andover Seminary permit any man, while occupying an Andover
Chair and supported by Andover funds, to believe, maintain and
inculcate the " New Theology," or " Progressive Orthodoxy "?
May I add another word preliminary and personal? I am a
Trustee of Andover Seminary, but I do not come before you as
a representative of the Board of Trustees. I am not here by any
vote or expressed wish of that Board, but solely on my own respon
sibility. On the 12th of January last, at a meeting of the Trus
tees, after presenting a paper requesting that Board to bring be
fore the Visitors for their investigation and decision the whole
question of the fact and legality of maintaining a new theology on
Andover foundations, and after my request had been orally and
unanimously, yet with all courtesy, refused, I said to the Trustees
frankly, that I could not rest with that decision, but if any thing
could be done by myself rightfully to save the Seminary to the
service of the faith which it was founded to maintain, I should
do it.
While, therefore, I am not here as a representative of the Board
of Trustees, I am here as a Trustee, with all the responsibility of
a Trustee, and in honor bound to do all I can rightfully do to save
and hold the Seminary to the faith which it was founded by godly
and generous men to maintain and promulgate. I stand before
you. Gentlemen, under a profound conviction, that to introduce
into Andover Seminary a " New Theology," which is opposed to,
and supplants, that which the Seminary was established to defend
and teach, is a gigantic usurpation and wrong, an atrocious
violation of the right and liberty of Christian men, in this free
age and this free land, to use their own wealth in founding institu
tions of sacred learning for the purpose of disseminating the
Christian faith as they understood it, and bringing a lost world to
Christ.

17
We come now to the specific allegations which have been pre
sented against some of the beliefs and teachings of Prof. Egbert
C. Smyth, D.D.
I. Our first complaint, under the fourth general division of
charges, is this: that Prof. Smyth "holds, maintains and incul
cates, that the Bible is not the only perfect rule of faith and prac
tice, but is fallible and untrustworthy even in some of its religious
teachings." In subscribing to the Creed of the Seminary, every Professor
makes this declaration, "I beheve . . . that the Word of God,
contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, is the
only perfect rule of faith and practice."
For the understanding of this Creed-statement as the Founders
of the Seminary understood it, a few things need to be said.
1. To the phrase, "the Word of God contained in the Scrip
tures," they attached a deflnite meaning. That meaning is not
doubtful. They took the phrase from the Shorter Catechism and
attached to it the same meaning which was given to it by the
Westminster Assembly. That Assembly in its Conf. of Faith
affirms, that "Under the name of Holy Scripture, or the Woid
of God written, are now contained all t^e books of the Old and
New Testament." [Chap. I. Article 2.] Then, in their meaning,
" all the books of the Old and New Testament " are " the Word
of God written," or "the Holy Scripture." Their statement
does not allow the belief that the Scriptures "contain," but are
not themselves, " the Word of God." They declare that the
pljrases, " Holy Scripture " and " the Word of God written " are
synonymous ; for they say, " Holy Scripture, or the Word of God
written," and they aflJrm, that under either of these names " are
now contained all the books of the Old and New Testament."
In their view, then, the Bible in its entirety was "the Word
of God," and this is what they meant by the phrase, " Word of
God," when they wrote the Shorter Catechism.
The writers of the Andover Creed, therefore, taking the phrase,
"the Word of God," from the Westminster Divines, and using il
in the same sense in which they used it, meant by it the Bible, the
entire Holy Scripture — comprising all the books of the Old and
New Testaments. The Founders of the Seminary, then, could
not have meant to affirm or imply, that the Word of God is found
only here and there in the Bible, scattered like kernels of wheat in
a heap of chaff, and that it is to be discovered only by some

18
ingenious sifting or winnowing process. They use the phraseology,
"the Word of God contained in the Scriptures," as equivalent
to, " the Word of God comprising, or constituting, the Scriptures."
What they affirm in their Creed is, that the Bible, — not some
selected books, portions, or passages of it — but the Bible "is the
only perfect rule of faith and practice. ' ' The doctrine of the Creed
therefore can properly be subscribed to, only as it is interpreted
to mean what the Founders meant by it, namely, that the Bible as
atvhole, and not in some parts merely, is "the Word of God"
and is " the only perfect rule of faith and practice."
2. The belief of the Founders in respect to the origin and
authority of the Bible was moulded, as was that of all Calvinists,
by the apostolic testimony, that " All Scripture is given by inspira
tion of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correc
tion, for instruction in righteousness." They called the Scriptures
the TVord of God. Then they must have believed that, in some
intelligible and real sense, they were uttered of God, though written
by men. That is, they believed in the divine inspiration of the
Scriptures, and intended that the doctrine of their inspiration
should be taught in the Seminary so long as it should exist. It
has been said, that the Creed "affirms no definite theory of inspi
ration." But it does affirm that the Scriptures are the " TVord of
God," and therefore must have had some utterance from Him.
The statement of the Creed excludes the idea that the}' were merely
human writings inspired only by human thoughts and feelings,
human experiences and life. The Founders believed the apostolic
testimony, that " Holy men of God spake as they were moved by
the Holy Ghost;" that some special influence of the Holy Spirit
wrought upon and guided divinely appointed men in the work of
communicating God's will and truth to the world, and that this
divine influence was bestowed, whether that communication were to
be made on the part of inspired men orally or by writing, and that
this special influence or inspiration was such as the Holy Spirit
vouchsafed to no other men. They did believe that the Holy
Scriptures were the Word of God, and not merely the Word of
man ; that they were the Word of God written by men especially
appointed and moved to the writing, and guided therein, by the
Holy Ghost. In view of all this, we affirm that no man can con
sistently or rightfully subscribe to the Andover Creed and then
believe and maintain that the Scriptures were not inspired by any
special and immediate influence of the Holy Spirit, but were

19
inspired only by the religious feelings and experiences, the inner
light and life of good men, or were merely the natural outcome of
facts or forces in human history.
The Founders of the Seminary, of course, knew that certain
minor changes, marvellously few, had crept into the text of the
Bible, through transcription, translation, marginal notes, and the
like. But when they spoke of the Scriptures as "the Word of
God written," they meant written by inspired men. " The Word
of God written " was to them His Word as it came from the hands
of the men whom the Holy Ghost had moved to write it. That
Word of God they believed to be perfect as " a rule of faith and
practice," infallible in its moral and religious teachings, and the
only perfect standard and infallible guide man has, by which to
order his moral conduct and religious beliefs. The Founders were
Calvinists and "consistent Calvinists," and one of their most
sacred and tenderly guarded faiths was that the Word of God, the
Bible, is entirely trustworthy in all the instructions and revelations
which it was designed, of its infinite Author, to give to men.
What now are the teachings and belief of the Respondent
respecting the trustworthiness of the Bible, as they are presented,
not in occasional and brief utterances, but in carefully prepared
and protracted discussions ?
In his official response to recent communications from your
Board, and repeatedly on public occasions, he has denied our alle
gation. It devolves upon us to sustain our charge.
In the Andover Bevieiv, April, 1886, one of the editors of which
is Professor Egbert C. Smyth, is an editorial Article, entitled ;
" The Bible a Theme for the Pulpit." [pp. 406-409.] The
entire Article is commended to the careful examination of your
Honorable Board. Special attention is called to the following
extracts. .
The conception of the Scriptures associated with modern Biblical culture
suggests a new task for the pulpit, and in making this suggestion presents a
practical problem to the preacher.
On the one hand, the stiraiihis and comfort which he receives from his new
notion of the Bible make him eager to see it taking possession of the mind
of his people. . . .
On the other hand, the minister knows that his conception of the Bible
differs considerably from that whicli holds some, perhaps many, of his people,
and those by no means the least vigorous or earnest among them. And he
apprehends that the divergence of his view from theirs, if clearly seen by
them, would seem greater and more serious to them than it does to him.

20
The idea of divine revelation is in their minds so firmly associated with that
of immediate divine utterance, perfect both in content and in form, that any
attempt to show that the Bible is not a book of oracles would, he thinks, be
likely to wound religious feeling.
Therefore, he asks himself whether it be worth while to risk the loss of
influence with some, perhaps among the most valuable members of his con
gregation, which would be likely to result from an attempt to teach a way of
looking at Scripture which would seem to them prejudicial to its sacredness
and authority. . . .
It is not, we trust, disrespectfal to suggest that the considerations in favor
of the prudential course are ne'wer than those which support its opposite, and
therefore likely to assume excessive prominence, and that they are supported
by motives which might exaggerate their importance to any but the most dis
interested among mankind, [pp. 400-7.]
It is due, we may say in passing, in no small degree to the exclusion of this
topic from recent preaching, that our churches have almost without exception
in their Sunday school work fallen under the rigid dominion of a conception of
Scripture and method of handling it with which the more intelligent minis
ters have only partial sympathy, and from whose grasp many of them would
gladly escape. The considerations against discussing the Bible in the pulpit
must be weighty to offset these reasons for frank and open speech. . . . There
may, indeed, well be a time of reflection and sifting, a time of reticence be
cause of partial or immature conviction. But when conviction is formed, it
should be expressed, though not, of course, in a challenging and combative
manner. A minister who should begin to preach a series of sermons about
the Bible, by saying that he expected to show that the notion of inspiration
in which his hearers had been trained was an erroneous one, would proba
bly find a considerable part of his congregation resolutely opposed to his
teaching from the outset. . . . But let the discussion be announced to be,
what it really is, an examination of facts; let it be proposed to enter into an
historical inquiry as to the genesis of the Scriptures, and to examine their
relation to the divine revelation in the light of their origin, and assent is not
likely to be withheld from a proposition so reasonable and so promising of
definite result. Then, as inspired life is shown expressing itself in inspired
teaching, — as for example, the connection between Paul's written teach
ing and his own inner life and his apostolic work is traced, or the apostolic
tradition is shown embodying itself in the synoptic Gospels, — the conviction
will gradually be clfiated that the Scripture is the vehicle by which the divine
revelation is conveyed to man, and in no true sense the revelation itself.
This conviction formed, it will be easy to show that the perfection of the
vehicle is by no means implied in the preciousness of its contents, and that
Christian faith is not necessarily committed to the infallibility of the Bible.
[pp. 408-9.]
Several things in this remarkable editorial should be especiaUy
noticed. 1 . The Editor, while writing this article for the benefit of a class
of ministers alleged to hold a certain extraordinary view of the
Bible, represents himself as in profound sympathy with them and

21
with their view. More than this, from the purpose and tone of the
editorial it is plain that the writer himself heartily accepts the
"new notion of the Bible," "the conception of the Scriptures
associated with modern Biblical culture," held by those ministers.
A new idea it is of the Word of God ; and one, therefore, not rec
ognized by any of our church creeds, nor by the Andover Creed,
nor by any creed found in the great history of Christianity, —
a new idea of the Word of God, for the dawning of which the
Christian Church has been waiting for nearly nineteen centuries.
2. Secondly, the writer fully accords with these ministers in
their high estimate of the value of this " new notion of the Bible."
He gladly represents that it has been " a stimulus and comfort"
to them, and helpful in many particulars, especially in freeing
themfrom " painful questions " respecting the inspiration of the
Scriptures. Evidently the new view of Scripture has been equally
helpful to himself.
3. Thirdly, the Editor is in painful sympathy with these minis
ters in their dread apprehension, that the new view of Scripture
accepted by them, if known to their people, especially if an
nounced to them too abruptly or inconsiderately, would be ex
tremely offensive to them, would wound religious feeling, and
would disturb, perhaps terminate, pastoral relations with some of
the most vigorous and earnest, most valuable and influential
members of their congregations.
4. Yet fourthly, so in earnest is the Professor to have this
" new notion of the Bible " promulgated, that he urges these min
isters to have the courage of their convictions, to scrutinize the
motives that plead for continued silence and not yield to them
too readily, to deliberate, if need be, until the new idea of the
Word of God is fully matured, but then to show their mettle, and
not play the coward. He even goes so far as to suggest consider
ate and judicious methods of procedure, which may be adopted by
them when they shall takp up the extremely difficult task of
preaching a view of the Bible so startling to the people, and so
hazardous to pastoral interests and relations, as this is known
to be.
Now what is this "new notion of the Bible," so repulsive to
our churches, yet so warmly advocated by the Respondent, and
which he would have ministers preach even at the risk of jeopard
izing, if not terminating, pastoral relations ? No elaborate state
ment of it is found in this editorial. The writer puts in practice

22
the prudential counsel which he gives to timid ministers. He
makes a cautious beginning, yet gives us a clear glimpse of his
new conception. The conception is this: " That the Scripture is
the vehicle by which the divine revelation is conveyed to man, and in
no true sense the revelation itself," "that the perfection of the
vehicle is by no means implied in the preciousness of its contents;
and that Christian faith is not necessarily committed to the infallibil
ity of the Bible." Now if this be a prudent, cautious and merely
tentative statement of the " new notion," we cannot help asking,
what would a bold, frank and full statement of it be?
But, taking the description given us, what is this vehicle, the per
fection of which is not implied by any value which may attach to
the divine revelation which it conveys ? This vehicle is the Bible
itself, the Holy Scriptures, the very Word of God, which the
Andover Creed declares to be "the only perfect rule of faith and
practice." What is that something, to the infaUibility of which
Christian faith is not necessarily committed? It is the same
Bible, the Holy Scriptures, the Word of God, declared in the
Creed to be "the only perfect rule of faith and practice." But
the statement of the Creed does not allow the illustration of a
vehicle and its contents. The Scriptures a vehicle ! Can a vehicle
be a rule of faith and practice? According to the Creed, the
Word of God written is not an imperfect and dilapidated carriage,
the unwritten contents of which are the perfect rule. But the
written Word of God itself is the perfect rule. Nor can any dis
tinction which the Professor may make between " the Holy
Scriptures" and "the divine revelation," be any defence for his
believing and teaching, while occupying an Andover chair, that
the Holy Scriptures are fallible, but the revelation made in them in
fallible. An organic law of the Seminary requires that every Pro
fessor on its foundations shall believe and teach, — not that some
unwritten revelation, which can be conceived of as distinct from
the Scriptures and can be separated from them, is the "perfect
rule," — but that the Scriptures themselves are " the perfect rule."
Can one believe that the Bible is fallible, and at the same time
believe that it is an infallible rule of faith and practice? An
Andover Professor can do many things, but he cannot do that. A
fallible Bible is a fallible rule of faith and practice, and therefore
untrustworthy in its moral and religious teachings.
The writer of the editorial before us teaches, — and he would
have all ministers teach, — that " Christian faith is not necessarily

23
committed to the infaUibUity of the Bible." Then, in his view,
the Bible may be fallible. But if it is fallible, it is fallible as a
"rule of faith and practice," and as a fallible rule, is not trust
worthy in its revelations and teachings. The Professor has thus
brought himself into open antagonism to the Seminary Creed, in
subscribing to which he declared it to be his positive belief, that
the Bible is not & fallible, but sl perfect, rule of faith and practice.
Moreover, in assenting to the Creed, the Professor announces
himself as the friend and advocate of the old doctrine of the
Catechism concerning the Scriptures ; but in his editorial he an
nounces himself as the friend and advocate of " a neio notion of
the Bible." In the latter advocacy he claims to be progressive,
and to be helping forward a new and grand theological movement.
But is this theological movement, to which he has so zealously
committed himself, and is attempting to commit the Seminary, in
harmony with the Andover Creed, or in conflict with it?
Let us see. The old doctrine is, that the Bible is a perfect rule
of faith and practice; the "new notion" is, that the Bible is an
imperfect vehicle of truth. The old doctrine is, that the Scriptures
are infallible as a rule of religious belief and moral life ; the ' ' new
notion" is, that "Christian faith is not necessarily committed to
the infallibility of the Bible." The grand old doctrine of the
Catechism and of the Creed is, that " the Word of God written "
is itself infallible and perfectly trustworthy in its moral and religious
teachings. " The new notion " of Progressive Orthodoxy is, that
the "Word of God written" is fallible and untrustworthy in its
moral and religious instruction.
We have two more complaints to bring against this editorial,
entitled, " Tlie Bible a Tliemefor the Pulpit."
1 . The whole drift or tone of the Article puts suspicion upon
the Bible. The Article insinuates, no one knows how much fal
libility. A "new notion of the Bible" in this nineteenth century
of the Christian Era is advocated, but what is " the new notion " ?
The Scriptures are only " a vehicle " of truth, and not surely perfect
at that : but how dilapidated are they ? How much revelation has
dropped out of them, and been lost? " Christian faith is not neces
sarily committed to the infallibility of the Bible." But how falli
ble is the Bible? What portion of its promises and revelations
can be trusted ? What is Christian faith committed to in respect
to the Bible? For aught that is said in this Article, ninety-nine
one-hundredths of the Bible may be false and deceptive. And all

24
this needless suspicion against the Scriptures is sent forth from
Andover Seminary, the faith of every one of whose Professors is
necessarily, or by the organic laws of the Seminary, committed to
the infallibility of the Bible as " a rule of faith and practice."
2. This Editorial Article shows, that Progressive Orthodoxy
intends to crowd upon the churches, through recent graduates of
the Seminary in their pulpits, new notions of the Bible, — notions
which, it is confessed, will be extremely odious to many Chris
tians, and are fltted to create divisions and animosities in Christian
brotherhoods, and to jeopardize pastoral relations. We complain
of such action and influence as an open violation of that solemn
promise made by every Professor, when he says, in taking the
Creed : " I will consult the good of this Institution, and the peace
of the Churches of our Lord Jesus Christ on all occasions."
Again, in the book entitled Progressive Orthodoxy, comprising
several editorials taken from the Andover Bevieiv, for which edi
torial and book. Professor Smyth, as one of the editors and authors,
is responsible, we find [p. 231] the following paragraph.
If Christ is the supreme and final revelation He is the test of all preceding
revelation. If we accept Him as God's supreme and final revelation, we must
bring preceding revelation to this test. 'We cannot escape the comparison if
we would. He brings us his own conception of God, of life, of duty. It
claims to cover the whole horizon of truth, and demands possession of every
spiritual and rational faculty. If we will have it as ours we must hold it
separate from and above every other. Whatever else comes to us as from
God must present its credentials to Christ's truth in our mind and hearts.
This is not only the teaching of Christian faith; il is the teaching of Clmst.
When He told us that certain precepts of the law were to be replaced by
spiritual maxims more in harmony with the natme of God, He taught us to
apply Christian principles to all the law and prophets, and to regard all in
them which is not consistent with those principles as superseded by the new
revelation. Now how does this extract sustain our allegation?
1 . First, in these statements the Respondent represents it as his
belief, that Christ himself, in his own personality, is the supreme
and final revelation, and as such is the test of all preceding revela
tion, and not only of that, but of all revelations ; for he adds, that
if we would have Christ's conception of God, of life, of duty ours,
"we must hold it separate from and above every other." No other
revelation of God, then, though made by the Holy Spirit of God
himself, who is called " the Spirit of truth," can be held by us as
even co-ordinate in authority with the revelation made in the person

25
of Christ. Surely such depreciation as this of the Holy Spirit of God
does not prepare the way for the belief that the Scriptures inspired
of the Holy Spirit are "the only perfect rule of faith and practice."
2. But, secondly, the Editor also affirms, that " Whatever else
comes to us as from God must present its credentials to Christ's
truth." If that be so, a question of supreme practical concern to
us, and to Andover Seminary, presents itself at once ; Where is
" Christ's truth " to be found? Wliere, in the judgment of Progres
sive Orthodoxy, shall we look for it? In the gospel of Christ as
given us by the inspired Evangelists ? Not at all. In any Word
of God coming to us through man moved by the Holy Ghost to
speak and write? By no means. Where then is Christ's truth to
be found : that truth to which all other revelations coming to us as
from God must bring their credentials ? Christ's truth, that im
perial and supreme truth which is to be the final test of all other
revelations, is to be found "in our mind and hearts." So says
Progressive Orthodoxy.
But even then, who is to decide what " Christ's truth in our mind
and hearts " is ? And who is to put it into statement ? We our
selves, of course. No finite being can enter into our souls to deter
mine what truths are there, or to formulate them. Moreover, who
is to compare other alleged revelations from God with Christ's
truth in our mind and hearts ? Who is to examine their credentials,
who conduct the judicial trial, and who pronounce the final sen
tence? Certainly we ourselves. No other huraan being can enter
this imperial court of " our mind and hearts," and sit upon its
judgment seat. I submit. Gentlemen of the Board, that this new
method of judging Scripture and attaining divine truth, is simply
the old and erroneous notion of "the inner light" held by the
Friends, which is that " a portion of the same Spirit which Jesus
and the Prophets and' the apostles had," or a certain inner light or
life, is given to «s as " a primary and infallible guide. Hence the
Scriptures are a subordinate and secondary guide." [^Portraiture
of Quakerism, by Clarkson, vol. 2, p. 130.] According to this
view the Scriptures themselves and their divine authority are to
be tested by every one's own spiritual endowment and perception.
\_lUd., p. 113.]
Progressive Orthodoxy sometimes designates this inner and final
test of Scripture by the more modern names of "Christian con
sciousness," "reflned Christian sentiment," and "Christian cul
ture."

26
3. The representation is made in this passage that Christ cor
rected the ancient Scriptures, replacing certain precepts of the
law by "maxims more in harmony with the nature of God."
Also on p. 218, the writer speaks of " teachings " of Christ, " in
which He criticises and amends certain statements of the Old
Testament as to men's moral obhgation." But if the moral
teachings of the Old Testament were so incorrect in Christ's time
that they needed to be amended, one thing is certain, and that is,
that those ancient Scriptures were not then, and are not now, "a
perfect rule of faith and j^ractice ; " and no man can believe that
Christ thus amended and superseded them, and at the same time
believe that they are "a perfect rule of faith and practice."
Moreover, we are told, in one of those passages just cited, that
Christ teaches us to amend and supplant the law and the prophets,
so far as we flnd that, in our judgment, they are contrary to Chris
tian principles. But if Christ did this, then, not only are the
Old Testament Scriptures untrustworthy in their moral and reli
gious teachings, but any man, deeming himself a judge of Chris
tian principles, may change the Word of God, and supersede its
commands, promises and revelations, by his own wisdom, ad
libitum. The relation of that view to the intentions of the Founders,
as expressed in their Creed, is unmistakable. It is intensely antag
onistic to the Andover Symbol. Few forms of unbelief in respect
to the Scriptures could be more so. If the method adopted by
Progressive Orthodoxy of testing the truth and authority of all
alleged revelations from God, be the true one, then the Holy
Scriptures are not "the onZy perfect rule of faith aud practice."
There is another rule, not simply co-ordinate with, but superior
to, that of the Scriptures. That superior rule is within ourselves,
"Christ's own truth in our mind and hearts," that is, our own
"Christian consciousness," our own "reflned Christian sentiment,"
our own " Christian culture." To the supremacy of this rule ivithin
us, the "Word of God written," all revelations coming to us as from
God in the Old or New Testament, must bow down, present their
credentials and receive judgment. We ourselves are to amend or
supersede any Scripture according to our own judgment, so far as
we deem our own judgment Christian, refined, or cultured. In
other words, every man is to make his own Bible.
Now we affirm that the Professor by maintaining and incul
cating these views, violates the Constitution and Statutes of the

27
Seminary, defeats so far the purpose of its Founders, and breaks
his own solemn promises made when he subscribed to the Creed.
His offence is also greatly aggravated by the further representa
tion made in this same extract, that Chnst himself teaches, that
we may follow his example, and even take his place, in testing
and winnowing the Holy .Scriptures ; that we ourselves by apply
ing Christian principles may judge the law and prophets, and may
"regard all in them which is not consistent with those principles
as superseded by the new revelation" How is it possible for
one, who thus subordinates the truth and authority of the Holy
Scriptures to the truth and authority of his own judgment, to
believe that those same dishonored Scriptures are " the only per
feet rule of faith and practice ' ' ?
Let it be understood, however, that whenever we speak, as we
just have spoken, of a proraise not kept or broken, we make no
charge of conscious moral dereliction. We have no right to
judge motives. What we say is, that such was the promise of the
Professor, and that such was his action in relation to that promise,
and that, in our judgment, the action was a violation of the prom
ise ; but we do not charge that the Professor in his own view vio •
lated his promise.
Another statement of Progressive Orthodoxy respecting Holy
Scriptures and our Lord's relation to them, is as follows.
[Prog. Orth. 227-8]; —
Even if one is convinced that our Lord accepted the traditional view of
the authorship of the books in question [the Pentateuch] he cannot hold
that His authority is committed to that view until he has satisfied himself
that Christ, claimed to be omniscient during the days of his humiliation, — a
belief irreconcilable with his own declaration that He knew neither the day
nor the hour of his second coming.
The reasoning in this statement is abstruse, but one thing is
made plain, and that is, that our Lord in the days of his humilia
tion did not, in the writer's view, claim to be omniscient. Then,
in the writer's view. He was not omniscient. Would any inteUi
gent man, who believed that Christ, in his earthly life, was omni
scient, magnify in this way the difficulty of satisfying one's self that
Christ claimed to be omniscient ? It is pertinent, then, to ask :
First, how can the writer consistently represent on one page,
that Christ was the supreme and flnal revelation, and on another
page, near by, that He was so limited in his knowledge that He
did not know, and could not know, who wrote the Pentateuch ?

28
Secondly, how can the author reconcile his declaration, that
Christ's " conception," or knowledge, claims to cover " the whole
horizon of truth" [p. 231] with his other virtual declai ation, that
Christ did not claim to be omniscient ?
Thirdly, if Christ in His earthly life, was a being of such limited
knowledge, what certainty have we, that the revelations, and
promises of His gospel made in His own name and by His own
authority, are trustworthy, or that all our hopes for eternity, built
upon His word, are not false and delusive?
Fourthly, if Christ was so ignorant in the days of His humUia
tion, that He had no exhaustive knowledge of the origin and author
ship of the Old Testament Scriptures, what confidence can we
have, that the teachhigs of those whom He instructed, or the
preaching and writings of the Apostles, were, in all respects, true
and of divme authority ?
And flfthly, if the writer believes, as he evidently does, that
our Lord Jesus Christ was a being of limited knowledge when He
gave His gospel to the world, and when He instructed His AposUes
who were to write so large a portion of the Bible, how can it be
believed by him that the Holy Scriptures of the New Testament,
are ' ' a perfect rule of faith and practice ' ' ?
Your attention is called to further statements of Progressive
Orthodoxy. [Prog. Orth. p. 208] : —
We can hardly believe, indeed, that the truth as revealed through the
apostles had such absolute purity as we must suppose it to have had if
perfect beings had been the media of revelation.
In these words the Professor confesses his own disbelief in the
absolute purity of the truth as revealed through the apostles;
and also dishonors the Holy Spirit by implying, flrst, that He
lacked the power to reveal perfectly the will and truth of God
through inspired men ; and by implying, secondly, that the degree
of purity to be obtained in the truth revealed depended more upon
the character of the apostles, than upon the resources of wisdom
and power possessed by the Holy Ghost.
Upon the next page we flnd this passage [Prog. Orth. 209] : —
The views of Christ and of Ilis truth contained in the apostolic Epistles
must, from the nature of the case, always shape the religious and raoral con
ceptions of the church. Not that they alone possessed the Spirit of wisdom
aud revelation. He is the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in every soul in

29
which He dwells, and there have been some souls in ages since the apostolic
into which He has so abundantly shed the radiance of God's truth that they
have been the spiritual luminaries of their own and following centuries.
The representations in this passage which sustain our complaint
are :
First, that the Holy Spirit of revelation, — not simply of wisdom,
but of revelation — has been given to men in ages since the apos
tolic ; in other words, that the apostles, as endowed by the Holy
Ghost with the power to bring revelations of God's will and truth
to the world, have not been the only men of their class in the
history of the Christian Church.
Secondly, that those in the Christian ages since the apostolic,
who have been possessed of the Spirit of revelation, or whom the
Holy Spirit has qualifled to make divine revelations to men, have
not been few in number. The belief announced is, that the
Holy Spirit is "the Spirit of revelation in every soul in which He
dw*ells." Thirdly, that some Christian men, living since the New Testa
ment canon was closed, have been so filled by the Holy Ghost
with the power and grace of revelation, that they nearly attained
the position and authority of the apostles themselves. For what
more, indeed, can be said of the apostles, than that the Holy
Spirit of revelation "so abundantly shed the radiance of God's
truth into their souls that they have been the spiritual luminaries of
their own and foUowing centuries ' ' ?
Now if the Professor believes, — as he certainly does if he
accepts Progressive Orthodoxy, — that the apostles, as endowed
by the Holy Spirit to make revelations of God's will and truth to
the world, have been succeeded by men in large numbers, to whom
the same Holy Spirit has given the same endowment in kind,
and by some men to whom the same Holy Spirit has given the
same endowment, not only in kind, but also in such large degree
that they have been the spiritual luminaries of their own and
following centuries, then how can said Professor subscribe to the
Andover Creed, and solemnly say, "I believe that the Word of
God contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament is
the ONLY perfect rule of faith and practice " ? If the Holy Spirit
is believed to be the Spirit of revelation in every soul in which He
dwells, the Professor, in consistency, must believe also that there
may be Christian writings which stand on a level with those of the
apostles.

30
We need now to raise more distinctly the question. What, ac
cording to Progressive Orthodoxy, is the true theory of the gene
sis of the Bible ?
1. First, it teaches that the Word of God comprising the Scrip
tures is largely the product of historical facts and forces. It is
affirmed to be the declaration of Christian faith, " that if the
forces visible in sacred history appear to the best human vision to
have produced the Bible, God must have wished men to believe
that they did produce it." [Prog. Orth. 194-5.]
Progressive Orthodoxy also expresses itself in the following lan
guage [Prog. Orth. p. 194] : —
Possibly, however, some may think that we have no right to assume that
the antecedent /acis fully account for the Bible, since, although it is unques
tionably to a certain extent their product, a special operation of Almighty
power, of which we are not informed, may have given to it its highest quali
ties. But surely in the absence of a clear revelation that such special divine
power was employed, we have no right to assert its exercise. If withouf its
use the Bible, as it stands, can be accounted for, It becomes unnecessary.
Several things in this passage should be distinctly noticed.
First, the idea of any special operation of Almighty power in
producing the Bible, or in giving it its highest qualities, is dis
carded. Secondly, it is stated, that we are not informed of any such
special operation of divine power in the production of the
Bible. Thirdly, it is implied that antecedent historical /acfs, are sufficient
to account for the Bible without the aid of any such special divine
power. How, then, we ask, can the same man who makes these represen
tations, affirm it to be his belief, as he does in subscribing to the
Creed, that the Bible is the Word of God ?
Prof. Smyth is on the Associate Foundation. The Associate
Founders were Hopkinsians. To show how far removed the Pro
fessor's views of the holy Scriptures are from those of the Found
ers, I give a few sentences from Dr. Samuel Hopkins himself.
" It is as really impossible," he wrote, " that any uninspired man ornum-
ber of men . . should make the writings which we find in the Bible, as it
is for them to contrive and make the visible world ; and we have as satisfac
tory evidence that the Scriptures, contained in the Bible, were written by
the inspiration of God, as we have that the sun, moon and stars, and all the
visible world were made by him." [Hopkins' Works vol. iii. p. 699.]

31
But, secondly. Progressive Orthodoxy holds, not only that the
Holy Scriptures are largely the product of " facts and of forces visi
ble in sacred history," but also that the sacred writers produced
them out of their own spiritual life, their own religious experience.
The representation is repeatedly made that the writers of the Bible
were favored with no special or unique influence of the Holy Spirit
to aid them in writing the Word of God, but that all their words
and deeds, their teaching, preaching and writing, their entire out
ward life, sprung from a common source, namely, their own spirit
ual or religious experience. In the case of the apostles, for exam
ple, out of their own "quickened and mightily invigorated life
leaped " their " new deeds of heroic devotion " [p. 200] . From the
same source came also all their writings. The apostolic Scrip
tures were simply the natural product of the Christian experience,
feeling and sentiment existing in the hearts of the apostolic writers.
Progressive Orthodoxy affirms [pp. 196, 198, 202, 222] that:
" There is not a scintilla of evidence that God assumed to the minds of the
apostles a new relation as soon as they sat down to write, and that, in con
sequence, what they wrote had a, different quality from what they said.
. . . The assumption," we are informed, "of a special activity of the
divine Spirit upon the apostles and other writers of Scripture in the act of
composition, endowing what came from their pens with qualities possessed
by no other Christian teaching, is a most fruitful source of confusion in the
endeavor to find out what Scripture is. It is insisted not only that there is
no evidence of such an act, but that the supposition of its existence is con
trary to the facts which lie on the face of the Scriptures. ... It is pure
scholasticism," we are told, " to try to find an explanation of the fifty-first
Psalm in any other thing than the heart whose penitence pulses through
it. . . . "We are finding out," says Progressive Orthodoxy, "that the
seat of the prophetic teaching was the moral and religious nature of the
inspired seer alone."
Again we have these declarations [pp. 201, 202] :
Paul says that the revelation of Christ, which was the source of his
preaching, and the ground of its authority, was given in his conversion. . . .
The light into which he was born was that from which he taught. . . .
In saying that the apostolic teaching is the expression of the spiritual life of
its authors, and wears the impress of their respective personalities, we do not
take one jot or tittle from its sacredness as a revelation."
These citations teach, with emphasis,
1. That all special and immediate influence of the Holy Spirit
upon the Sacred Writers to aid them in writing the Word of God
was withheld.

32
2. That the apostolic teachiug was simply the expression of the
spiritual life of its authors.
3. That the source of the prophetic teaching was "the moral
and religious nature " of the prophet alone.
4. That it is the purest scholasticism to believe that the Holy
Spirit exerted any immediate, special and direct influence upon the
mind and heart of the writer of the fifty-flrst Psalm to aid him iu
the composition of that immortal Scripture.
5. That it is a most fruitful source of confusion in the endeavor
to flnd out what Scripture is, to believe, as the Founders of An
dover Seminary did, the apostolic testimony, that "All Scripture
is given by inspiration of God."
6. That it is a mere assiimption, that there was any " special
activity of the divine Spirit upon the apostles and other writers
of Scripture in the act of composition, endowing what came from
their pens with qualities possessed by no other Christian teach
ing." 7. That " there is not a scintilla of evidence that God assumed
to the minds of the apostles a new relation as soon as they sat
down to write, and that in consequence, what they wrote had a
different quality from what they said."
But why, we ask in reply, is this last representation so repeat
edly made and insisted upon? For the " Progressive " Divine does
not himself believe that there is a scintilla of evidence that God
assumed to the minds of the apostles a new relation when they
rose up to speak God's truth. He does not believe that "Holy
men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost," but
that they spoke and wrote, and ordered all their outward conduct,
as they were moved by historic facts and forces, and by their inner
light and life.
It is the common Christian belief, that the apostles were in
spired both to preach and to write God's truth. Progressive Ortho
doxy holds, that the inner, spiritual life of au apostle inspired alike
his right and noble conduct, and the Scripture he wrote. But
every apostle's conduct was not always right and noble. Peter
"dissembled," so that Paul rebuked him sharply. Peter's inner
life did not keep him from wrong action. How, then, do we know
it kept him from wrong writing ? If it allowed him to dissemble in
his dealing with his friends, how do we know that it did not allow
him to dissemble, or in some other way to fail of writing the truth,
when he wrote those passages in his First Epistle, upon which

33
Progressive Orthodoxy founds its stupendous dogma that the
vastest and grandest missionary flelds under the gospel of Christ
are not, and never have been, in this world, but are in Hades?
And Peter was by no means the only sacred writer, whose outward
conduct was not right. Now we jiress the question ; if this inner,
spiritual life was the sole source, alike of their outward conduct,
and their writings, and their conduct was imperfect, what assur
ance have we that the Scriptures which they gave to the world
were not imperfect also ?
Our objection to this theory, as one to be held and taught in an
Andover chair, is, that it is utterly out of sympathy with, and re
pugnant to, the traditions, the Spirit and the Creed of the Seminary.
The Creed declares the Scriptures to be " The Word of God ; " but
according to this new theory, they would more properly be called,
" The Word of the spiritual man." The Creed honors the Scrip
tures ; this new theory depreciates them by describing them as
having the same genesis as the writings of any spiritually minded
person — for the Holy Spirit is declared to be the Spirit of reve
lation in every Christian. The Professor indeed says, that "The
apostles were the bearers of a revelation made immediately to
each of them by the Spirit of God " [p. 200]. That sounds well.
But according to this new theory, the very same can be said of any
Christian man, for this gift of revelation is a part of every Chris
tian's spiritual life. Indeed, it is stated [p. 201], that, "The
revelation of which each apostle was the bearer is not, therefore,
to be thought of as a set of religious ideas made over to him to be
held as an external possession. . . . For it was in essence a per
sonal experience ef Jesus Christ in and through whom he lived."
Consequently we flnd in this new theology no doctrine of the
inspiration of the Bible. The common view of the origin of the
Bible is vigorously and repeatedly rejected. Not only is no deflni-
tion of inspiration given, but it is asserted that "such a definition
is not needed to explain sacred Scripture" [p. 232]. "We have
never seen," says the Respondent, " a definition of inspiration which
was rooted in the realities of sacred history" [p. 232]. Yet this
same writer gives a definition of the Bible, — one designed appar
ently to supersede all the inadequate definitions and common ideas
of inspiration, and to impart to students and others such a clear
and illuminating conception of what the Scriptures really are, that
that conception shall be to them ever after a mighty stimulus, and
an unspeakably precious consolation. The definition is this : " The

34
Bible is the representation in writing of God's historical revelation
of himself to man, which has come immediately from that revelation
as it passed through its successive stages [Prog. Orth. p. 233].
We desire to treat this definition with all respect. It is the only
one, it is beUeved, in this entire theological work. Progressive
Divines are not handy at definitions, and need to be encouraged.
This will do for a beginning. But, Gentlemen of the Board, we
trust it is not improper to remind you, that Article XX. of the As
sociate Foundation, requires, that the Visitors shall "take care,
that the duties of every Professor on this Foundation shaU be
intelligibly . . . discharged."
True, Progressive Orthodoxy speaks of adding to all the other
qualifications of the apostles, "that of pre-eminent endowment of
the Holy Spirit." But it must be remembered, that this same
spiritual endowment is declared to be nothing different in kind from
that which enabled the apostles to live " in a new and higher
way" [p. 200] and nothing different in kind from that vouchsafed
to all Christians. The inspiration, as spiritual Ulumination,
which the apostles received to aid them in communicating, by
teaching, preaching and writing, God's truth, was the same which
they received when they dame into a knowledge of the Christ in
them. Of Paul, for instance, it is stated, that " The light into
which he was born was that from which he taught " [p. 201].
In view of the written statements and representations now pre
sented, for which Prof. Smyth is responsible, we are warranted in
making the following affirmations.
1. First, the Respondent, as judged by these writings, does not
believe in any inspiration of the Scriptures that has ever, to his
knowledge, been defined.
2. Secondly, he does not believe that any special and immediate
influence of the Holy Spirit was vouchsafed to the sacred writers
to aid them in writing the Word of God.
3. Thirdly, he does believe and teach, that the Scriptures, in
common with all the words and deeds, the daUy life and conduct,
the revelations, the teachings, and the preaching of the sacred
writers, were the product of historic facts and forces, and of their
own spiritual life, or religious experience.
4. Fourthly, he believes and teaches, that this spiritual life, or,
iu the case of the apostles, Christian experience, though coming
itself in a greater or less degree from the Holy Spirit, and which
enabled them to reveal God's will and truth to man, did not differ

35
in kind from the new and spiritual life granted to all regenerate
men. 5. Fifthly, he believes and teaches, that all revelations, other
than Christ himself, coming to us as from God, must present their
credentials to Christ's truth in our mind and hearts.
6. Sixthly, he believes and teaches, that Christ, by his own
example in amending and superseding portions of the ancient
Scriptures, teaches us to do the same ; that is, " to apply Christian
principles to all the law and the prophets, and to regard all in them
which is not consistent with those principles as superseded by the
new revelation."
7. Seventhly, he holds and teaches that we can hardly believe
that the truth revealed by the apostles had such absolute purity as
it would have possessed, had the apostles themselves been perfect
beings. 8. Eighthly, he maintains and inculcates "the new notion,"
that the Holy Scriptures are a vehicle of revelation, the perfection
of which vehicle is by no means implied in the value of the reve
lation, and that "Christian faith is not necessarily committed to
the infallibility of the Bible."
Now in respect to these views of the Bible, we submit the fol
lowing declarations :
1 . First, these views depreciate and dishonor the holy Scriptures,
by representing that their source, which is alleged to have been the
religious experience of the writers, was the same in kind as that of
the writing's of all spiritual or regenerate men.
2. Secondly, they dishonor the Holy Spirit by representing that
he had not the capacity or power to communicate religious truth to
the world in absolute purity through imperfect men like the prophets
and apostles.
3. Thirdly, they violently antagonize the Andover Creed in vari
ous ways, as we have already shown, but especially in this, that
they erect in our mind and hearts a standard of truth and faith
equal or superior to that of the holy Scriptures, and thus render it
impossible that the Bible should be " the only perfect rule of faith
and practice."
4. Fourthly, these views are contrary and repugnant to Art. II.
of the Statutes of the Associate Foundation. Prof. Egbert C.
Smyth is placed on that Foundation. Art. II. says, that "Every
Professor on the Associate Foundation shall be ... an orthodox
and consistent Calvinist. ' ' Now that terminology, ' ' an orthodox

36
and consistent Calvinist," had a definite and well known meaning
at the time the Seminary was founded. It meant a Calvinist of
the Hopkinsian School. And it needs no argument before this
Board to show that no man can, by any possibility, be a Calvinist
of that school, and hold such views of the Bible as we have been
considering. 5. Fifthly, for a Professor, on the Associate Foundation, to be
lieve and teach such notions of the Bible renders it impossible for
him to be continued on that Foundation, inasmuch as Art. III. of
the Statutes of that Foundation requires, that " no man shaU be
continued a Professor on said Foundation, who shall not continue
to approve himself a man of sound and orthodox principles in
Divinity agreeably to the aforesaid Creed."
Now, Gentlemen of the Board, we ask your judgment upon the
question, whether it be possible for one to be "a man of sound
and orthodox principles in divinity," in the meaning and intention
of the Associate Founders as expressed in their Statutes and espe
cially in their Creed, and yet hold beliefs respecting the Holy
Scriptures so utterly antagonistic to the Statutes and the Creed of
this Foundation as are the beliefs set forth in Progressive Ortho
doxy, and in the Andover Beview, for which Professor Smyth is
responsible. II. Our second particular complaint is, that Professor Egbert C.
Smyth holds, maintains and inculcates, " That Christ in the days
of his humiliation was a finite being, limited in all his attributes,
capacities and attainments; in other words was not God and Man."
In presenting the grounds for this complaint, we first call atten
tion to the statement of the Creed, which is ; " That the only
Redeemer of the elect is the eternal Son of God, who for this pur
pose became man, and continues to be God and man in two distinct
natures and one person forever." The Creed also affirms " that,
agreeably to these Scriptures, God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and
unchangeable in his being, wisdom, power," etc.
It is clearly affirmed in these Creed-statements, that the Re
deemer is "the eternal Son of God," that He "became man;"
and that He " continues to be God and man in two distinct na
tures and one person forever," also that "God is a Spirit, infi
nite, eternal and unchangeable in his ... . wisdom." It fol
lows then, that when "the eternal Son of God " " became man, and
continued in his earthly life to be God and mau, he continued to

37
be God ' infinite, eternal and unchangeable ' in his being, wisdom
and power." Accordingly, whatever he knew before his incarna
tion he knew during his incarnation. If, as God, he was omni
scient before he became man, he was omniscient, as God, when, in
his humanity, he continued to be " God and man."
What now has been the teaching of the Respondent ? On pp.
227-8 of Progressive Orthodoxy we find the following passage :
Even if one is convinced that our Lord accepted the traditional view of
the authorship of the books in question [The Pentateuch], he cannot hold
that His authority is committed to that view until he has satisfied himself
that Christ claimed to be omniscient during the days of his humiliation, — a
belief irreconcilable with his own declaration that He knew neither the day
nor the hour of his second coming.
We have no occasion now to consider this peculiar reasoning,
save to notice one of the remarkable assumptions in it, namely,
that no one can satisfy himself that Christ claimed to be omnisci
ent, in view of Christ's own admission, that, as the Son, he did
not know the time of his second coming. Nor do we care to dwell
one moment upon the equally remarkable implication, that Christ
left on record no testimony other than this upon the great question
of his equality with the Father, or of his true deity. But we do
call attention to the representation made here, that no one can
satisfy himself "that Christ claimed to be omniscient." Evi
dently the writer himself is not satisfied that Christ made this
claim, and does not believe that hewas omniscient. How, then, can
that writer subscribe to the Creed and say, "I believe," that
"the eternal Son of God" "became man and continues to be
God and man " ? Only as, at the same time he denies it to be his
belief, that God is "infinite, eternal and unchangeable" "in his
wisdom"? Surely, unless God is finite and changeable, he had
all the knowledge when he was God and man, which He had had
from all eternit)', and has now.
Moreover, we submit, that no man, who really believes that
Christ, in his earthly life, was " God and man," who is even
friendly to that doctrine, and regards himself as under obUgation to
maintain it, would ever have attempted, in this way or in any way,
to set forth the impossibUity of one's believing in Christ's omni
science and deity. What would you. Gentlemen of the Board,
think of the man, who professedly holding the doctrine of the deity
of Christ, aud under promise to inculcate it and to oppose the con-

trary belief, should attempt, in this way or in any way, to maintain
the impossibUity of one's \)e\ie\'mg that same doctrine — the very
doctrine he professes to believe and has pledged himself to inculcate?
Can any man rightfully hold the chair of a Professor in the Semi
nary at Andover, who treats in this way the doctrine of our Lord's
omniscience and deity, — the doctrine of all evangelical creeds, of
every "orthodox and consistent Calvinist," and of every man "of
sound and orthodox principles in divinity ' ' ? Not to believe this
doctrine, but to disparage it, is to believe and advocate the view
that Christ was a finite being possessed neither of omniscience nor
of any other infinite attribute.
One might suppose that the Respondent would explain himself
by saying, that Christ as man was ignorant, but as God was omni
scient ; as man was weary and faint, but as God He fainted not
neither was weary. But he is barred from making this explana
tion by his own teaching respecting the personality of Christ.
" The evidences," he says, "of a complete human nature multi
ply as we read, but not less manifest is the one Person who is
the centre to which all attributes and acts are ever referred."
[Prog. Orth. pp. 22-3.] According to this statement, we have no
right to ascribe certain works and attributes to Christ as God,
and other works and attributes to Him as man. It will not do to
say that Christ in his human nature was weary, but in his divine
nature was unlimited in his strength. And for the same reason it
is not permissible to represent that Christ os a man was limited in
knowledge, but as God was unlimited. It would seem, then, that
the Respondent must believe, that the eternal Son of God, during
the days of his humiliation, was a finite being, and of course lim
ited in all his capacities and attainments.
We cite another passage in support of our complaint [Prog.
Orth. p. 32] : —
There was not only growth of the humanity of Jesus, but a progressive
union with the divine. Here is the truth in the theories of the Kenotists,
who maintain that the Word, at the Incarnation, laid aside, or suspended
the exercise of, his attributes of omniscience, omnipotence, and the like.
This is but a clumsy and somewhat violent and unethical method of appro
priating certain undeniable facts; such as the limitation of Jesus's knowl
edge, the perfect human reahty of his earthly life, the veritable growth of
his consciousness and personality from the moment of the Incarnation.
We find in this passage a distinct recognition, on the part of
the writer, of truth in the views of the Kenotists, who maintain,

39
it is said, " that the Word, at the Incarnation, laid aside, or sus
pended the exercise of, his attributes of omniscience, omnipotence
and the like." These limitations of Christ's knowledge and power,
during his incarnate life, are declared by the writer to be " undenia
ble facts." The Kenotic method of appropriating them is criticised,
but the " undeniable facts " remain all the same, and there is no
recognition of any opposing facts to be accounted for.
It should also be observed, that the limitations spoken of in this
passage are ascribed to the entire personality of our Lord. It is
represented as an undeniable fact that there was " a veritable
growth of his consciousness and personality from the moment of
the Incarnation."
We see no way to interpret this passage except as an unqualified
affirmation on the part of the writer of his own belief that the
one Person, Christ, in his earthly life, was a finite being limited in
all his attributes, capacities and attainments, — a belief utterly
irreconcilable with the statements of the Creed.
We will bring to your notice only one other extract in support
of this complaint. In an editorial in the Andover Beview [May,
1886, p. 522] it is said, that "The limitations to which his humanity
subjected him are recognized ; but as the glorified Christ he is
delocalized, unlimited, is with his church alway unto the end of
the world."
This language indicates, that in the Respondent's belief, the Son
of God, when in his earthly life, was a limited being, possessing no
infinite attribute ; but when glorified was an unlimited being, en
dowed with all the infinite attributes of Deity. How a limited
being could ever become an unlimited being, does not appear ; but
the statement seems to be — not only that such a change of the
finite into the absolute was posisible, but that it was actually effected.
Now in view of all these citations, the theory of the Professor
appears to be, that the second Person of the Trinity, in His incar
nation must have contracted himself, and during His earthly life
was in a dwarfed condition, subject in the entirety of His constitu
tion or personality to the limitations-of a created being ; and that,
at the time of His ascension and glorification, He assumed again the
absolute attributes of deity, taking with him now His humanity, and
continuing to be the Son of man forever.
This is no new theory. Its absurdity, and its incongruity with
facts in Christ's life and with Scriptural statements are apparent.
Moreover the view is irreverent, and dishonors the Redeemer.

40
Students who become familiar with such representations of the
ignorance, and of the limited wisdom and power, of our Lord,
cannot have exalted conceptions of either his character or his
teachings. It ought not to have been surprising, that an Andover student,
when under examination two or three years ago, said, in response
to a question, that " no statement of Christ, no matter how posi
tive, in aflflrmation of the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch,
could now be accepted as decisive, because He was not omni
scient, and especially because He was not up to present date in
the higher criticism." Can it be strange, that under the influence
of such representations as we have now cited, the character of
God's Word, and of Christ himself, should be subject to the most
irreverent handling?
We affirm therefore, that this theory of the limitations of Christ's
attributes aud attainments during the days of His humiliation is
discordant with the spirit and traditions of Andover Seminary.
It is not the belief expressed in the Creed, and which the Pro
fessor has promised to maintain and inculcate, but is irreconcilably
antagonistic to that belief. Nor can any man who holds such
views be "an orthodox and consistent Calvinist" according to the
statutory requirement of the Associate Foundation.
m
III. Our third specific complaint is, that Professor Smyth " holds,
maintains and inculcates," " Tliat no man has power or capacity
to repent without knowledge of God in Christ."
Our view is, that the Constitution and Statutes of Andover
Seminary do not allow any Professor, while occupying one of its
chairs, to hold or teach such a belief. Every Professor, in sub
scribing to the Creed, says, —
I moreover believe . . . that God's decrees perfectly consist with human
liberty; God's universal agency with the agency of man; and man's depend
ence with his accountability; that man has understanding and corporeal
strength to do all that God requires of him; so that nothing, but the sinner's
aversion to holiness, prevents his salvation.
Several questions may be raised as to these statements of the Creed.
First, it speaks of man's agency, of man's dependence, and
aflSrms that man has understanding and corporeal strength, but
what man is referred to ? Man living after the incarnation of the
Word, and having knowledge of God as revealed in Christ? Cer-

41
tainly not. Man "in Christ," or "in union " with him, that is,
the Christian man? By no means. Man not a Christian, yet con
ceived of as organically and vitally united, in common with all
men, to Christ as the Head of the race? Assuredly not. That
conception of the relation of Christ to the human race, the
Founders of the Seminary were familiar with, and they decisively
rejected it, as will be shown. By man, they meant man as God
made him in his intellectual and bodily powers, man as constitu
tionally endowed by his Creator, and not as empowered after his
natural constitution was determined and made actual. The refer
ence of the Creed is to man as man — to man not as morally, but
as naturally constituted and empowered at the time of his creation.
Secondly, what did the Founders mean by the declaration, that
" man has understanding ... to do all that God requires of
him"? They meant simply that he has inteUectual ability to ap
prehend what God commands — all mental strength needful to en
able him to obey God. What they assert is that man, by virtue
of being created as he was, has this God-given endowment of
understanding — the power of understanding, and actual under
standing — understanding, for instance of sin and righteousness ;
and if of them, then of law ; and if of law, then of a Lawgiver;
and if of a Lawgiver, then of personal responsibility to him ; and
of his own obligation to repent ; then of reward and punishment.
Man as man has understanding enough to do what God requires of
him, so that when he has sinned, nothing but his own aversion to
holiness prevents his repentance and his salvation. If at any
time he does not act up to his understanding in doing God's will,
he is without excuse, and is justly exposed to eternal condemnation.
This the Professor, in taking the Creed, affirms to be his belief.
Thirdly, what did the Founders mean by the phrase "corporeal
strength" 1 They meant what they said, bodily power, physical
ability. Not a few of God's commands cannot be obeyed except
through the powers and the strength of the body. Dr. Samuel
Spring was one of the writers of the Andover Creed ; and he left
on record the meaning which he attached to the language we are
now considering. "Natural ability," he wrote, "is the intellectual
and bodily strength of man to perform every action which God
requires of him."
As natural ability consists in having intellectual and bodily strength to
perform every action required of man, it Is evident that moral ability must
consist in a willing mind. \Morai Disquisitions, pp. 172-3.]

42
The meaning of the Founders, then, in this twofold statement
of their Creed, is that man has natural ability, that is real and fuU
power, to do aU that God requires of him.
They also believed, and required every Professor to believe, that
man is '¦'•morally incapable of recovering the image of his Creator,
which was lost in Adam," that is, that he will not do what he has
ability to do in obeying God, or the gospel of Christ, and therefore
is under righteous condemnation.
The belief, then, presented in the Andover Creed is, that man
wherever found, cannot be blameworthy iu not obeying God, un
less he has intellectual and bodily strength to obey Him. Obliga
tion is commensurate with ability ; it can never transcend it. But
man as man has intellectual and bodily strength, that is, real and
adequate abUity to do all that God requires of him. Consequently
when he has sinned, he has understanding of his sin and of his ill-
desert, aud so is able to condemn his sin and turn from it, confess
it and cry for mercy. If he does not do this, it is simply because
he is unwilling tobe holy. Thus it is true, that " nothing but his
own aversion to holiness p)revents his salvation."
It should now be added, that the Founders of the Seminary re
garded this doctrine of man's " natural ability," as thus stated, to
be an eminent and cardinal doctrine in their Creed. The whole
system of their theological belief demanded that this truth should
have marked emphasis in the teachings of their Seminary. Every
body will admit this, who knows what the New England Theology
is, and that the theology of the Founders, and, of course, of their
Creed, was that Theology. Andover Seminary would never have
been founded, had this one fundamental truth been excluded from
the professed doctrinal basis of the Institution ; for the opposite
view of man's relation to the requirements of God was extremely
distasteful to the Founders. No one of them was more positive or
influential in the planning and establishing of the Seminary than
Dr. Samuel Spring. And " he was often heard to say," as tradi
tion tells us, " that he would sooner see the whole Seminary sunk
in the depths of the ocean than have its Professors teach the doc
trine of ' the sinner's inability to repent,' and the doctrine of ' the
imputation of Adam's sin to his posterity,' and the doctrine of
' a limited atonement.' " This tradition is doubtless believed
even by Dr. D. T. Fiske, now President of the Andover Board of
Trustees ; for in his pamphlet on the Andover Creed [p. 28] , he
cites it from Tlie Congregationalist of June 21, 1850. He wrote his

43
pamphlet in defence and advocacy of teaching, on Andover Foun
dations, the New Departure doctrines, one of which, as we shall
show, is, that man of himself has not the ability to do all that
God requires of him. How the fact, that this view, which was so
alarming and odious to one of the Founders of the Seminary,
strengthened Dr. Fiske's argument in advocacy of now teaching
that same odious view at Andover, it is difficult to see.
But we are not dependent upon tradition for Dr. Spring's belief
and intention upon this point. In a letter to Dr. Leonard Woods,
dated Aug. 1st, 1807, and published in Dr. Woods' History of the
Andover Theological Seminary [pp. 497-8] Dr. Spring wrote as
follows :
1. Is not this a fact, — that the Bible, which is the infallible guide of
truth, whether we compreheifd the connection or not, in all the commands
it enjoins on sinners, goes manifestly on the principle that they, as we un
derstand the doctrine of ability, in all cases, have natural ability to begin
to repent or be holy ?
2. Now shall we believe this, while we theorise, or shall we disbe
lieve it means what it says and make the Bible bend to our theory, or shall
we come to a solemn pause and query whether we do not theorise too fast ?
Human reason must not make itself the standard, in opposition to the open
face of Scripture. . . .
P.S. — If sinners have no ability to repent what must they do? and
what must we tell them while we use the Bible for a text-book ? . . . Are
sinners who are totally depraved, i.e., destitute of holy tastes, destitute
too of natural ability to repent, or to begin to be holy ? No; for thousands
of them have repented, and found that they had natural ability. . . . The
sinner if not the child of fate, or a brute beast, is a moral agent, and able
to begin to repent, as all the commands and penalties of the law, and all the
offers and promises of the gospel, invariably presuppose. If, in one word,
the sinner is unable to repent or make a new heart, the language of the
Bible is absurd, and what is God, and what is accountability but a
delusion ?
This testimony found in a letter written in the very year and
month in which the elder Seminary was founded, — written too by
a man who was second to no one in that noble band of men who,
a year later organized the present Institution, is surely significant
of their own interpretation of the Creed-statement now before us,
and of the momentous importance they attached to the Christian
doctrine which that statement expresses.
What now are the views upon this subject which are presented in
Progressive Orthodoxy, and for which Prof. Egbert C. Smyth is
responsible.

44
We make the following citations.
It might be enough to suggest, at this point, that the power and incli
nation to repent are not found except when God is revealed in Christ; that
only because Christ has brought God to men in a new light are they stirred
to penitence [p. 47].
Christ's power to represent or be substituted for man is always to be asso
ciated with man's power to repent. The possibility of redeeming man lies
in the fact that although he is by act and inheritance a sinner, yet under
the appropriate influences he is capable of repenting. The power of
repentance remains, and to this power the gospel addresses itself. Christ
suffering and sympathizing with men is able to awaken in them and express
for them a real repentance. It is to this power that Christ, the holy and mer
ciful, attaches himself. Realizing it in some, and being able to realize it in
all, He represents humanity before God. Now the power of repentance,
which, so far as it exists, is the power of recuperation, is superior to the
necessities of past wrong-doing and of preseijt habit. It is the one fact
which can never be estimated for what it may do, which baffles the calcula
tion of the wisest observers. The penitent man, so far as he really repents,
is in the exercise of a freedom which resists and almost subjugates the forces
of evil. In union with Christ, who brings spiritual tnith and power to man,
repentance is radical. Man left to himself cannot have a repentance which
sets him free from sin and death. But in Christ he is moved to repentance
which is revolutionary; in Christ he can express repentance, for in union
with Christ he adopts the feeling of Christ concerning sin against the God
of love. If man unaided could become truly repentant, he would become
holy, and would be the child of God. This was admitted by Jonathan
Edwards. But it is only in Christ that he has such knowledge of God and
of himself as is necessary to a repentance which is revolutionary. It is not
true, we admit and insist, that repentance without Christ is availing for
redemption, for man of himself cannot repent; but, on the other hand, it is
not true that Christ's atonement has value without repentance. Christ's
sacrifice avails with God because it is adapted to bring man to repentance.
This gives it ethical meaning and value. He is one, in with the race,
who has the power of bringing it into sympathy with his own feeling
towards God and towards sin; and so God looks on the race as having this
power in Christ, a power which, when realized, melts away the iron fetters
of what we call necessity and fate [pp. 54, 55, 56].
The race is reconstituted in Christ, and is other in the sight of God,
because different in fact, because containing powers for repentance and holi
ness, which, without Chi'ist, it would be hopelessly destitute of [p. 56].
God does not become propitious because man repents and amends, for that
is beyond man's power. He becomes propitious because Christ, laying down
his life, makes the race to its worst individual capable of repenting, obeying,
trusting [p. 58].
Now we affirm that these declarations of the New Theology,
upon the subject of man's ability to obey God, squarely antago
nize and deny the declarations of the Creed.

45
1. The Creed aflflrms that man of himself has real and full
ability to do all that God requires of him, and therefore has real
and full ability to repent. But the New Theology aflflrms, that
"man of himself cannot repent." [Prog. Orth. p. 55.] The
antagonism thus announced is clear and absolute.
2. The Creed aflSrms that man as man, man in his constitutional
faculties and natural abilities, has full power to obey God, and of
course is of himself capable of repenting of his sins, of trusting in
and obeying God. But the New Theology affirms that man has no
such power and no such capability, save as he is brought under
certain influences, or to speak more specifically, save as he is em
powered and moved by the sufferings aud sympathies of Christ.
One statement made is this : ' ' God does not become propitious
because man repents and amends, for that is beyond man's power.
He becomes propitious, because Christ, laying down his life, makes
the race to its worst individual capable of repenting, obeying, trust
ing." [Prog. Orth. p. 58.] The Creed represents that to re
pent and amend is within man's x>ower. The New Theology
affirms that to repent and amend is beyond man's power. The
Creed declares that man as man, man as originally formed and
endowed by his Creator and as now existing, is capable of repent
ing of his sins and trusting in God. The New Theology affirms
that man has this capability only as Christ through the sacrifice of
himself makes him capable. Men are utterly powerless to do God's
will until " Christ laying down his life, makes the race to its worst
individual capable of repenting, obeying, trusting." Here again
the antagonism between the two theologies is unqualified and
intense. 3. The Creed aflfirms that sinful man has real and complete
power to repent of his sins, and that repentance is one of the
"personal requisites in the gospel scheme of salvation," that is,
is one of the prescribed conditions upon the fulfilment of which the
sinner is set free from sin and death, receiving forgiveness and the
life everlasting through the atoning sacrifice of Christ. The New
Theology affirms that, " Man left to himself cannot have a repent
ance which sets him free from sin and death." [Prog. Orth. p. 55. J
The Creed does not admit that repentance avails for salvation
without Christ's atonement, but it does aflSrm that man of himself
can repent, can trust, and can do whatever God requires of him,
and that upon his doing these things he is freed from sin and death
by God himself ; not through magic, but through the vicarious sac-

46
rifice of the Lamb of God "slain from the foundation of the
world." The New Theology affirms that man of himself cannot
repent, cannot trust, and so cannot of himself do those things
which God requires him to do, and which he must do in order that
he may be saved through Christ. On this point also the two the
ologies are irreconcilably antagonistic the one to the other.
4. The Creed represents that sinful man has in himself not only
power, but also motive, to repent. His understanding of his sins
is a motive to repentance. Even if he is without the written law
of God, the law is lettered on his heart, and he knows the works
which are required of him. He does not sin without knowing his
guilt. He is so made that he cannot but know it. And all this
knowledge presses him to turn from his sin. His own conscience,
memory and reason plead with him to repent. The sense of ill-
desert, some vision of righteousness and of its rewards, conscious
ness of present condemnation under law, fear, forebodings, and
even remorse — all these things are motives urging him to repent
ance ; and under them he can repent if he will. If he does not, it
is because he will not. He is without excuse, and his impenitence
is a sin. If the Holy Spirit moves upon him, and Christ comes to
him in the gospel, they come not to give him one new faculty or
power, or any new ability whatever to repent, but simply to remove
his unwillingness. They present, indeed, new motives, — motives
of transcendent reach and power, — but they do not confer the
least natural or real abUity to repent. The only obstacle they seek
to remove is the sinner's aversion to repentance and holiness, for,
according to the Creed, this is the only obstacle to the sinner's sal
vation. All these interpositions of Christ, and of the Holy Spirit,
are of grace. They are not due to the sinner. He cannot deraand
them as his right. They constitute the undeserved redemption that
comes of God's infinite and gracious compassion. Such is the
theology of the Creed.
But the New Theology affirms, that sinful raan has neither power
nor inclination to repent, save as he is empowered and moved by
forces and motives from ivithout himself. It is stated [Progressive
Orthodoxy, p. 47], " that the power and inclination to repent are
not found except when God is revealed in Christ ; that only be
cause Christ has brought God to raen in a new light are they
stirred to repentance." According to this view, the sinner has
not only no inclination, or willingness, but no power, to repent,
until God is revealed to him in Christ. Therefore, if he does not

47
know God in Christ, he is under no obligation to repent, and im
penitence with him is not a sin. Moreover, if God requires him to
repent, as he does. He is bound to give to him, as his due, the
power to repent. But He gives this power, according to the New
Theology, by giving his Son that he raay, by the incarnation, come
into organic and vital relation to the race. The Son, by coming
into union with the race and revealing the Father, imparts the
power to repent. But if man is utterly unable to repent, and yet
is required of God to repent, the bestowal of the power to meet the
requirement is due to man, and God by giving his Son to impart
this power to him was simply raeeting an obUgation. Therefore
the gift of his Son was not of grace but of debt. How abhorrent
all this is to the Theology which Andover Serainary was founded
to teach is made evident by the single emphatic statement of the
Creed, " that our salvation is wholly of grace."
5. The Creed affirms, that "nothing but the sinner's aversion
to holiness prevents his salvation." This declaration is made in
connection with the stateraent of raan's ability to obey God in all
things, and as legitimately following that statement. "Man has
understanding and corporeal strength to do all that God requires
of him ; so that nothing, but the sinner's aversion to holiness, pre
vents his salvation."
But the New Theology teaches, that the sinner's "aversion to
holiness " is not the only thing that prevents his salvation. His real
and utter powerlessness to repent, prevents his salvation. And as
the needed power can be imparted to him only through his knowing
God in Christ, it follows that if he does not thus know him, the lack
of that knowledge makes repentance on his part impossible, and so
prevents his salvation. If the literal statement that "the power
and inclination to repent are not found except when God is re
vealed in Christ," and other statements of similar import, are to
be insisted upon, then none of the race who lived before Christ
had power to repent, for to none of them was God revealed in
Christ. Moreover by far the larger part of the race who have
lived since Christ, including we know not how large a number who,
though living in Christendom, have had no adequate knowledge of
God in Christ, have been equally powerless to repent. According
to the teachings of Progressive Orthodoxy, the salvation of all
those uncounted millions has been prevented, not simply by their
aversion to holiness, but because they had no power to repent.
And having no power to repent, they were not to be blamed for

48
not repenting. Their impenitence was no sin. Who was to blame
for their impenitence, and for their dying in sin ? Here is created
a needless imputation against God, — aud what for? — in order to
compel the inference that God must give them the power and
opportunity to repent in Hades.
But the Andover Creed says of every sinner, who has lived on
the face of the earth and gone down to death impenitent for his
sins, that nothing but his own aversion to holiness has prevented
his salvation. He aZo?ie was responsible for his impenitence, and
God was just. Thus, the Andover Creed gives a true and Scrip
tural Theodicy, while Progressive Orthodoxy breaks down utterly
in its attempted speculative Theodicy. And the New Theology is
found again to be in direct and irreconcilable conflict with that
which the Seminary was founded to maintain. The two can never
be believed and taught by the same man.
6. The Andover Creed teaches that man of himself, man as
constituted by his Creator, has complete power to repent of his
sins, and that his repentance will be an accepted and effectual con
dition of his salvation from sin and death through the redeeming
grace of God in Christ.
But Progressive Orthodoxy teaches, that man cannot truly re
pent, save as he not only knows Christ, but also is " in Christ."
No repentance of his can be radical and revolutionary, or of any
avail in the line of his salvation, unless he is "in Christ," "in
union with Christ." The teaching on this point is as foUows
[p. 55] : -
In union with Christ, who brings spiritual truth and power to man, re
pentance is radical. Man left to himself cannot have a repentance which
sets him free from sin and death. But in Christ lie is moved to repentance
which is revolutionary; in Christ he can express repentance, for ire union
with Christ he adopts the feeling of Christ concerning sin against the God of
love. If man unaided could become truly repentant, he would become holy,
and would be the child of God. . . . But it is only in Christ that he has such
knowledge of God and of himself as is necessary to a repentance which is
revolutionary. [Italics ours.]
But what is meant by the phrases, " in Christ," " in union with
Christ"? Are these expressions used in their Scriptural and
usual sense ? Does the phrase, ' ' in Christ ' ' mean what Paul
meant by it, when he said, " If any man be in Christ he is a new
creature," "There is therefore now no condemnation to them
which are in Christ Jesus" ? If so, then Progressive Orthodoxy

49
is teaching that man must be "a new creature" before he can
repent ; must be forgiven, regenerated, justified and saved from
his sins, before he can repent of them ; must be a Christian, be
fore he can repent, or can even be moved to repentance. Doubt
less this is not exactly what the writer means. Yet it is what
he says, and it is difficult to see, how it can be right to use familiar
and sacred phraseology out of its ordinary sense without frank
and full explanation. The passage just quoted is vague and
mystical. But what is under the mysticism? The true inter
pretation is suggested, but not declared, in the following brief
statements found in the same article from which we have been
making quotations, and, for the most part, in close connection with
those quotations.
So we have become accustomed to the thought that Christ has an organic
relation to the race. He is an individual, but an individual vitally related
to every human being. He preferred to be called the Son of Man. Paul
sees in Him the Head of humanity, the Second Adam. \Prog. Orth. p. 52.]
He [Christ] is one, in with the race, who has the power of bringing it into
sympathy with his own feeling towards God and towards sin; and so God'
looks on the race as having this power in Christ [55-56].
This Christ in with the race is regarded by God as one who has those
powers of instruction, sympathy, purity which can be imparted to his.
brethren. Likewise the individual in.. Christ takes the place of the indi
vidual without Christ, is looked on as one whom Christ can bring to repent
ance and obedience, and so is justified even before faith develops into charac
ter [p. 50].
The race is reconstituted in Christ, and is other in the sight of God,
because different in fact, because containing powers for repentance and
holiness which, without Christ, it would be hopelessly destitute of [p. 56].
God does not become propitious because man repents and amends, for
that is beyond man's power. He becomes propitious because Christ, laying
down his life, makes the race to its worst individual capable of repenting,
obeying, trusting [p. 58].
The theory, sufficiently set forth in these extracts, is that of the
universal Headship of Christ in the human race. According to
this theory, Christ is the Head not simply of the church, which is
his body, but of the entire human race. He is the second Adam.
Not simply believers, but all human beings, are organically and
vitally related to him. No man is separate from him. Mankind,
from Adam to the last child born on earth, is in union with Christ.
The Son of God comes into humanity, and the race, by a mysti
cal union, is made one with him. The union is as real as that of
the human body with its head. Every member of the race is as

60
truly united to Christ, as every member of the human body is
united to the head of the body. Such is the doctrine. It is not
simply a theory, but is set forth as a cardinal belief. It wUl prob
ably be found to be the germ and root of this whole system of New
Theology. It constructs and vitalizes all the other doctrines of
Progressive Orthodoxy. Notice its relation to the new doctrine of
repentance. Man of himself cannot repent. He is as impotent
to do this as is a piece of wood. But Christ appears, becomes tbe
Head of the race ; and the race is reconstructed in Him. Every
man is brought into organic and vital union with Him, and in this
union receives power to repent. Christ imparts this power. He
"makes the race to its worst individual capable of repenting."
The race now contains " poivers for repentance and holiness, which,
without Christ, it would be hopelessly destitute of." It is repre
sented, that Christ " realizing " this power " in some," is " able to
realize it in all." "The entire race repents or is capable of
repenting through Christ." [Prog. Orth. p. 54.] And this im
parted power of repentance, it is clairaed, is mighty beyond all
estimate. It is declared to bvj " the power of recuperation,"
and to be " superior to the necessities of past wrong-doing and
of present habit." [Prog. Orth. p. 55.] The repentance thus
secured, it is affirmed, is radical and revolutionary, the only true
repentance. Before calling your attention to the relation of this theory, of
the universal Headship of Christ in the human race, to the Andover
Creed, it is needful to raise distinctly the question ; Has man, even
when organically and vitally related to Christ, power to repent,
unless he has knowledge of Christ, and of God iu Christ? How
does the New Theology answer this question ?
We call your attention to two sample statements in Progressive
Orthodoxy. Ou page 47, it is declared, " that the power and
inclination to repent are not found except when God is revealed in
Christ." On page 56, it is declared, that "The race is reconsti
tuted in Christ ; and is other in the sight of God, because diff'erent
in fact, because containing powers for repentance and holiness
^^¦hich without Christ, it would be hopelessly destitute of." In the
first passage, it is distinctly affirmed, that the power to repent is
)(o«/ot«icZ except when God is known in Christ. In the second
passage, with equal distinctness, it is affirmed, that the race has
power to repent by virtue of having been reconstituted in Clirist.

51
All men have power for repentance, of which they would be hope
lessly destitute but for their vital relation to their incarnate Lord.
These two statements, on the face of them, are in direct conflict,
the one affirming that the power to repent is never found in a man
who does not know Christ ; the other affirming, that every man,
whether he knows Christ or not, has power to repent by virtue of
belonging to the race as reconstituted in Christ. How are these
conflicting statements to be reconciled ? A possible — perhaps the
probable — explanation is this : The idea in the flrst passage may
be, that the power to repent is " not found " in the soul, that it is
not apparent, is not brought into exercise, or realized, except when
Christ is known. The power is there, but is latent, inoperative,
and cannot be brought into exercise until Christ is revealed. The
meaning of the second passage evidently is, that the race — and so
every man in it — receives this dormant and unrealized power to re
pent through union with the incarnate Christ. Indeed, that the
two statements are thus to be harmonized is made quite evident by
a passage on page 54, where it is represented that man " under the
appropriate influences " is " capable of repenting." He cannot re
pent, save as he is influenced from without, and in a particular
way. He has a latent, slumbering power to repent, yet it is utterly
worthless to him until Christ is known. Thus he has power, and
at the same time has not power, to repent. It is a power that can
never be realized or made actual by any sinner, until he has knowl
edge of the Lord in his earthly life, the historic Christ. It is
doubtless to this latent and inoperative power in men, that refer
ence is made, on p. 54, in the declaration, that "The power of
repentance remains, and to this power the gospel addresses itself.
Christ suffering and sympathizing with men is able to awaken in
them and express for them a real repentance. It is to this power
that Christ, the holy and the merciful, attaches himself. Realiz
ing it in some, and being able to realize it in all. He represents
humanity before God."
The teaching of the New Theology, therefore, on the subject
now before us, appears to be ; First, that man as now constituted,
has no power of any kind to repent ; Secondly, that as reconsti
tuted, in common with the race, through the Incarnation of Christ,
he receives power to repent, which abides in him, which yet is
utterly useless — a powerless power — until Christ is known to
him. Thirdly, that only when Christ is known to mau, can the
latter have any actual or realized power to repent. Tliis knoiul-

62
edge is the one supreme necessity. Neither Christ himself, nor the
Holy Spirit, nor any other power, human or divine, can bring a
single sinner to repentance except through the sinner's own knowl
edge of Christ. Through this knowledge, and only through this
knowledge, Christ, and only Christ, reaUzes in sinful men the
power to repent. He, we are told, does realize it in some, and is
able to realize it in all.
What now is the relation of this theory of repentance through
organic union with Christ, to the doctrine required to be taught at
Andover ?
1. This New Departure theory of Christ's universal Headship
flatly denies the statement of the Andover Creed. That Creed
affirms that man, as already constituted, has real and complete
power to repent. The New Theology affirms, that man of himself
cannot repent, that, ouly as he is reconstituted in Christ, has he any
powers for repentance and holiness.
2. The plain, common-sense and Scriptural doctrine of tbe
Creed, that man has natural ability to do all that God requires of
him, is supplanted by the vague, dreamy and utterly unscriptural
theory, that Christ through his Incarnation, is organically and
vitally united to every man, and iu that mystical union imparts to
every man a dormant and useless power to repent.
3. The doctrine of the Creed is, that man has, in his own con
stitution and in the working of his constitutional powers, both the
ability and the motive to repent. The teachiug of the New The
ology is, that the sinner, though organically and vitally united to
the incarnate Christ, has no available power, and, of course, can
be subject to no motive, to repent, until Christ is known to him.
4. The violent antagonism of this new theory of repentance to
the theology required at Andover is indicated by the kind of preach
ing which it legitimately inspires. A clergyman's theology, if be
is true to himself, will determine the substance and type of his
preaching. How is the alleged truth of Christ's vital and univer
sal union with men, and the consequent impartation to them of
powers for repentance and holiness, to be preached? The preacher
must say to men, to even the worst man ; " You are reconstituted
in Christ. Christ is in organic and vital union with you, and you
with Him. In this union you have powers for repentance and holi
ness, of which you would otherwise be hopelessly destitute. You
are ' in Christ ' aud Christ is in you. From your birth Christ has
been organically and vitally related to you, and you to Him. But

you have had no knowledge of this. You have not known the
Christ in you, and consequently have not known Christ as He is.
Yet this very knowledge is essential to any realized ability on your
part to obey God in Christ. Thus you have had no available power
to repent. Therefore no blarae rests upon you for your impeni
tence. Your impenitence has not been a sin. But now that you
know Christ as he is, true repentance is possible to you. In union
with Christ, you can have a repentance that is radical and revolu
tionary. Look, then, to the Christ in you, who can move you,
realize in you, and express for you, a repentance which shall set
you free from sin and death."
"You are also required to ' come to Christ.' But how can you
come to Christ? Come to yourself, to your better self, for your
better self is Christ in you. You ought to be a Christian. Do you
ask how you can become a Christian? Be yourself, your true self,
and more and more be your true self ; for your true self is the Christ
in you. Jesus said, 'Except a man be born again, he cannot see
the kingdom of God.' But how can you come into the experience
of that new birth ? Build upion the best that is in you, for the best
that is in you is Christ. Know that when you were born in to this
world you were born into Christ, and ever since your natural birth
you have been in organic union with bim, a meraber of his body
— for Christ is the Head of every man."
In describing this preaching, we are not drawing from our fancy
or imagination. Young men under the teachings of the New The
ology are in training to preach what they have been taught. They
will preach it. Already there are indications that this is to be the
new style of preaching. It is another gospel that is thus set forth,
yet not another. Is there any need of saying, that such preaching
can never be inspired by a belief in the Andover Creed, or in any
other evangelical Creed in Christendom ?
5. The notion of the universal Headship of Christ in the human
race, out of which comes the New Departure theory of repentance,
is opposed to numerous statements, and to the whole spirit and
drift, of the Andover Creed, for its logical, inevitable and speedy
result is Universalism. If the race is reconstituted in Christ, if
through the Incarnation every man is brought into vital union with
the incarnate and now glorified Lord, how can any man be lost? If
a man is in Christ and Christ in him, can that mau perish ? And if
all men are thus organically related to Christ, can any man perish ?
If Christ, in the meaning of this theory, is the Head of the race.

54
the race is his body, and oan any meraber of the body of Christ
perish ! The teachers of the New Theology believe, that, Christ
being in this vital union with every man, it is reasonable to infer
that every man will sometime, — if not in this world, then in Hades,
have knowledge of Christ, with abundant opportunity to repent.
But it is equally reasonable to infer from the sarae premise, that
every man will be saved. Organic and vital union with Christ is
salvation. And as no man is "separate" from Christ [Prog.
Orth. p. 66] all men are saved.
We are aware that Professor Smyth denies now that he believes
in universal salvation. But how loug will he deny it? It is no
uncommon thing for men to adopt new beliefs, and yet deny, at
flrst, the implications that legitimately and practically go with
thera. But when theological teachers do this, usually their stu
dents outrun thera, and adopt with the new beliefs all the natural
implications and inferences. A Statute of the Seminary requires
the Professor to oppose Universalism, and he has proraised to do
so. But to hold and teach beliefs which lead to Universalism is not
to oppose, but to encourage, that error, and is a violation of the
Statute. IV. Our sixth complaint is, that Professor Smyth holds, maintains
and inculcates : That the atonement of Christ consists essentially and
chiefly in his becoming identified with the human race through his In
carnation, in order that, by his union with men he might endow them
with the power to repent, and thus impart to them an augmented value
in the view of God, and so render God propitious towards them.
Every Professor in subscribing to the Andover Creed makes this
declaration :
I believe . . . that Christ, as our Eedeemer, executeth the office of a
Prophet, Priest, and King; that agreeably to the covenant of redemption,
the Son of God, and he alone, by his sufferings and death, has made atone
ment for the sins of all men; that repentance, faith, and holiness are the
personal requisites in the Gospel scheme of salvation; that the righteous
ness of Christ is the only ground of a sinner's justification; that this right
eousness is received through faith; and that this faith is the gift of God; so
that our salvation is wholly of grace.
The portion of the Creed now cited obviously includes the fol
lowing statements of doctrine ; — not of opinion, but of doctrine.

55
1. That Christ, as our Redeemer, took upon himself the office
of priest, and in that priestly office offered himself as a sacriflce for
sin. 2. That it was in accordance with a divine arrangement, or de
termination, called the Covenant of Redemption, that the Son of
God made atonement for the sins of men.
3. That the Son of God made this atonement by his sufferings
and death. The statement is not that He made atonement by his
incarnation, or by his whole life of humiliation ; nor by the sacri
flce He made in coming, through his humanity, into close and dis
agreeable contact with sinful men ; but that He made atonement
specifleally by his sufferings and death. The Creed emphasizes the
fact that the atoning work of Christ was achieved in the final and
priestly offering of himself as a sacriflce for sin. It describes the
atonement as wrought essentially and chiefly in his death. It
glorifles the cross.
4. That Christ alone made the atonement. The fact that Christ
was the sole author of this saving work is stated with special dis
tinctness. The language is ; " The Son of God, and He alone, by
his sufferings and death, has made atonement " for sins. No other
being or beings were united to him, or identified with him in that
stupendous sacriflce. No man or angel took part in it. Separate
and alone his soul was made an offering for sin.
5. That the Son of God made atonement for the sins of all men.
But whUe the atonement is thus declared to be universal, it is
stated elsewhere in this same Creed, that God " from all eternity
elected some to everlasting life, and that He entered into a cove
nant of grace, to deliver them out of this state of sin and misery
by a Redeemer." The coraplete statement of the Creed, then, is,
that whUe Christ made atonement for the sins of the entire race.
He actually redeems and saves only those who are chosen of God.
6. That the atonement, made by the Son of God, and by him
alone, in his sufferings and death, was a vicarious atonement. It
was made "for the sins" of men, and therefore for sinful men
themselves. The doctrine of the Creed is, that Christ took our place, and,
as the Son of God, and our High Priest, endured imraeasurable
grief and pain in our stead. He offered himself a substitute for
guUty and condemned men, and offered his sufferings as an
equivalent for the penal sufferings threatened of God's holy law
against sinners. It was not with sinners, but for them, that he

56
suffered in his death. It was not in organic union with them,
but in their stead, that He was sacrificed on the cross. The race
was not with him in making the atonement. He alone made it. The
race, having Christ in it, was not a substitute for itself. Christ
alone was a substitute for the race. Apart and alone he stood in
his priestly atoning sacrifice. No human being, no angel, was
identifled with him, or in vital union with him, as in him, in his
passion and death. Such is the doctrine of the Creed. Nothing
can be raore explicit than its two statements, that " The Son of
God, and He alone," made atonement, and that He made atone
ment "for all men," — not ivith all men, — not in them, but apart
from them, and for thera. And his sufferings and death avaU
with God, not because they give sinners new capacities, and make
them of more consequence in the sight of God, but because they
were endured /or sinners, and can be righteously accepted of God
as a substitute for the punishment which they deserve.
7. The declaration of the Creed includes the statement, that
" the righteousness of Christ is the only ground of a sinner's justi
fication." The "righteousness of Christ" was "his obedience
unto death." [Prof. Park on The Associate Creed, p. 35.]
The doctrine stated here is, that God cannot maintain his justice
and holiness in justifying and saving sinners, except on the ground
of, or because of, Christ's obedience unto death. That obedience,
or righteousness, was his atoning sacriflce, in which He offered
himself a substitute for sinners, and his sufferings and death as
an equivalent for the punitive sufferings which sinners deserve.
Christ's obedience unto death availed with God, not because it
made men more powerful and of more worth in his sight, but
because it made it possible for God consistently and righteously to
justify sinners, — possible for him to remit their sins and raise
them to glory without any stain upon his own holiness, or any
breaking down of his own justice, or of the authority of his holy
law. 8. The declaration of the Creed includes the statement, that
"penitence, faith and holiness are the personal requisites in the
Gospel scheme of salvation." That is, these are the condiitons
to be fulfllled by sinners, in order that they may be redeemed from
sin and death, through the atoning sacrifice, of Christ. As sinful
men, on account. of their aversion to holiness, will not penitently
believe either in this atoning sacriflce, or in him who offered it,
God graciously gives the convicting and regenerating influences of

57
his Holy Spirit, and the pleading words and love of Christ to make
them willing to believe. Thus faith is the gift of God, and our salva
tion is not, in anj^ degree, due to ourselves, but is wholly of grace.
These several statements and interpretations, we think, present
the obvious and true meaning of that portion of the Creed now
before us. But we do not ask you to take our word for the cor
rectness of our interpretation. No man living has had better
opportunities to learn the meaning which the Founders themselves
attached to their own Symbol of Faith, or has given to that
Symbol a more painstaking and exhaustive examination, than
Professor E. A. Park, D.D. We ask your careful attention to his
comments upon those passages which express the views of the
Fouuders upon the great doctrine of the Atonement. We quote
from Professor Park's treatise, entitled, "The Associate Creed
of Andover Theological Seminary" [p. 35]. Speaking of this
famous Symbol, he says :
It overflows with riches on the most precious doctrine, for the mainten
ance of which the Seminary was instituted. It has a deep meaning when it
omits all reference to " the righteousness of Christ imputed to us," and when
it omits all reference to some of the high Hopkinsian views in regard to the
atonement. It allows various principles which it does not require. But it
does not allow a single one of the errors of the " new departure." It forbids
tliem all. In the most moderate interpretation of its words, as explained
by its framers, it requires a belief in the following principles: The God-
man is our priest, our royal priest, our royal prophet-priest. In this royal
priestly office he offers the sacrifice for sin. This sacrifice, in its very nature,
involves the iilea of his death and sufferings, all of which represent the legal
penalty for sin, and are, for the purposes of moral government, of equal
avail with that penalty. The pains and death of the Lamb of God were
designed to vindicate the honor of God's law, and of his retributive justice,
as much as it would have been vindicated by inflicting the legal penalty on
the penitent; this is the nature of his sacrifice. Our High Priest's right
eousness, that is, his obedience unto death, is the only ground on which
shmers can be justified; and their faith, which receives and rests upon this
"obedience unto deatli," is the only condition on which they can be justi
fied; and these two facts explain the very nature of the atoning sacrifice.
The faith of man in this sacrifice is a " faith to feed upon Christ," that is, to
be nourished by the great truths involved in the body broken and the blood
shed for transgressors; — the sacrament of the Lord's Supper reveals the
spirit of the sacrificial death. Agreeably to the arrangement called the cove
nant of redemption, the Redeemer made the atonement for all men: agree
ably to the arrangement called the covenant of grace, the Sovereign of the
universe determined from all eternity, on the ground of this atonement, to
regenerate and pardon some men; accordingly Christ suffered and died for
the whole race, but is the actual and only Eedeemer of only a part of the race.

58
Such is Professor Park's interpretation of the statements of the
Creed upon the doctrine of the atonement. Dr. Leonard Wood's
interpretation was the same. He taught as doctrines of the Creed,
not as opinions, but as doctrines, that Christ alone made atone
ment for the sins of all men, that in his sufferings and death he
offered himself a sacrifice for sinners, that he was their substitute,
and that his sufferings and death were accepted as an equivalent
for the punishment deserved by sinners. [Works, vol. ii. Lec
tures on the Atonement, pp. 456-464.] Professor Moses Stuart
was intimately acquainted with the Founders of the Seminary, and
knew how they interpreted their own Symbol of Faith : and his
statement concerning Christ's atoning work is, that :
His sufferings and death loere, by divine appointment, accepted instead
of the punishment due to us as sinners, and that God, in consequence of the
offering made by Christ, pardons our offences and restores us to his favor.
And he adds, This also is just what I mean when I say, that Christ in his
sufferings and death was our substitute. [Miscellanies, p. 223.]
But what is the theory of the atonement, now taught at Andover,
as set forth in the volume entitled Progressive Orthodoxy, for the
teachings of which Professor Egbert C. Smyth is responsible?
1. Progressive Orthodoxy denies that the Son of God alone made
atonement for the sins of man, but affirms, that whatever he did in
the direction of atonement he accoraplished in union with the entire
human race. Notice the foUowing afflrraations :
Thus we can regard Him [Christ] as our substitute, not because He stands
apart, not because He is one and the race another, but because He is so inti
mately identified with us, and because in essential respects the life of every
one Is, or may be, locked in with his [p. 53]. He is one, in with the race,
who has the power of bringing it into sympathy with his own feeling towards
God and towards sin [pp. 55-6]. Humanity with Christ in it is propitiated
to the divine thought from all eternity [p. 61]. In the Atonement Christ
the Son of Man brings all humanity to God. No member of the race is sepa
rate from him who thus offers himself [p. 66].
The Creed says that " the Son of God, and he alone, by his
sufferings and death, has made atonement for the sins of all men."
Progressive Orthodoxy says : " No member of the human race is
separate from him who thus offers himself." Also it says, " When
Christ suffers, the race suffers. When Christ is sorrowful, the
race is sorrowful ' ' [p. 53] . All this looks very much as if
Christ were not alone iu making the atonement, as if the entire race

59
took part with him in accomplishing that stupendous work, as if
every man with Christ made atonement for his own sins.
It is impossible to understand the New Departure views of the
atonement, or, indeed, of hardly any religious doctrine, without
first understanding and then keeping constantly in mind, the theory
of the universal headship of Christ in the human race, or as it is
sometimes called with a still larger meaning, " the universality of
Christ's Person." This theory has already been alluded to, but
there is need that it be as clearly and fully apprehended as such a
mystical notion can be. It is not the Scriptural doctrine that
Christ is the Head of the Church, which is his body ; nor that He
was the Federal Head of the race, that is, its representative, or
substitute ; nor yet that He is Head over all things to the Church,
the only Creator and supreme Sovereign ; but the notion is, that
through his incarnation, or by virtue of being the Son of Man, He
is the Head of the entire human race, in the sense, that every hu
man being is organically and vitally related to hira, identified with
him, and reconstituted in him. The union of every man with Christ
is believed to be as vital and real as that of the members of the
human, fleshly body with their head.
This speculation is set forth in Progressive Orthodoxy, in such
language as the following :
He (Christ) has kinship with us all by being our common Head [p. 19].
But it lies also in His mediatorship that He is the head of the race, and not
a mere member of it, and that humanity in Him becomes receptive of the
divine fulness, so that there are gathered up in Him all divine gifts for men
[p. 21]. One view of the atonement is gained by considering the historical
Christ in relation to humanity and as identified with it; in which view we
see, that the race of men with Christ in it is essentially different in fact,
and therefore in the sight of God, from the same race without Christ in it.
... So we have become accustomed to the thought that Christ has an or
ganic relation to the race. He is an individual, but an individual vitally
related to every human being. He preferred to be called the Son of Man.
Paul sees in Him the Head of humanity, the second Adam [p. 52]. Christ,
as has been shown in preceding discussions, is the universal man. . . . His
relationship is not tribal or national, but human, as com,prehensive as the
race. He is the second Adam, the head and progenitor of renewed human
ity Ip. 73].
On p. 110, we find this affirmation :
The movement of Christian thought with which we sympathize signifies,
in its deepest meaning, the exaltation of Jesus Christ as the Head of hu
manity, the Son of God, the Eedeemer of men, the Mediator of God to the

60
whole universe. For us He is all this, or else He is in no peculiar sense
sent of God, and we have no gospel of redemption.
This is a significant statement. It is nothing distinctive of the
New Theology to exalt Jesus Christ as the Son of God, the Re
deemer and the Mediator, but it is distinctive of it, not to exalt
Him as the Head of his Church, which is his body, and yet to ex
alt him as the Head of a fallen, sinful and conderaned race which
is not his body, but which He came to redeem, offering hiraself an
atoning sacrifice for it, so that whosoever wUl may be united to
Him and to his redeemed body in love, service and eternal glory.
The citations now made sufficiently set forth the New Departure
notion of Christ's organic and vital union, through his incarnation,
with every human being. Every human being, then, was with and
in Christ in making the atonement. Christ separate and alone did
not offer the atoning sacriflce. Our first statement therefore is
abundantly sustained. Progressive Orthodoxy fiatly denies this
teaching of the Creed, namely that the Son of God alone — not
with any other being — but separate and alone, by his sufferings
and death made atonement for sin. On the other hand. Progres
sive Orthodoxy affirms : that " No member of the race is separate
from him who thus offers himself."
2. The New Theology, in its theory of Christ's substitutionary
relation to men, sharply antagonizes the Creed.
The doctrine of the Andover Creed, — not our opinion, but tbe
Scriptural doctrine — involved in the statements of the Creed respect
ing the atonement as they have been understood and interpreted by
all the Professors who have taught theology in the Seminary, from
the beginning until recent years — is that the Son of God, in his
atoning sacrifice, offered himself as a divinely appointed substitute
for sinners, and that his sufferings aud death were accepted of God
as equivalent to, and a substitute for, the penal sufferings which
sinners deserved. But the New Theology advocates another kind
of sacrificial atonement and substitution — a novel theory which can
not possibly be reconcUed with the doctrine in which the Founders
believed, which they put into their Creed, and which alw.a3's, until
very recently, has been taught in the Seminary. The new specu
lation is stated in the following words :
The substitution is not of Christ standing on this side for the race stand
ing on that side, but the race with Christ in it is substituted for the race
without Christ in it. . . . Likewise the individual in Christ takes the place
of the individual without Christ [p. 56].

61
According to this view, the union of the individual with Christ
his Head is substituted for non-union with him. No one being
takes the place of the sinner. No one being performs a vicarious
and saving work for men. The union of the race with Christ its
Head is substituted for non-union of the race with Christ. Christ,
separate and alone, is substituted for nobody. Yet one statement
on p. 53 begins in this way: " Thus we can regard Him as our
substitute, not because He stands apart, not because He is one and
the race another." But how ca?i He be a substitute for the race,
unless He is one, and the race another? If He and the race are
identical, can there be any substitution? Can a unit be substi
tuted for itself? It is inconsistent for the New Theology to call
Christ " our substitute: " for He, in his sacriflce, is a substitute for
no one. Our only substitute is ourselves in union with Christ.
Christ alone takes the place of no sinner. He alone is not a vica
rious Saviour. He has not suffered and died in our stead, and his
sufferings and death have not been accepted of God as an equiva
lent for our deserved punishment. This, indeed, is admitted on
p. 57 in these words, "It must be confessed, however, that it is
not clear how the sufferings and death of Christ can be substituted
for the punishment of sin."
But according to the theology of the Andover Symbol of faith,
the very heart of the atonement is, that our Lord's priestly sacri
flce of himself in his sufferings and death was a vicarious sacri
flce, and that his sufferings and death were substituted for the
punishment of sin. He alone was our High Priest. He alone was
our sacriflce, offered /or us. He suffered, then, in our stead. And
ivhat he endured for us is accepted of God as a substitute for the
penal sufferings we deserve.
These two views of the atonement, the New Departure view and
the Creed view, are out of all sympathy with one another, and
there seems to be no possible way in which they can be brought
into harmony.
3. The New Theology antagonizes the teaching of the Andover
Creed, in representing that God is propitiated towards sinners, on
the ground that the incarnate Christ has imparted to them powers
for repentance and holiness, and so given them an importance and
value, in the sight of God which they would not otherwise possess.
The doctrine of the Andover Symbol is, that God has become
propitious towards sinners on the gmnnd of Christ's atoning
sacrifice ; in other words, that He is graciously disposed towards

62
them, and stands ready to justify and save penitent and believing
sinners, because Christ has taken their place, suffered and died
for them. But Progressive Orthodoxy affirms "that the race of
men with Christ in it is essentially different in fact, and therefore
in the sight of God, from the same race without Christ in it " [p.
52]. The representation in this language seems to be, that God
looks more favorably upon the race, because Christ, in his incarna
tion, has become vitally related to it. He is propitious towards all
men, because all men are in organic union with Christ. Again it
is stated, that " the individual in Christ takes the place of the in
dividual without Christ, is looked on as one whom Christ can bring
to repentance and obedience, and so is justified even before faith
develops into character" [p. 56]. This seems to teach, that
God is propitious towards the individual sinner, and also justifies
him even before faith develops into character, because He sees that
Christ is vitally united to him, and so is able to bring him to re
pentance and obedience. This union of Christ with the human
race is the one fact that is of supreme power in propitiating God.
We are told, that " He is one, in with the race, who has the power
of bringing it into sympathy with his own feeling towards God
and towards sin ; and so God looks on the race as having this
power in Christ" [pp. 55-6]. Thus every member of the race
is regarded by God as of more consequence and worth on account
of his union with Christ, and on this ground God smiles upon him
and stands ready to justify him.
Another statement is, that " the race is reconstituted in Christ,
and is other in the sight of God, because different in fact, because
containing powers for repentance and holiness which, without
Christ, it would be hopelessly destitute of" [p. 56]. We have
here a positive statement, that the entire race is "other in the
sight of God," — and it being other, he stands of course in other
attitudes towards it — because it is reconstituted in Christ, and so
has powers for repentance and holiness, which it otherwise could
not have. The ground, then, of God's gracious favor to the race,
is that Christ, in his vital union with it, has imparted to it certain
new and invaluable powers. Is that the teaching of the Andover
Creed ? Can that be harmonized with the Andover Symbol of Faith ?
We are also told, that :
God does not become propitious hecause man repents and amends, for
that is beyond man's power. He becomes propitious because Christ, laying
down his life, makes the race to its worst individual capable of repenting,
obeying, trusting " [p. 58].

63
The representation in this passage appears to be, that the ground
of God's being propitious to the entire sinful race, is, that the in
carnate Christ, not simply by his union with the race, but by his
death, imparts to every man, even the worst, the capability of
repenting, obeying, trusting. God looks upon this capability im
parted through Christ's death, and is propitiated.
In view of all these representations, then, the theory seems to
be, that, in whatever way the power or capability of rendering
obedience is imparted, by the impartation of it augmented im
portance and value are given to the race in God's view, and so he
is propitiated towards it, and stands ready to justify and save
sinners. Now how can this theory be reconciled with the doctrine of the
Andover Formulary of Belief? According to that Confession,
the only ground upon which God becomes propitious to sinful men
is the atoning sacrifice of Christ. According to the New Theol
ogy, the only ground upon which God becomes propitious to sin
ners, is, the impartation to them by Christ of jiower to repent.
The Andover Confession teaches that the only ground of a penitent
and believing sinner's justification is Christ's obedience unto death.
The New Theology teaches that, the sinner in Christ, taking the
place of the sinner without Christ, " is looked on as one whom
Christ can bring to repentance and obedience, and so is justified
even before faith develops into character" [p. 56]. The doctrine
of the Andover Formulary of Faith is, that Christ's sacriflce
avails with God because it is an atoning and vicarious sacriflce ;
because it is the only ground on which he can justify sinners.
The theory of the New Theology is that " Christ's sacriflce avails
with God, because it is adapted to bring man to repentance"
[p. 55].
4. Progressive Orthodoxy antagonizes the Andover Creed, in
teaching, that the atonement of Christ consists essentially and
chiefly in his becoming identifled with the human race through his
incarnation, and not in his sufferings and death. The doctrine of
the Seminary Symbol is, that, " The Son of God, and He alone, by
his sufferings and death, has made atonement for the sins of all
men." Then He, and He alone, made atonement in his sufferings
and death, and the atonement consists in his passion and sacrifice.
Now the atonement of the incarnate Son of God is his substitu
tionary, or viQarious work, whatever that work was. This seems
to be admitted by the Progressive Divines. But what, in the view

64
of the New Theology, is the substitutionary work of Christ?
We flnd such statements as these :
The substitution is not of Christ standing on this side for the race stand
ing on that side, but the race with Christ in it is substituted for the race
without Christ in it. . . . Likewise the individual in Christ takes the place
of the individual without Christ [p. 56].
These declarations, and others like them, as we have already
shown, set forth the only vicariousness or substitution of any kind
found in the New Departure theory of the atonement. Let it be
observed, that it is not the race alone that is substituted, nor Christ
alone, but " the race with Christ in it ; " that is, it is the union of
the tivo that is substituted for the race without that union. That
union of Christ ivith the race is the incarnation, as set forth in the
theory of the universal headship of Christ. Therefore that incar
nation is the atonement. That incarnation, or that u7iion of
Christ, in his humanity, with the race, and that alone, in this the
ory, is substitutionary. The death of Christ, so far as it is a part
of the incarnation, or is necessarily connected with it, may be con
sidered as, in some sort, a part of the atonement ; but it is rele
gated to a subordinate place ; for it is the union of Christ with
the race, his identification with men — not his death — that con
stitutes the vicarious element, according to this theory. The
atonement, therefore, consists essentially and chiefly in that sub
stitutionary union of Christ with the race ; and his sufferings and
death can be only incidental, even if necessarily incidental, to that
union. The relation of his sufferings and death to the incarna
tion, or to the vicarious atonement of the New Theology, is very
much like that of his birth to the same. His birth was essential
to his incarnation. So his death was essential to his temporary
incarnation. He could not have been glorifled without some kind
of termination to his life iu the flesh. It might be said, that
Christ became incarnate, or was born, on account of our sins, with
reference to them, born that He might become vitally united with
sinners and give them power to repent of their sins. So it may
be said, that Christ died on account of our sins, or even for our
sins, died in order to complete the incarnation by which sinners
are empowered to repent of their sins. These things can be said
of both the birth aud death of Christ, without meanino- tliat either
of them constitutes essentially and chiefly the atonement.
Moreover, in the New Theology, special emphasis is placed

66
upon the fact, that Christ's death was a tragic and pathetic event,
fltted to reveal vividly the wickedness of the men who crucified
him, and so indirectly the exceeding sinfulness of sin, and at the
same time to manifest his own righteousness and compassion, to
present to the world a realization of God's love, and in all this to
move persuasively the sensibilities and wills of men. But this
does not indicate that Christ's death had any thing more than a
secondary importance in the atonement. If the atonement con
sisted essentially and chiefly in Christ's substitutionary relations
and work, then it consisted, according to the New Departure the
ory, in his organic and vital union with the race ; for the only sub
stitution recognized in this theory of the atonement is that of the
race with Christ in it, for the race ivithout Christ in it.
Again, the atonement of the incarnate Son of God is his propi
tiatory work, whatever that work may be. But what his propi
tiatory work, according to the New Theology, is, we have already
seen. We are told, that :
God does not becom? propitious because man repents and amends, for
that is beyond man's po.ver. He becomes propitious because Christ, laying
down his life, makes the race to its worst individual capable of repenting,
obeying, trusting [p. 58].
That is, because Christ, through his death, gives the race a new
capability,' God is propitiated to the race. God is not made pro
pitious by Christ's atoning sacriflce, but only by man's being
made, through Christ's death, capable of repenting, obeying, trust
ing. But how is this capability imparted to man through Christ's
death? According to Progressive Orthodoxy, Christ's death was
not a propitiatory sacriflce, as it was not a substitute for the pun
ishment of the sinner. Bxit, in its, manner, it was " an astonish
ing, revealing, persuasive, melting fact," fltted to accomplish cer
tain ethical ends, to move man's emotional and elective powers,
and so make him capable of obeying God. By Christ's birth into
the race and his vital union with it, he imparts to every man the
poiuer to repent, and to obey God in all things. But the imparta
tion of that power is not enough. Before man is capable of re
penting, he must have knowledge of Christ and of God in hira ;
must know Christ in his historic life, as the head of the race, as
united to every man, as bringing, in his gospel, heavenly truth and
love to men, and among all these and other methods of knowing the
historic Jesus, it is needful to know him in his death. The per-

66
suasive and energizing power of this knowledge, however obtained,
of the personal Christ is regarded, by the New Theology, as indis
pensable in the work of making men capable of obeying God.
But this indispensable knowledge, as just intimated, may be
gained in different ways, some learning of him through one aspect
of his Person and work, and others through other aspects. Had
Christ ended his life by a peaceful and glorious translation like
that of Elijah, the essential and chief elements of this new kind of
atonement would have remained all the same. The incarnation
with all its vicariousness and propitiation would not have been
changed. The race with Christ in it would still have been substi
tuted for the race without Christ in it. God would still have been
propitiated by Christ's impartation to men of power to repent.
Men would still have had knowledge of the Historic Christ —
which knowledge is regarded by the Progressive Divines as of
supreme importance, — would still have had also knowledge of
God in Christ, and of nearly all the revelations of truth and love
which Christ made to man before his death. This shows how very
far, according to the New Theology, the sufferings and death of
Christ are from being central and supreme in the atonement.
Whatever ethical influence may be ascribed to such a death of such
a man — to a death so cruel and wicked, so melting and persua
sive, yet that death of Christ with his passion does not in the New
Theology, as in that of the Creed, constitute the vicarious and pro
pitiatory atonement of the Son of God. Christ's sufferings and
death, as regarded by Progressive Orthodoxy, have simply a reveal
ing and persuasive function. They manifest the love of God and
the sinfulness of sin, stir the sensibilities, and determine the choices
of men, in precisely the same way that the tragic sufferings and
death of John the Baptist did in their measure, and in such a way
as the cruel martyrdoms of holy men have always done in their
measure. Still this strange theory of atonement does allow its advocates to
speak of it as having an influence Godward, as well as manward.
It is vicarious, and it is propitiatory, after a sort. Christ alone is
substituted for no sinner, but the race in union with Christ is sub
stituted for the race out of that union. Christ alone does not
propitiate God towards any sinner ; but Christ in union with the
race, and by impartation to men, through that union, of power
and capacity to repent, does propitiate God towards the race. So
it is claimed. This view allows its advocates to use, to a certain

67
limited extent, the same phraseology which is used in speaking of
the vicarious and propitiatory atonement made by the sufferings
and death of Christ, — the great doctrine of the atonement set
forth in, and required to be taught by, the Andover Creed. But,
in the New Theology, the familiar phraseology is used with another
meaning, and many are deceived. Allusion has already been
made to a similar abuse of familiar and sacred language, in using,
out of their established meaning, the phrases, " in Christ," " in
union with Christ." Another example is found in diverting from
their more usual signiflcance, the phrases, " knowing Christ," " the
knowledge of Christ." And now we find a corresponding abnor
mal use of language in the discussion upon the atonement. Such
terms as "vicarious," "propitiatory," "vicarious atoneraent,"
" propitiatory atonement," signify soraething very different frora
that vicarious and propitiatory atonement which the Son of God,
"and He alone" made "by His sufferings and death," and
which is " the only ground" of a sinner's justification and salva
tion. The kind of atonement advocated in the new theory would
be more exactly designated by sorae such terms as these: "the
atoning union of Christ with the race," " the substitutionary union
of the race with Christ," " the propitiatory impartation of powers
and capacities to men," or "the atoning, vicarious, and propitia
tory incarnation."
Certain complete statements, also, in the article on the atone
ment, as elsewhere, need to be examined and interpreted in the
light of the new theory. On p. 59 is found this language: "It
is true, then, that Christ suffered for our sins, and that because
He suffered our sins are forgiven." On p. 62 is this sentence,
"The complete truth is that the sacrifice of Christ is an indis
pensable condition of the forgiveness of sin." It would be a
delightful surprise to learn, that this language means what, to
most readers, it seems to say. But the sentences look singular on
these pages. They are in strange company. What is their signi
flcance ? Are they simply two lonely fragments of a Scriptural,
but now departed, faith, found on these dreary wastes of specula
tive theology? Or, are the old, familiar and sacred statements
used with a new meaning? We fear the latter is the true explana
tion. When the Progressive Divines say that " Christ suffered /o?-
our sins," they cannot intend to affirm that Christ died for our
sin, vicariously offering himself alone as our substitute before
God, and his sufferings as a substitute for our punishment ; for on

68
p. 57 they expressly object to that kind of substitution, sayingj
" It must be confessed, however, that it is not clear how the suffer
ings and death of Christ can be substituted for the punishment of
sin." In saying that "Christ suffered for our sins," they may
mean, that He suffered on account of our sins, in pity and grief
for us, as a mother suffers for the wrong-doing of her son, and
that because He thus suffered in pity and grief, we are forgiven.
Or they may mean by Christ's suffering for sins, that He suffered
by reason of them, by coming into contact with sinners in his incar
nate life ; or in his organic and vital union with them ' ' suffered
aud died," as we are told ou p. 59, "in bringing the knowledge
and love of God to men." This is doubtless what is meant. And
then it would follow, that if Christ cannot corae into contact with
sinners without suffering from them, and cannot obtain forgive
ness for them without coming into contact with them, his suffering
is, incidentally, a "condition" of their forgiveness ; but it is not
the ground of their forgiveness, nor is it the cause of their forgive
ness, nor in any way efficient in procuring it. In that case the
sufferings and death of Christ were simply incidental, something
not desired, but that must be endured to gain a certain end ; like
the pain and, perhaps, loss of Ufe, incurred, when a good man
plunges into a den filled with malignant and fiendish men to save
some of them, if possible, from their degradation and ruin.
When it is said on p. 59 that " Christ suffered for our sins, and
that because He suffered our sins are forgiven," it is immediately
added, " But the suffering was borne because it lay in the path to
redemption." But if the sufferings and death of Christ were borne
simply because they lay in his path, as He hastened to redeem men,
— if they were borne simply because in rescuing men He could not
but come into contact with them, and suffer " by reason of" their
sins, then how were his sufferings any thing more than incidental
to his redeemihg work ? And can such a view of the atoning pas
sion and sacrifice of our Lord be taught in Andover Seminary, in
consistency with her symbol of faith? This point is vital. Pardon
an illustration. A man is sick unto death. A physician hastens
to his chamber, and by skilful prescriptions and surgery saves the
life of the dying man. But in doing this the physician himself
takes blood-poison into his system, suffers and dies. Now it
would be truthful to say, in this case, that the sufferings and death
of the physician were occasioned by his coming into contact with
the sick man ; that he suffered and died " by reason of" the man's

69
malignant disease ; and that his sufferings and death "lay in the
path " to the saving of that dying man. But they were only inci
dental to his salvation or recovery. It would not be truthful to say
that the sufferings and death of the physician were indispensable to
the saving of that sick man's life ; nor to say that the sick man's
life was saved by, or through, the sufferings and death of the phy
sician ; nor to represent that his sufferings were the efficient cause,
or the instrumental cause, or were in any way efficacious, in saving
the dying man's life. Such representations would be false and
indefensible. Equally false and indefensible, if this new theory of
the atonement be true, are the statements that "the sacrifice of
Christ is the indispensable condition of the forgiveness of sin," and
that "men, who are saved from sin and death, are saved through
the sacrifice of Christ." The Progressive Divines, if they can be
judged by their beliefs as expressed in Progressive Orthodoxy, do
not believe, that " the Son of God, and He alone, by his sufferings
and death, has made atoneraent for the sins " of raen ; nor that He,
and He alone, in his sufferings and death, was a substitute for sin
ners ; nor that his sufferings and death were offered and accepted
as a substitute for the punishment of sin ; nor that they were & pro
pitiation for the sins of the world ; nor that they were the only
ground of a sinner's justification and redemption. But the Progres
sive Divines do believe, that Christ's atonement — so far as He
made any — was made by his union, through his incarnation and
headship, with every human being ; that the only substitution in
this atonement was that of the race with Christ in it for the race
without Christ in it ; that the only propitiation in this atonement,
and the only ground of a sinner's justification and redemption, is
the impartation to him, by Christ, of power and capacity to repent.
The saddest thing about this Progressive theory of atonement is
that it puts dishonor upon the sacriflcial death of the Son of God,
dims the glory of his cross, has no place for and seldom speaks of
the Larab slain, or of the blood of Christ, who is our passover,
sacrificed for us. Such a theory is not simply antagonistic to the
great Scriptural doctrine of atonement as presented in the Andover
Creed, but if true, is destructive of it, and also of the whole sys
tem of Evangelical faith which the Seminary was founded to main
tain and inculcate.
It appears, then, that Progressive Orthodoxy sharply antagonizes
the Creed of the Seminary, in denying that the Son of God alojie
made atonement for the sins of men ; in teaching that the only

70
vicariousness or substitution in the atonement, is that of the race
with Christ in it, for the race without Christ in it; in holding to
the theory, that God is propitiated not chiefly, if at all, on the
ground of Christ's obedience unto death, but on the ground that
the incarnate Christ, by his vital union with men, has imparted to
them powers for repentance and holiness, and so given them an
importance and value in the sight of God which they would not
otherwise have had. Also Progressive Orthodoxy antagonizes the
Creed irreconcilably in maintaining that the atonement consists
essentially and chiefly, not in the sufferings and death of Christ,
but in his organic and vital union with men through his humanity,
making it more proper to speak of Christ's atoning, vicarious and
propitiatory union with men, than of his atoning, vicarious and
propitiatory sufferings and death.
5. To coraplete this argument in support of our sixth complaint,
there should now be added a fifth statement, to the effect, that
Progressive Orthodoxy antagonizes the Serainary Creed in certain
inferences which it draws frora the universality of the atonement.'
To sustain this declaration properly, it would be necessary to dis
cuss the whole question of the legality of teaching on Andover
Foundations the dogma of a probation after death. This large
topic has been assigned to one of my associates. It is not proper
for rae to go far upon his ground.
I may say, however, that the question raised in connection with
subjects now discussed by me, is, do the Constitution and Statutes
of the Seminary allow a Professor to hold and teach the dogma,
as an inference from the universality of the atonement, and of the
headship of Christ in the human race, that all men sooner or later,
if not in this world then in Hades, will have the historic Christ
preached and offered to them as a Saviour ? This question we an
swer emphatically in the negative, and for several reasons.
1. That there is to be a gracious probation under the gospel of
Christ in Hades, for those who have not known him in this world,
is not a legitimate inference from the universality of the atone
ment. The conclusion does not follow from the premise. The
statement is made [Prog. Orth. p. 64] that "Atonement, that is,
"^ In reading this paper before the Board of Visitors, I interjected at this point, in an ex
tempore way, a line of argument against the legitimacy of drawing from the universality of
the atonement, and of the alleged headship of Christ in the human race, the inference of a
probation after death, and of teaching that inference in the Andover Seminary. I now pre
sent in piinted form, and with more clearness and fulness, the argument which was then
outlined. — J. W. W.

71
the gospel, is universal, absolute." These terms are not defined.
If they mean, that in the atonement abundant provision is made
for the salvation of all men, then it is true that the atonement is
universal, absolute. But by no means does it necessarily follow
from such absoluteness of the atonement, that all men will some
time, if not in this life then in the next, have knowledge of the
historic Christ ; for whether they will, or will not, have such knowl
edge, is conditioned upon things not involved in the absoluteness
of the atonement. Nor are we to conclude that all men, who in
this life have no knowledge of Christ, are lost; for such a conclu
sion is contradicted by innumerable instances in which members of
the race, as we have abundant reason to believe, have been saved
without any such knowledge. Such deductions frora the absolute
ness of the atonement, or frora the universality of Christ's head
ship in the race, are unwarranted and false. And the laws of the
Seminary do not allow false reasoning and teaching on the part of
the Professors.
2. Moreover we affirm, that so long as the doctrines of Election
and Effectual Calling remain in the Creed, the notion of a probation
in Hades cannot rightfully be held or taught, either as an infer
ence or under any other name, by any Professor in Andover Sem
inary. The Founders took the statement of these doctrines from
the Westminster Divines, and understood them as those Divines
understood them. The doctrine of Election is, that all the mem
bers of the human race who are to be saved, were elected of God
to salvation from all eternity. But how is this election to be made
effectual? By the effectual calling of the elect. And none but
the elect are to be effectually called. The Westminster Divines
say expressly, "All the elect, and they only, are effectually called."
What follows the effectual calling of all who are elected to be
saved? " They who are effectually called, do, in this life, partake
of justiflcation, adoption, and sanctification, and the several bene
fits which do either accompany or flow from them." Thus says
the Andover Creed. Then all of the human race, who are ever to
be saved, are effectually called, justified and adopted mi this life.
Other benefits follow, some of which reach on through eternity.
But that does not change the fact that, according to the Creed,
all members of the race, who are ever to be saved, are called, jus
tified and adopted in this life. How many then will remain to be
called and justified in Hades? Not one. And if no one can be
effectually called aud justified in Hades, no one can have opportu-

72
nity to be saved there. Prof. Smyth in his elaborate and lengthy
discussion upon these Creed-statements, fearing after aU that
they do really cut off aU expectation and forbid all belief, that any
sinner will be effectually called in the next world, in his despera
tion, ventured the remarkable affirmation, that stiU God may se
cure to some of the impenitent in the future state the preaching
of the gospel, even though he knows that not one of them can be
saved. This suggestion is shocking. Is God a deceiver ? Will
he mock men in Hades ? Never. The Professor cannot in this
way save even the shadow of a shadow of his darling theory that
the great missionary fields are not in this world, but in that world
in which Dives suffered, nor the shadow of a shadow of his pre
tended right to teach such a theory on Andover Foundations.
The location in the Creed of its stateraent of the doctrine of
Effectual Calling is significant. It iramediately precedes its es-
chatological statements. We quote from the Creed : " I believe
. . . that they who are effectually called, do in this life partake of
justification, adoption and sanctification, and the several benefits,
which do either accorapany or flow from thera ; that the souls of
believers are at their death made perfect in holiness, and do imme
diately pass into glory ; . . . but that the wicked will awake to
shame and everlasting contempt, and with devils be plunged into
the lake that burneth with flre and brirastone for ever and ever."
The collocation of these doctrinal statements shows, that in the
belief of the Founders "the souls of believers" are "the effect
ually called," "God's elect," "the righteous," that is, all who
are ever to be saved. All these " are at their death made per
fect," and "immediately pass into glory." And after all these
are at their death made perfect and then glorified, how many will
remain to be effectually called and made perfect in Hades ? None.
Only the wicked, or non-elect, will be left, not one of whom,
according to the Creed, can ever be effectually called and saved
beyond this life. Thus intensely repugnant to this Symbol of
Faith is even the insinuation of post-mortem opportunities for
repentance and salvation.
3. Again, we affirm, that no Professor in Andover Seminary
can hold and teach the dogma of a probation after death, as an
inference, or under any other narae, and be true to his promise,
made in taking the Creed, that he will oppose Universalism.
The Founders in pledging every Professor to oppose Univer
salism had prominently in view a particular type of that error.

73
When the Seminary was founded, the Father, of American Uni
versalism, the Rev. John Murray, was living in Boston. He died
in 1815. For fourteen years he had been the minister of a Uni
versalist society in Gloucester. He was installed pastor of a
society in Boston in 1793, and there preached as long as he was
able to labor, about sixteen years. He was preaching there the
very year, 1807, in which this Serainary was founded. He was
a faraous man in his day. He preached in all parts of the coun
try, and through his preaching and published writings, his views
were widely disseminated. He was a man who attracted the
attention of all ministers and theologians. The Founders of this
Seminary must have known hira, as the public knew him. They
knew of his character, his writings, his beliefs, and his abounding
labors in introducing and establishing Universalism. His was the
type of Universalism which prevailed in this country when this
Seminary was founded.
Now what were his beliefs, and his methods of supporting thera?
The radical and forraative principles of his theology were identical
with those of Progressive Orthodoxy. [Letters and Sketches of
Sermons. Three vols. By John Murray. Also Life of Bev.
John Murray. With Notes and Appendix. By Bev. L. S. Everett. "^
He continually prea'ched these three doctrines, the universality of
Christ's headship in the human race ; a universal atonement made
by Christ in organic and vital union with every man ; and a final,
universal. Christian judgment ; that is, a judgment administered
by Christ under the gospel and in personal, living union with all
men. From those universalities he drew inferences after the man
ner of Progressive Orthodoxy. His methods of reasoning, and his
arguments were the same as those of the modern Progressive
Divines at Andover. He reasoned continually from the absolute
ness and universality of the attributes of God. He did not use
the word absoluteness, but did use its equivalents. He made
large use of the terms uni-wrsal and universality. He also magni
fied with rare eloquence of language the incarnation of the Son of
God. It was impossible for him to write many pages without say
ing something, and with the greatest emphasis, about " the Son of
Man," "the Head of the race," "the second Adam." On the
essential doctrines of the inspiration of the Scriptures, of the deity
of Christ incarnate, and of his sacrificial atonement, he was far
raore orthodox than are most of the present Professors at Andover.
But the doctrine of the universality of Christ's atonement was his

74
chief joy. He could never tire of preaching it, or talking of it.
He was always reasoning from such divinely recorded facts as
these: "He tasted death for every man." "God was in Christ
reconciling the world unto himself." "He is the propitiation for
the sins of the whole world." Christ is "the Lamb of God that
taketh away the sins of the world." He " died for all," and " is
the Saviour of the world." From this universality of the atone
ment he was ever arguing that all men will sometirae and some
where know Christ ; if not in this life, then in the next. He
preached that no man can be consciously or experimentally saved
without knowledge of Christ. Sinful man, dying impenitent and
unbelieving, can have no rest of soul, his conscience will lash him,
and he will be under condemnation and torment in Hades, until
Christ is presented to him. Only when, in view of the Saviour of
sinners, he repents and believes, can he be rescued frora the
appalling effects of his sins, and feel the peace of God.
Whatever subject this Father of American Universalism dis
cussed, he was sure to come round, at last, to his pet theme, the
universality of the gospel, and what he believed to be its logical
implications. He had these on the brain. In reading many a
page of his voluminous writings, one can easily imagine that he is
reading an editorial in the Ando'oer Bevieiv. Much of his phrase
ology was the same as that employed by those who now advocate
similar views, and use the sarae arguraents. As to the precise
time beyond death when Christ will be revealed to all men, he
was not positive. He used to say, as the Andover Professors
now say, that as to the tiraes and seasons he was not abso
lutely certain. But at sorae period beyond death, he was sure,
Christ, in his redeeming love and mighty power to save, would
be made known to all men. He was strongly inclined to believe
that this "period," as he called it, wUl be that of the general
judgment. Upon the question, therefore, of opportunity for all men, either
in this life or the next, to know Christ and be saved by him, the
Andover Professors and John Murray are in perfect accord. The
dogma that there is to be a probation after death, the Progres
sive Divines of to-day as truly hold and teach as did the "pro
gressive ' ' Father of American Universalism one hundred years
ago. This belief of the present Andover Professors was an essen
tial and dominant part of that very Universalism which was
preached by its ablest advocate in Boston, through New England,

75
in the States of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, at the
very time when, and for a quarter of a century before, Andover
Seminary was founded.
We have now, as we believe, amply substantiated four of our
Complaints against some of the beliefs and teachings of Prof.
Egbert C. Smyth, D.D. We think we have shown conclusively, by
evidence and argument, that the Professor, in accepting and pro
mulgating the New Theology, or Progressive Orthodoxy, believes,
maintains and inculcates :
I. That the Bible is not the " only perfect rule of faith and
practice," but is fallible and untrustworthy even in some of its reli
gious teachings.
II. That Christ, in the days of his humUiation, was a finite
being, limited in all his attributes, capacities and attainments : in
other words, was not " God and Man."
III. That no man has power or capacity to repent without knowl
edge of God in Christ.
VI. That the atonement of Christ consists essentially and chiefly
in his becoming identifled with the human race in his incarnation,
in order that, by his union with men. He might endow them with
power to repent, and thus impart to them an augmented value in
the view of God, and so render God propitious towards them.
We also submit, that we have proved, that all these beliefs, theo
ries and speculations are held, maintained and inculcated by the
Professor, in utter violation of the Constitution and Statutes of
the Seminary, and in sharp antagonism to the requirements of the
Seminary Creed.
Gentlemen ofthe Board of Visitors, — I have said what I have
largely because of ray responsibility as a Trustee. It is not in my
heart to injure in any respect, or in the least degree, any Professor
in the Seminary. But what right have our two Boards to disre
gard the known will of the Founders, and prove ourselves false to
a large, public and sacred trust, in the interest personal and pri
vate of a few men? We have a trust committed to us, one of the
smallest items of which is a million and a half of property. The
interests committed to us of sound theological learning, of the true
gospel, and of the Kingdom of Christ are imraeasurable. Now
what right have we to give consent to a breach of this great trust,
out of regard to the interest, or the assumed right, of the Profess-

76
ors in their salaries? If the learned counsel of the Professor
could defend the right of their client to his salary, could they also
defend our Boards of Trustees and Visitors against the charge of
committing an immeasurable crime, if we allow the Seminary and
all its future evangelical interests and influence to be sacrificed to
the personal and temporary convenience of half a dozen raen ?
It is a smaller matter, and yet worthy of our notice, that the
departure of Professors in our Seminary from the faith which the
Institution was founded to maintain, is no longer concealed. It
has become notorious. The reputation of the Seminary is suffer
ing. The number of students is greatly diminished. Indeed the
number was never so small in the history of the Institution, as it
has been since the New Departure began. Never was the Semi
nary so well endowed for a large work, yet never was it doing a
work so small, and of such a kind, as it has been doing since the
Seminary year, 1881-82. Thoughtful and honest men are looking
on aghast. The public conviction is that there is a great breach of
trust here.
Andover Seminary was founded by men who were raoved by
indignation at the alleged perversion of funds at Cambridge. Mr.
Hollis provided that the Hollis Professor should be an " orthodox "
man. But no one can tell exactly vvhat he meant by an orthodox
man. He did not define his meaning by preparing an elaborate
Creed. Very little is known of Mr. Hollis, or of the type of his
orthodoxy. But the Founders of Andover Seminary took eight
months to define what they meant by an orthodox man. Moreover
the Hollis Fund was small. Yet many regarded the alleged per
version of that small sum as infamous. Must a similar infamy be
attached to Andover, and become as much more notorious in
history as the funds here are larger ? Spotless should be the repu
tation of a Theological Seminary. This sacred Institution is edu
cating young men to be put in trust with the gospel of Christ.
They should have before them constantly an example of the most
scrupulous honesty on the part of the Professors in subscribing to
the Creed and fulfilling promises ; and also of the stanchest fidelity
to trusts in all the manageraent of this Christian Institution under
its Boards of Trustees and Visitors. Questions are asked, and
hints are given in the public prints, secular as well as religious, to
which our two Boards cannot longer be indifferent. The Alumni of
the Seminary are alarmed and pained. Reraarks are often made
in private which make every friend of Andover blush for shame.

77
Other similar judgraents have been publicly pronounced. I make
no charge of conscious dishonesty against anybody. But the posi
tion which the Professors have taken is morally indefensible.
They cannot stand where they are in the face of honest men.
Nor — I may say it in this presence without offence, for I offend
myself if anybody, in saying it — nor can the Board of Trustees,
or the Board of Visitors, stand behind, and in support of, these
Professors any longer in the face of honest men. For one I can
not do it, and I will not do it, without uttering, as I now do, before
this Board, before the world, and before heaven, my solemn pro
test against this monstrous wrong. This affair has become scanda
lous. But is Andover to be made infamous? Is her very name —
so dear to thousands, and so long a symbol of purity — now to be
blackened? Is her honor, till recently borne aloft fair and spot
less, to be henceforth trailed, torn, and trodden in the dirt, drag
gled in the wake of a gigantic breach of trust? These questions
can be avoided no longer. They must be answered, and answered
now. With you. Gentlemen of the Board of Visitors, is the authority
to decide the issue raised. And, therefore, I appeal to you.
Others present will give their own views of the case, and present
their own pleas. For rayself, in the name of the Founders of this
sacred and noble Institution, so far as I may be permitted to repre
sent them, in the name of all but the smallest fraction of the
Alumni, both the living and the sainted ; in the name of common
honesty and honorableness ; in the name of divine truth and right
eousness ; and, above all, in the name of Him whose glorious Gospel
and Kingdom Andover was founded to defend and fo extend over
the world — I do solemnly protest against the theological revolu
tion now in process, and pushed forward in violation of sacred
promises, in defiance of deeds of trust, of the Creed itself, and of
the Constitution and Statutes of the Seminary.

ARGUMENT OF REV. 0. T. LANPHEAR, D.D.

Gentlemen of the Board of Visitors :
1. I ASK your attention to the seventh charge of the list, viz. :
We charge that Prof. Egbert C. Smyth holds, maintains and inculcates :
that. The Trinity is modal, or monarchian, and not a Trinity of Persons.
We do not mean to say that Progressive Orthodoxy teaches the
monarchian or the modal theory of the Trinity, but it teaches what
is nearer to the monarchian or the modal theory of the Trinity
than the Calvinistic doctrine of the Trinity. It denies that Christ
is the immutable God, and thus is utterly irreconcilable with the
doctrine of the Trinity as expressed in the Creed. It is not so
utterly irreconcilable with the monarchian or Arian Theory. The
Andover Creed states that " in the Godhead are three Persons, the
Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost : and that these Three are
one God, the same in substance, equal in power and glory." It
also states that "God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchange
able in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and
truth." Now the Andover Creed has been explained from the beginning
as meaning that the Father may say of himself " I am God immu
table, infinite. The Son may say the same of himself, and the
Holy Spirit raay say the same of himself." Now the Progressive
Orthodoxy denies that Christ while on the earth could say of him
self, I ara God immutable. In both his huraan and divine nature
he was once ignorant. He was finite in all his attributes. Hence,
if he ever was infinite, he was changed into the finite. If he was
changed once, he might be changed again. He is not immutable.
Then there is not a Trinity of three immutable Persons or hypos
tases. These three hypostases may be modal, but they cannot be
each of them imrautable, for one of thera has been finite in power
78

79
and wisdom. God may exist as one infinite Person, and this is
the monarchian theory, but he cannot exist as three infinite and
imrautable hypostases according to the Calvinistic theory. Hence
the modal, or monarchian theory raay be true, but the Calvinistic
theory cannot be true.
What we have to say in sustaining this charge, we desire for the
sake of brevity, to put in a series of propositions :
I. The Progressive Orthodoxy does not in so many words deny
that there are three hypostases in the Godhead, the same in sub
stance and equal in power and glory.
II. The Progressive Orthodoxy affirms that while Christ was on
earth. He was not infinite in power and wisdom, and was not
immutable. [Prog. Orth. pp. 227, 228] : —
" But our implicit acceptance of Christ's teachings is an essential part of
Christian faith." Yes, and has evangelical Biblical science come into
antagonism with any teaching of Christ in its assertions about the compo
sition or structure of the Old Testament? " He has ascribed the Pentateuch
to Moses, and the later chapters of Isaiah to the prophet called by that
name." No, He has made no such ascription. Ho has in quotation fol
lowed the Jewish habit of naming the book from its reputed author. It is a
fair question as to whether, in the act of speaking, the person of the author
was before his mind. Certainly He had no thought of making the fact of
authorship a part of his teaching. One might as well claim that a minister
commits himself to the view that all the book ascribed to Isaiah was written
by that prophet, in saying to a congregation that he will read a chapter from
the book of Isaiah. And even if one is convinced that our Lord accepted
the traditional view of the authorship of the books in question, he cannot
hold that His authority is committed to that view until he has satisfied him
self that Christ claimed to be omniscient during the days of his humiliation,
— a belief irreconcilable with his own declaration that He knew neither the
day nor the hour of his second coming.
[Andover Beview, May 1886, p. 522] : —
The limitations to which his humanity subjected Him are recognized ;
but as the glorified Christ, He is delocalized, unlimited, is with his Chinch
alway unto the end of the worid.
[Prog. Orth. p. 32, as cited under V.]
III. After Christ ascended to heaven this second hypostasis be
came infinite in power and wisdom. Although ignorant on earth,
he was not ignorant in heaven.
[Andover Bevieiv, May 1886, p. 522, as cited under II.]

80
IV. Progressive Orthodoxy says, the three hypostases are not
three persons in a philosophical sense, but are only one person.
[Prog. Orth. p. 59] : —
Christ brings God the Person to man the person, and in such manner that
God is known as the God of holy love, the loving and holy Father.
In the answer filed under Particular 7. — Prof. Smyth says : —
If by the phrase "Trinity of Persons" is meant that the one absolute
person, God, exists as three persons; person being used in each member of
the sentence with the same meaning, I admit that I do not hold such a
doctrine. No exception is here taken to this answer. It is cited to show
that he believes in "the one absolute person God," as stated in
this proposition.
V. According to Progressive Orthodoxy the second of these
hypostases before the Incarnation, was not a person in the philo
sophical sense.
[Prog. Orth. pp. 28, 29, 30, 31, 32] : —
1. We start, therefore, with a conception of the human nature of Christ
as created by the Word and Son ot God for the realization in finite form
of that which is his own personal characteristic, as created to express his
truth and grace, and to share with Him in his Father's love. In its very idea
and essence the human nature of Christ is adapted to such a purpose. It is
finite, and the Word who created it is infinite. But we do not move in our
thinking, if we think correctly on this subject, merely on this plane of con
trasts. We may not forget them, but they are only a part of the truth.
The divine and human natures in Christ are essentially related to each other.
The human nature is the divine nature humanly expre.'ssed and reaUzed.
The one should be as closely connected with the other in our conception as a ¦
word with the thought it utters. The thought is unexpressed without the
word. The word is empty save as it is the bearer of the thought. The
relation is as intimate as this, but it is of a higher kind. A word is a breath,
a transient, fugitive thing. Christ's human nature is a real image of the
divine Word. That Word has personality. His word which He utters in
creating the human soul of Christ is personal. The human nature of Christ
is in finite form the personal word of that eternal Word. It is not a foreign
nature. If it were we could not possibly retain at once its integrity and its
personal union with the divine nature. The new and fundamental thought
in modern Christology is the essential relation of the two natures, so that
either can know and realize itself in the other. This being apprehended,
the standing difficulty with the doctrine is, if not removed, so reduced that
it ceases to be an objection.
2. This brings us to our second point, the act of incarnation as constitu
tive of the Unity of Christ's Person. We have, as elements of the union,

81
the divine nature as possessed by the Logos, or in that mode of being which
characterizes his existence, and an ideally perfect humanity. Such a human
nature must be personal. The divine nature in the Logos also is personal.
Yet neither in itself is a person. The Logos is a person only with, in, and
through the Father and the Spirit. The human nature is a person only
with, in, and through the Logos. The central point of Christ's personality
falls into the central point of Absolute Personality. Otherwise a person
would be the object of supreme worship exterior to and additional to the one
only God. Recent writers who have derived the personality of Christ from
the human nature, or else have made it simply a resultant of the union of
natures, have not duly guarded this point. They have had a truth at heart,
the vindication of the reality of Jesus's humanity. An impersonal human
nature, they have seen, is something defective and unreal. But in recover
ing this essential truth, it is not necessary to go to either of the extremes
just indicated. The constitutive act for Christ's Person is the union of two
natures. One of these, the human, is only potentially personal, and is
capable, by its very constitution, of entering into a divine life, of finding the
truth of its existence in God. The other is a particular mode of the divine
being, not in itself a person, but the bearer of a personal principle, and capa
ble of self-realization in a human life. The act of incarnation is the union
of these two.
3. The self-consciousness of Jesus. We have noticed before what it is as
disclosed to us in the evangelical narratives. We consider it now in its
basis and necessary form.
All our experiences arise from our constitution as embodied spirits, and
our entire consciousness reflects this union of body and soul. So Christ's
history has for its foundation the union of two natures. His personality
presupposes this union. It is formative for his life and consciousness, just
as the constitution of the soul in union with the body is the foundation of
its history. The analogy is not perfect, but in both cases alike two elements
without confusion or loss of properties are so united as to be the germ of a
development. The personality of Christ existed primarily as a latent power,
as does all other human personality. And as the basis was complex, so the
unfolding consciousness; never simply divine, never niei-ely human; never
the two in addition, or collocation, or separation, the one remaining unaf
fected by the other; never confused, blended, interchanged. That which is
divine shines in and through what is human ; that which is human possesses
and therefore can reveal what is divine. It is like the union in physics of
force and matter, only without there being on either side inertia. It is like
the union of reason and understanding in rational thought, only it is far
higher than a harmony of faculties. The divine nature and the human inter
penetrate each the other. The divine informs the human. The human
receives and expresses the divine. The one in condescending love and
sympathy makes every thing belonging to the other its own. The latter ap
prehends whatever the former has as its own good, the truth, the perfection
in which it finds its own fulfilment. And of this process, which is ever
reciprocal, there is in consciousness a centre. It is the personahty of the
creative Word, but not simply this. It is the personality of the created
nature, but not merely this. It is the one as affected by the other. It is the

82
latter fulfilled in the former. It is that point of rest and union, and there
fore of life and power, where the divine nature realizes the experiences of
the human as its own, where the human reahzes that its completeness and
perfection are in God. It is the centre of a divine-human consciousness,
and this personal centre is the God-Man.
This personality was not fully realized in the beginning. There was not
only growth of the humanity of Jesus, but a progressive union with the
divine. Here is the truth in the theories of the Kenotists, who maintain
that the Word, at the Incarnation, laid aside, or suspended the exercise of,
his attributes of omniscience, omnipotence, and the like. This is but a
clumsy and somewhat violent and unethical method of appropriating certain
undeniable facts; such as the limitation of Jesus's knowledge, the perfect
human reality of his earthly life, the veritable growth of his consciousness
and personality from the moment of the Incarnation. The Incarnation
itself, though real at the beginning, was also a process which had steps which
the records of Jesus's life enable us in some degree to trace and understand.
At every stage his history had a meaning for himself. Not only his birth,
but his visit to the Temple, his baptism, his temptation, transfiguration,
crucifixion, resurrection, were epochs in his consciousness, events fraught
with meaning and new powers for his own Person.
VI. Progressive Orthodoxy says that the second of these hypos
tases took to hiraself huraan nature, and then the divine nature
and the human nature became a person in the philosophical
sense. [See citations under V., also Prog. Orth. pp. 22, 23] : —
The Word became flesh not at Jesus's baptism, not at his resurrection or
ascension, but this was the beginning of his life, that the second Person of
the Trinity was made in the likeness of man, so that it was predicted that the
holy thing which should be born should be called the Son of God, and
the Son of the Virgin should be named Immanuel ; and when the event oc
curred it was announced to the shepherds: " There is born to you this day
. . . a Saviour which is Christ the Lord;" and wise men, guided by the star,
blended their rejoicings with those of the heavenly host, and when they saw
the young child fell down and worshipped Him. Make of these accounts
what we may, they are the fitting beginning of the historic life that then ap
peared, and its only adequate premise, as Origen long ago discerned. And
if we pursue the narrative in either of the Gospels we constantly observe the
same phenomena. The evidences of a complete human nature multiply as
we read, but not less manifest is the one Person who is the centre to which
all attributes and acts are ever referred; and so wondrously adjusted is all
this that, in reviewing the history of the reception which these accounts have
received from the great mass of readers, nothing is more striking and nothing
more uniform than the conviction which has prevailed that, from the manger
to the cross and from the cross to the throne, it is one and only one Person
who lived, suffered, died, and was believed to have risen from the tomb and
to have ascended on high.

83
VII. According to this representation there are in the Godhead
two persons in the phUosophical sense. The three hypostases form
one person, and the second hypostasis with the human nature
united form another person. Jesus Christ having a divine and
human nature is a person in the philosophical sense ; but the Father
by himself is not a person in the philosophical sense, neither is the
Holy Ghost.
VIII. God is immutable, but Christ having a divine and human
nature is mutable. God is omniscient, but Christ having a divine
and human nature is ignorant, therefore Christ having a divine and
human nature, is not God.
According to the view of the framers of the Seminary Creed the
union of the divine and human natures in the person of Christ was
such that He was conscious of himself as human, and also conscious
of hiraself as divine. In this union it was not supposed that He
lost any of his attributes as divine ; or that the humanity of Christ
lost any of its attributes. Thus he could speak as divine and
therefore as God, Omniscient ; or He could speak as a man and
therefore ignorant of some things. But Progressive Orthodoxy
does not allow that he could be thus conscious of himself, or that
the person of Christ admits of such a distinction.
IK.. The Progressive Orthodoxy [pp. 227, 228 as cited under
II. ] alludes to the fact that Christ while on earth did not know
the time of his second coming. The allusion implies that Christ
in both his divine and human nature was ignorant of this fact.
Now if the whole person of Christ was thus ignorant on earth, he
certainly was not thus ignorant before he carae to the earth. Here
then was a wonderful and a radical change from his divine om
niscience to a small degree of knowledge.
Again in the same paragraph [pp. 227, 228,] the same volume
implies that perhaps Christ during his earthly residence did not
know who wrote the Pentateuch. Now if Christ was God before
the incarnation, he had an agency in inspiring the author, or
authors of the Pentateuch. At that period he knew the authorship
of these flve books. If at a subsequent period the same hypostasis
did not know this authorship, then the hypostasis underwent au
essential mutation from knowledge to ignorance, and was not whUe
on earth, the God recognized in the Creed of the Seminary. He
was a person like that whom the Arians recognize as the Messiah.
It is far easier to reconcile the doctrine of the Progressive Or
thodoxy with the Arian doctrine, than with the Orthodox Trinita-

84
nan doctrine. It has such a theory with regard to the three
hypostases that it confounds us, and we do not know but the
monarchian or modal theory is the true one, but we do know that
the Orthodox theory is not the true one, if the book is correct.
X. Every Professor in Andover Serainary makes the solemn
declaration, that he will maintain the truth in opposition to the
Arians, and the Sabellians ; but the Progressive Orthodoxy does
not oppose the Arians and the Sabellians, in some of their dis
tinctive views regarding Jesus Christ as he lived upon the earth.
It favors some of those distinctive views.
XI. The Andover Creed states that the three hypostases in the
Godhead are the same in substance and equal in every divine
perfection. Now, if the second hypostasis can cease to be infinite in power
and wisdom, so, for aught we know, can the first and the third
hypostases. The three hypostases may become finite at one and
the same time. It is easy to see that all such ideas diminish the
majesty of God, and we know that the founders of Andover
Seminary were distinguished for their exalted views of the three
hypostases whom they exalted as immutable and infinite in power
and wisdom ; it is also easy to see that these three hypostases
must be modal rather than personal in the biblical sense. Christ
on earth could not have said, " I ara infinite, I am omnipotent, I am
omniscient." Peter could not properly have said to Him, "Thou
knowest all things."
If the three hypostases may cease to be infinite — since if the
second may, all may, on account of their equality ; so that there
is only the one absolute Person, God — then it must appear that
the three hypostases do not denote three eternal, ontological dis
tinctions in the Godhead. They are only convenient phrases for
describing the different modes of God's action and manifestation.
But this is the modal theory of Sabellius, and not according to
the Andover Creed.
There is a tendency in Progressive Orthodoxy to exalt the human
in Christ unduly by rationaUstic interpretation [as on p. Ill] :
The question back of all is as old as the gospel itself. It was first asked
by our Lord when He inquired, "Who do men say that the Son of M.^n
is ? " As of old the answer has been insufficient. One of the prophets, an
Elijah, a Jeremiah, one sent to a favored part, but to only a part of this
sinful world. The Master's searching question comes closer: " But who say
ye that I am?" The answer was in the question as He first asked it. Ue
is the Son of Man.

85
But Peter did not answer the question as first asked, but he said,
" Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God," not merely the
" Son of Man." And Christ blessed Peter for his answer, declar
ing that he had been guided in that answer by revelation from the
Father. The excellence of Peter's answer, is, that it brings out
both the huraan and the divine nature of the Lord : the Christ, the
Messiah the Son of David ; and the Son of the living God, the
Eternal Son of God. So Alford, Lange and Schaff. (Matth.
16 : 13-17.) To say then that the proper answer is, that, "He is
the Son of Man," is to exalt the human at the expense of the
divine ; which is all the more to be regretted because it involves
an error in exegesis.
XII. As the Progressive Orthodoxy opposes both the letter and
the spirit of the Andover Creed in regard to the person of Christ,
so it opposes the Creed in regard to the whole doctrine of the
Trinity ; and it favors such views of Christ while on earth as are
more in sympathy with Arianism and Sabellianism than with Cal
vinism. It breaks down the doctrine of Christ's immutable divin
ity, and thus breaks down the doctrine of the Seminary Creed in
regard to the Trinity.
XIII. Progressive Orthodoxy favors monarchianism so far as this,
it affirms that the Godhead consists of only one person, and that
the three hypostases were not during Christ's residence on earth
all of thera immutable, and equal to each other in power. We do
not deny that according to the book the divine and the human
nature of Christ on earth formed a distinct Person, but this dis
tinct Person who died ou the cross was not in the language of the
Creed, God, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in his being, wis
dom, power. We think that the volume has committed a funda
mental error in undertaking to explain the adorable mysteries of
the Godhead.
We therefore claim that Prof. Egbert C. Smyth, as being the
composer of Progressive Orthodoxy and of the Andover Beview,
does hold, maintain and inculcate that the Trinity is modal, or
monarchian, and not a Trinity of Persons.
2. We further charge that Prof. Egbert C. Smyth, holds, main
tains and inculcates, that. The work of the Holy Spirit is chiefly
confined to the sphere of historic Christianity.
The article of the Seminary Creed which every professor is
required to subscribe is this : —

86
" I believe that regeneration and sanctification are effects of the creating
and renewing agency of the Holy Spirit, and that supreme love to God con
stitutes the essential difference between saints and sinners; that by convin
cing us of our sin and misery, enlightening our minds, working faith in us,
and renewing our wills, the Holy Spirit makes us partakers of the benefits
of redemption."
To show that in Progressive Orthodoxy the work of the Holy
Spirit is chiefly confined to the sphere of historic Christianity we
quote the foUowing passages.
[Prog. Orth. p. 116]: —
For the sake of distinctness we state our position In the following postu
lates : —
1. The work of the Holy Spirit, as a work in motive, fulfils and makes
effective the method of salvation proposed by Christianity.
2. Historic Christianity alone offers sufficient material in motive, in the
life, death, and resurrection of our Lord, for the natural and eflacacious work
of the Holy Spirit.
[Prog. Orth. p. 119]: —
What we wish to aifirm and maintain is simply the Scriptural position that
Christianity is the religion of motive, a fact of which the presence of the
Holy Spirit is the unmistakable sign, and to which his work bears perpetual
testimony. [Prog. Orth. p. 123] : —
As the coming of Christ involved the gift of the Spirit, even to the disclo
sure of his personality, the designation of his offices, and the assurance of his
abiding presence in the world, so the gift of the Spirit seems to us to presup
pose the new facts, the new relationships, the new motives, which centre
around the Person of Christ.
[Prog. Orth. p. 121] : —
What we know as the dispensation of the Spirit follows and depends upon
the life, death, and resurrection of our Lord. The order is not simply that
of sequence : it is that of dependence. First the revelation of God in Christ,
then, and in consequence, the communication of the life of God through the
Spirit. [Prog. Orth. p. 129] : —
We conclude, then, that the work of the Holy Spirit is distinctively a
Christian work; that it follows in the order of dependence upon the revela
tion of God in Christ; that it draws its argument from the Person and work
of the Redeemer; and that it proceeds from and toward Chrlstiu the reui^wal
cf till' life of tli'j individual and in the renovation of society.

87
Now, in citing these passages, we admit that there are other
passages, in which the presence of motive in the facts of nature is
not denied, nor the agency of the Spirit of God in the use of these
facts ; nor the existence of regenerate life outside of Christianity.
But, with these admissions, we say that the work of the Holy
Spirit cannot in truth be limited in any manner to Historic Chris
tianity ; meaning by that, the life, death and resurrection of our
Lord : —
I. We argue this first, from the fact that in so far as the Holy
Spirit works by motive He works by Divine Truth. In the prayer
of our Lord for the sanctification of his disciples, he said, — " Sanc
tify them through thy truth ; thy word is truth : " ^ i.e., the whole
Word of God, that in the Old Testament as well as that in the
New. — In the 19th Psalm, 7th verse, it is said, " The law of the
Lord is perfect, converting the soul." It should be remembered,
that the Bible makes no distinction between conversion and regen
eration. The Holy Spirit uses the whole Word of God as motive,
the word of Law as well as the word of Gospel. In making the
former Scriptures the means of enlightening the authors of the later
Scriptures, the Holy Spirit established the continuity of his own
teaching and built the Church " upon the foundation of the Apos
tles and Prophets," ^ amalgamating the two foundations into one.
So St. Paul says to Timothy, " The Holy Scriptures [of the Old
Testament] are able to raake thee wise unto salvation, through faith
which is in Jesus Christ." ' The force of the expression lies in
the making wise. The Gospel, Timothy has already received ; the
faith in Christ Jesus, he already has ; and therefore he is in actual
possession of the salvation ; but the wisdom appertaining to this
salvation he is to seek by means of the Scriptures of the Old
Testaraent. It has been well said that in the Old Testament there is the
Promised Christ ; the Typical Christ ; and the Christ of Prophecy :
whUe in the New Testament there is the Christ incarnate of the
four Gospels ; the preached Christ of the Acts ; the Doctrinal
Christ of the Epistles ; and the Christ with his Church triumphant
in the Revelation. There is the Christ of the Old Testament as
well as the Christ of the New. It was through the Old Testament
that Christ taught his disciples personally after his resurrection.
" He expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things con
cerning himself. And he said unto them ^ O foolish men and slow
•- John 17: IT. = Eph. 2: 20. = 2 'Hm. 3: Ij. ' Luke 2i: 27,4 J-47.

88
of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken ! Behoved
it not the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into his glory?
And beginning frora Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to
thera in all the Scriptures the things concerning hiraself." Again
" he said unto them these .are my words which I spake unto you,
while I was yet with you, how that all things must needs be ful
fiUed which are written in the law of Moses and the Prophets, and
the Psalms concerning me. Then opened he their mind that they
might understand the Scriptures : and he said unto them thus it is
written, that the Christ should suffer and rise again from the dead
the third day."
Now, it is evident that that which the Lord, before his depart
ure, did by word of mouth, is precisely that which after his de
parture, was done by the Holy Ghost : then — the Holy Ghost
"opened their understandings, that they raight understand the
Scriptures." Now, in this view, as it is affirmed in the Creed of the Seminary,
that the word of God contained in the Scriptures of the Old and
New Testaments, is the only perfect rule of faith and practice ; so
it must be said that the Word of God contained in the Scriptures
of the Old and New Testament, must be considered as furnishing
material in raotive for the work of the Holy Spirit. But, it is in
opposition to this to say, as in Progressive Orthodoxy, that Historic
Christianity alone offers sufficient material in motive for the natural
and efficacious work of the Holy Spirit.
Besides, it must be considered in respect to prophecy, that taking
prophecy as predicated fact, it must stand in the same relation to
doctrine as is held by history or recorded fact. When the promise
was made to Abraham that in him all the nations of the earth
should be blessed, the promise was made as a prophecy, in the
form of predicated facts ; not to become historic and recorded
facts until the promise shall have been fulfilled. But though not
yet historic facts, and being only predicated facts of prophecy,
yet, Abraham believed in them, and his faith iu them as declared
by the Word of God was accounted to hira for righteousness. So
in the New Testament there is undoubtedly prophecy as p>redi-
cated fact — fact which cannot become historic and recorded fact
until at length in the future it shall be fulfilled ; which predicated
fact is nevertheless a part of God's word, and goes to m.ake up
the only perfect rule of faith, and also to make up the motive for
the work of the Holy Spirit.

89
But this predicated fact of prophecy is not taken into account,
when it is said, as in Progressive Orthodoxy, that Historic Chris
tianity alone offers sufficient material in motive, in the life, death,
and resurrection of our Lord for the natural and efficacious work
of the Holy Spirit.
II. In the second place there is in the work of the Holy Spirit
as affirmed in the Creed of the Seminary, a creating and renewing
agency of which we fail to find any proper recognition in Progres
sive Orthodoxy. It is said in the citation (p. 119) that "Chris
tianity is the religion of motive, a fact of which the presence of
the Holy Spirit is the unmistakable sign." This it would seem
must mean, taken with postulate (No. 2, p. 116), that the Holy
Spirit works only by motive, and that therefore his work is a
natural work, and that in so working his work is efficacious. The
question therefore rises here, whether it is intended to exclude the
supernatural work of the Holy Spirit? It is said indeed, in
the citation made frora the 129th page, that " the work of the Holy
Spirit draws its argument from the Person and Work of the
Redeemer ; and that it proceeds from and toward Christ in the
renewal of the life of the individual." — But is this renewal of
the life of the individual in any sense a supernatural work of the
Holy Spirit? Is it instantaneous, or is it to be understood as
a natural and gradual process in the development of Christian
character? Some answer to this question is given [Prog. Orth.
p. 126]: —
And if now we turn to the renewing and transforming work of the Spirit
within the soul we find the same direct relation to Christ. As before Christ
was the argument, now He is the pattern. The Spirit works toward Christ
in the reconstruction of cliaracter. It is enou'rh to say of his work that it is
in the endeavor to make men over into Christians. The end is actual and
manifest likeness to Christ. Regeneration thus acquires a large aud an
exact meaning under Christianity.
In this renewing and transforming work of the Spirit within the
soul we find no intimation of the supernatural agency of the Holy
Spirit. He takes Christ as the Pattern. The Spirit works toward
Christ as the Pattern in the reconstruction of character. It is
enough to say of his work that it is in the endeavor to make men
over into Christians ; whUe the end is the actual and manifest
likeness to Christ. This is called regeneration ; a regeneration
which acquires a large and exact meaning iiiy_'..-r Christiani'.y.

90
Now, while there may be something in this conformable to the
work of sanctification, we fail to see in this any thing of regener
ation according to the intention of the Seminary Creed. It is said
there, that regeneration and sanctification are effects of the creating
and renewing agency of the Holy Spirit. The meaning is that re
generation is an instantaneous work. The men who framed and
were interested in the Creed of the Seminary believed that God
the Holy Spirit was the sole Author of regeneration ; the flrst
mover of it ; the sole director of all other agencies in the work ;
and that sole Author, implied a direct and immediate interposition
in the work. Thus they regarded regeneration as a special work
of God.
But in opposition to this view of regeneration in the Seminary
Creed, regeneration is represented in Progressive Orthodoxy as
a gradual work, as the imitation of Christ as the pattern under
the influence of the Holy Spirit working on the soul by motive ;
the Spirit working toward Christ in the reconstruction of char
acter. According to the Creed, the Holy Spirit uses all of Divine truth,
as influence, and instrument, and motive ; while at the same time,
he has supernatural agency over and above raotive, and over and
above the influence of truth.
In opposition to this supernatural agency of the Holy Spirit,
Progressive Orthodoxy lays stress upon " the natural work of the
Holy Spirit." So Prog. Orth. [p. 122] : —
The knowledge of Christ precedes and is necessary to the natural work
of the Holy Spirit.
So Prog. Orth. [p. 116] : The work of the Holy Spirit is a nat
ural work.
[Prog. Orth. p. 129. J The question is asked : —
How could the Spirit of God develop without the aid of Christianity
those working principles for the renovation of society, which men would
recognize as sufficient, and to which they could surrender themselves with
enthusiasm? As though the Holy Spirit had no power besides that in which
he works as an influence attending truth, as limited to the life,
death, and resurrection of our Lord ; and that, as a natural influ
ence by motive, for the renovation of society 1
It is here left out of account that God by His sovereignty makes

91
a motive effective, which has been rejected and ineffectual in the
natural mode of influence. Thus, the Holy Spirit may work
according to motive in the natural method. He may assist con
science to do its work in a further degree than it would do if the
conscience were left to itself. He may act upon the minds of
men in many ways, by exciting thought in them, and by assisting
their natural reason and understanding ; but in the renewing and
sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit, those things are wrought in
the soul that are above nature, and of which there is nothinf
of the like kind in the soul by nature. In this supernatural agency,
the Holy Spirit does not use any means that operate by their own
power, or natural force, but he works not mediately, but immedi
ately. By this agency of the Holy Spirit society is renovated
much in proportion to the number in it who have become the sub
jects of renewing grace : and this too when without this supernat
ural work of the Spirit society would not be renovated at all, so
as to come in possession of a deep and lasting purpose for right
eousness. To us, the whole Book of Progressive Orthodoxy is pervaded
with rationalistic principles, to the utter neglect of the Scriptures.
Therefore, we believe that against Prof. Egbert C. Smyth as the
editor, composer, and publisher of this book, the charge is sus
tained : — viz. : that he holds, maintains and inculcates, contrary to
the Creed of the Seminary, that the work of the Holy Spirit is
chiefly confined to the sphere of historic Christianity.
3. We further charge that Prof. Egbert C. Smyth holds, main
tains and inculcates : That faith ought to be scientific and rational,
rather than Scriptural.
The declaration in respect to faith which every Professor in the
> Serainary is obliged by statute to make and subscribe is as follows,
viz. :
/ believe that the Word of God, contained in the Scriptures of the Old
and New Testament, is the only perfect rule of faith and practice.
This faith is credit given to the testimony of the Scriptures as
being the Word of God, as having the authority of God. Thus
received, " the Bible is to the theologian what nature is to the
mau of science, it is his storehouse of facts." By classifying the
facts of Scripture, and by induction from them, the theologian is
able to formulate the doctrines which the Scriptures tetich in the

92
harmony of a system. Thus the theologian, who takes the Scrip
tures as the only perfect rule of faith and practice, takes the
Christian system of doctrines precisely as it is given in the Sci-ip-
tures, without being diverted by any side references to particular
philosophical schools, or by any assumptions of science external
to the Scriptures, or by any demands of the human reason exter
nal to the Scriptures ; and because the Scriptures as the revelation
of the Eternal Mind take the place of the human reason within
the sphere of Christian doctrine. Now we observe :
I. That, as opposed to Scriptural faith, it is said [Prog. Orth.
p. 8] : -
There is no doctrine of the Bible, however rudimentary and essential,
which is not susceptible of illumination or higher systemization in the devel
opment of a scientific faith.
But Scriptural faith is not the result of scientific development,
nor scientific, for in that case it must be " conformed to the rules
of science." By science, faith is the result of logical induction,
so that scientific demonstration is independent of the will, and is
demonstrative only in so far as it is compulsory on the mind. The
existence of God is not susceptible of a scientific demonstration,
and Scripture so represents it, for, it commands us to believe in
one God ; but all commands relate to the will. The safeguard of
Scriptural faith is the right state of the heart, by which the obedi
ence of the will is secured, but a scientific faith has no safeguard
in its appeal to the mind, in respect to Scripture truth ; for what
may seem to be a demonstration to one mind will seem to be no
demonstration to another mind, and because the subjects of Scriptu
ral faith are above the capacity of reason and beyond the reach of
scientific demonstration. Any attempt to make Scriptural faith
scientific in method tends to destroy it.
II. As opposed to Scriptural faith, it is said that we cannot tell
what the Bible is, without referring to another revelation which God
has given in history : i.e. the account which the Bible gives of itself
is not sufficient. God has revealed himself in the Bible, and has
also given a revelation in history by which we are to learn what
the Bible is. By this it appears that the Bible of itself could not
be the "only perfect rule of faith and practice."

93
Thus in answer to the question " What is the Bible ? " — it is
said : —
[Prog. Orth. p. 192] : —
We can know just what the Bible is from revelation, if we have a revela
tion about the matter. Is this in our possession ? No; for the Scriptures
(to Christians the depository of revelation whatever else they may be) do not
undertake to tell how they arose, how they were collected into one sacred
volume, or precisely what they are. The exact conception of their distinc
tive qualities which by general consent belongs to complete Christian knowl
edge they do not profess to give.
[Prog. Orth. p. 193]: —
We are therefore driven back to a study of these Scriptures, (O. T.) as
well as of those of the later Canon, in the historical evidences of their origin
and nature.
[Prog. Orth. p. 195] : —
We must seek, then, knowledge of the distinctive quality and value of the
Scriptures by studying God's revelation given in history. A collection of
Hterature is before us, — ideas and narratives conveyed by human minds to
other minds in human language. As Christians we recognize qualities iu
these ideas and narratives which are wanting to other literature. We wish to
obtain a knowledge of these qualities as exact as possible, and try to find out
what distinguished their authors from other men that they could write such
books. Now, this study of history upon scientific methods, in order to
determine what it was that distinguished the sacred writers from
other men that they could write such books, is objectionable be
cause it may lead to the conclusion that they were not different
frora other men, and that they could not have written what their
words taken by themselves upon a fair exegesis plainly indicate ;
that, considering the age in which they lived as to civilization, and
the culture they received, they could not be supposed to have writ
ten what their words signify as interpreted by themselves. Thus
the sacred contents of the Scriptures must suffer abatement as tes
timony to be received by faith, to suit whatever caprice of the so-
called science of history or philosophy happens to be in fashion.
Besides, this inquiry into what distinguished the sacred writers
from other men, iu historic sources is not necessary. It is of no
consequence that we do not know the authors of the principles of
Geometry which Euclid is said to have collected and systematized ;
nor what led to the discovery of these principles, whether for the
re-survey of lands on the Nile after each inundation, or for archi-

94
tectural or astronomical use. The truth is contained in the con
tents of the Eleraents of Pure Geometry, independent of the age in
which they were discovered, or the peculiarities of the persons who
discovered them : so that in all time to come men who may have
no knowledge historically of Euclid, Archimedes or ApoUonius,
are fuUy persuaded of the truths of Geometry. So in a manner
analogous, though with more certainty, as to the truth of the Scrip
tures as the only perfect rule of faith and practice, as contained in
the Scriptures themselves.
III. The treatment of inspiration in Progressive Orthodoxy
dwarfs the Scriptures, and thus opposes the Creed of the Seminary.
The saying of Hopkins that " the Scriptures were coraposed under
the direction and superintendency of the Holy Ghost, the authors
being inspired by him " ^ is substantially denied in Progressive
Orthodoxy :
That the inspiration of the Bible denotes such an influence upon the minds
of the writers of the Bible as caused them to write in the best manner: that
it was inspiration of superintendency, direction, suggestion and revelation:
that by inspiration there was communicated to the minds of the sacred pen
men such truths as were important for them to know, and such as would
not, or could not otherwise have come to their knowledge.
All which is necessary in order that the Bible should be the only
perfect rule of faith and practice : is substantially denied in Pro
gressive Orthodoxy.
We say substantially, for we do not raean to say that any thing
is said on this subject with such carefulness in method, and con
sistency of statement, that it can properly be referred to as a
theory, or a vieiv, of inspiration. Besides, the treatment of this, as
of other subjects in this book is so obscure, through its mysticism,
as to preclude, in many instances, clearness and consistency of
thought. It is obvious enough however, that all communication of ideas,
such as could not Otherwise come to the knowledge of the sacred
writers, is here rejected. The revelation by the sacred writers was
rather such as would flow in a rational manner from their personal
vitality, as a part of their personal experience, so that while, in
some sense, the Holy Spirit imparted to them a supernatural gift,
the use of this gift was only by a rationalistic method, so that the
writers expressed only what came within the Umits of their own
personal experience. ^ System, vol. 1, p. 19.

95
It said [Prog. Orth. p. 198] : —
The assumption of a special activity of the Divine Spirit upon the apostles
and other writers of Scripture in the act of composition, endowing what came
from their pens with qualities possessed by no other Christian teaching, is a
most fruitful source of confusion in the endeavor to find out what Scripture
is. This is said in this connection by comparison of what was written
by the apostles, with their oral teaching, but it is plainly the inten
tion to reject the special aid of the Spirit in either case.
It is further said [Prog. Orth. p. 200] : —
The apostles were the bearers of a revelation made immediately to each of
them by the Spirit of God. Of the fact of such revelation they were con
scious; by their consciousness of It the form of their teaching is moulded. We
turn to their religious life and study this wonderful experience in the light of
their own testimony, in the hope of gaining such a knowledge of it as shall
lead to an adequate conception of the nature of the teaching which flowed
from it. The fundamental characteristic of the revelation borne by each
apostle was its vitality. It was an essential part of the spiritual life. The
gift received by the infant Church on Pentecost was not merely the bestowal
of this or that capacity; it was that of living in a new and higher way.
Again [Prog. Orth. p. 201] : —
The revelation of which each apostle was the bearer is not, therefore, to
be thought of as a set of religious ideas made over to him to be held as an
external possession. The man could not be himself without having it; he
could not give it without giving his life with it. For it was in essence a
personal experience of Jesus Christ in and through whom he lived.
Again [Prog. Orth. p. 204] : —
Our reverence for man is such that we can easily believe the best medium
for conveying God's truth to the world to be a human life filled and inspired by
this truth. And when we come under the influence of the apostolic letters
we feel that their vitality penetrating the truth is of the very essence of their
disclosing power. It is not so much that we draw ideas about God out of
them, as that we touch God himself in them, because the life with which
they palpitate is fed in its central springs by his own. It is not merely in
what they say that they reveal God to us, but in what they suggest.
Now according to this ; since the revelation of which each apos
tle is the bearer, is Hmited to that apostle's experience of Jesus
Christ, and partakes of that apostle's characteristic, it follows that
the revelation must be imperfect. It is so identified with what is
fallible and human, that it could not be taken as a perfect revela
tion.

96
This in a measure is conceded [Prog. Orth. p. 207] : —
It will be asked — "If the revelation partake of the characteristics of the
man through whom it is given, must it not share his imperfection ? " If by
imperfection be meant such defect of character as is implied in the lack of
ideal symmetry, we answer. Yes. The many years spent in Pharisaic bond
age must have left an abiding influence upon St. Paul's character ; for grace
cannot miraculously obliterate slow moral growths. We could not but ex
pect that his bitter experience should have led him to find in the doctrine ot
justification a relative prominence which it would not wear to any who had
not borne a chain like his.
But if this be a fair exposition of revelation by St. Paul, then it
raust follow that the doctrine of justification will appear in some
measure as an exaggeration to all not having had his peculiar ex
perience. Thus, the Word of God so far as revelation by St. Paul
is concerned, is not a perfect rule of faith. But according to
this view of inspiration the same may be said of the other apostles
whose peculiar and diff'ering characteristics have led them to simi
lar exaggeration each in his own way. Thus by reviewing the
sacred writers in detail, and marking the defects of the revelation
by each, we must conclude that the Scriptures as a whole do not
contain that Word of God which is the only perfect rule of faith
and practice.
This conclusion appears to be recognized as likely to be drawn,
and a remedy given, as in Prog. Orth. [p, 208] : —
In some rare cases one side of a truth is so frankly presented that only by
finding a correlate elsewhere are we saved from misconception ; as in James's
teaching concerning justification. But the slight blemishes in the very finest
optical instruments do not prevent our obtaining from them data which to
the human mind of finest training are exceedingly exact; and when we rec
ollect that the imperfection of the organ of revelation is the correlate of
qualities which give especial fitness to reveal God's truth to man, we may
dismiss the question of absolute perfection in the apostolic teaching as having
no living interest.
But this remedy for the imperfections of the sacred writers is
inadequate ; first, because the correlate of James's teaching con
cerning justification, wherever found, under this inspiration, is as
liable to convey a misconception as the teaching of James himself :
— secondly, because this remedy can apply, according to the
Ulustration given, only to the human mind of finest training, while
all others must be exposed to misconceptions of the Word of God
contained iu the Scriptures. To what proficiency iu science, to

97
what description of fineness in training must one attain in order
to be secure from misconception of the sacred writers ! How im
perfect the Scriptures as containing the rule of faith, if only a few
of the finest training, may expect to receive the Scriptures without
misconception of them !
Besides, who is to determine who these persons of finest training
are? Those not of this elect number, would be incompetent to
elect them, while it might not be safe to aUow this number to be
self-elective, lest the election be made by self-conceit.
Again, in denying that the supernatural agency of the Holy
Spirit exercised suggestive and directive power on the mind of the
sacred penman, revelation is limited to the personal vitality, Chris
tian experience, and characteristic of the writers ; which makes it
necessary that the revelation should be i'mperfect, because these
writers had not attained to perfect holiness. Some sin still dwelt
in the apostles. This sin must have given a tinge of error to their
teaching, and to the revelation made by them. This objection is
anticipated in Prog. Orth. [p. 207] : —
" Must not such sin as still dwelt in the apostles have tinged their religious
conceptions and teaching with error ? " We reply, This could not have been
unless they were more under the influence of moral evil than we have any
reason to suppose them to have been.
This answer to the question is not satisfactory ; for flrst, it is
not within the province of reason to determine that the sin which
still dwelt in the apostles would not tinge their teaching with error.
That would be rationalism. But secondly, if the question did
come within the province of reason, the inference would be in the
opposite direction, viz., that if sin did stiU dweU in the apostles,
it loould find expression in their religious conceptions and teaching :
¦unless their conceptions and teaching were corrected by the super
natural agency of the Holy Spirit from without, in superintending
and suggesting the revelation to be made.
But this agency of the Holy Spirit is denied : hence there is no
certainty that revelation coming from men in whom there is any
sin could be a, perfect rule of faith. This appears to be conceded
in Prog. 07-th. [p. 208] , where it is said : —
We can hardly believe, indeed, that the truth as revealed through the
apostles had such absolute purity as we must suppose it to have had if per
fect beings had been the media of revelation.

98
This concession shows that such inspiration as is here held is
inadequate. It could not insure a perfect and pure revelation,
unless the media of revelation should be persons perfect in experi
ence and characteristics, and sinless.
According to the view of inspiration implied in the Seminary
Creed, in which the supernatural agency of the Holy Spirit super
intends and suggests to the sacred penman, the penman of him
self might be imperfect, and sinful in some degree, and write a
poor hand as compared with an ideal of perfect penmanship, and
yet the revelation written by this penman would be legible and per
fect as a rule of faith.
But inspiration as held in Progressive Orthodoxy, since it rejects
this agency of the Holy Spirit, and cannot claim that it has per
fect beings as the media of revelation, must be charged with pre
senting a revelation which is imperfect, and so not a perfect rule
of faith, as revelation is declared to be in the Seminary Creed.
Again, inspiration as described in Progressive Orthodoxy is
opposed to the Creed of the Seminary since it virtuaUy assumes
that the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments do not compose
the sum of revelation. Revelation may have been continued since
the completion of the Canon of the Old and New Testaments.
Accordingly, in Prog. Orth. [p. 209] we read : —
The views of Christ and of his truth contained in the apostolic Epistles
raust, from the nature of the case, always shape the religious and moral con
ceptions of the church. Not that they alone possessed the spirit of wis
dom and REVELATION. He is the spirit of wisdom and revelation in
every soul in which He dwells, and there have been some souls in ages since
the apostolic into which he has so abundantly shed the radiance of God's
truth, that they have been the spiritual luminaries of their own and foUowing
centuries. According to tliis, Christ being not only the spirit of wisdom,
but also of revelation, in every soul in which he dweUs, it follows
that revelation has been continued since the revelation recorded in
the Old and New Testaments. It is added, indeed [Prog. Orth,
p. 209], that: —
No Teacher in the Church has ever arisen or can ever arise so filled with
the Spirit as not to depend upon the apostles for conceptions of God.
But it is also said on the s.ime page [200] that "the apostles
were continually drawing knowledge from the Old Testainent

99
Scriptures," and again the prophets from whom the apostles drew
knowledge were dependent upon the conceptions of God given to
their predecessors. This dependence of the luminaries of revela
tion since the apostles upon the apostles ; and of the apostles upon
the prophets ; and of the prophets upon their predecessors ; is sim
ply a dependence of fellowship. It is such that each iu turn is the
bearer of revelation in advance of that preceding, so that there is
nothing in this to prevent luminaries of revelation since the apos
tles, frora being the bearers of revelation in advance of that borne
by the apostles. It is said [Prog. Orth. p. 211] : —
We would gladly cherish the thought that other teachers might arise,
from whom should flow even more copious streams of living water than
those which welled from the hearts of the apostles. But we are compelled
to regard the circumstances of their lives as excluding such a hope.
We observe that the thought which would be gladly cherished, is
that other teachers might arise superior to the apostles in the gift
of revelation ; and that there is nothing here maintained to preclude
such an event, so far as the teachers in themselves are concerned.
That which excludes the hope for such an event is the less favor
able conditions and circumstances of all teachers subsequent to the
apostles. But while teachers may not arise superior to the apostles
in the gift of revelation, it is maintained that teachers will arise
having this gift, though in less degree. This is further shown in
Prog. Orth. [p. 212], which reads, —
The Church is ever adding to its knowledge of Christ, and the exegetical
process is certainly not the exclusive means of making the increment. Out
of mere study of books did not come its growing knowledge of Christ's
relation to God, and to mankind, nor its conception of the breadth of his
redeeming work. Such a product shows the revealing presence of the Spirit.
As further maintaining that the knowledge of Christ has not
come to the Church exclusively by Exegesis we refer to Prog.
Orth. [p. 12] : —
Single proof texts or collected proof texts are not a measure of Christian
ity nor of our knowledge of Christianity. The greatness of Christ is re
flected in history as well as in Apostolic teaching ; in the fulfilments of
prophecy as well as in the comparatively indistinct letter of the original pre
diction ; in the advance of the Church in an appropriation of the spirit of his
teaching; in its growing power to think after Him his thoughts and to be
inspired by his love; in the long succession of centuries which require new

100
interpretations of the meaning of his second coming; in the evolution of
the economy of the Holy Spirit whom He sends, and whose work is condi
tioned by his Person, sacrifice, and reign. All these things put the Church
now in a relation to his religion which never before has been paralleled.
Again, it is said [Prog. Orth. p. 10] : —
The Bible, it should be remembered, is not a coUection of texts designed
to establish propositions in systematic Theology.
In respect to what is said in these passages about texts of scrip
ture ; as already intimated in this paper, we say that without doubt,
the Bible is a " collection of texts designed to establish proposi
tions in systematic theology," provided, the system of theology to
be established is biblical. Single proof texts and collected proof
texts are a measure both of Christianity and of our knowledge of
Christianity, if the collection and classification of texts be impar
tial and exhaustive. As in raineralogy, by classifying minerals
according to their refraction, density, cleavage, and angularity,
with whatever other qualities they possess, various propositions are
deduced and systematically stated ; so by classifying texts of scrip
ture, various doctrines are deduced and formally stated in their
relations as composing systematic, biblical, theology. Of course,
such a classification of texts will not serve in a systematic theology
which aims only to be philosophical, and to move in the plane of
human science, rejecting the supernatural. It is true also that
doctrines have been formulated from the scriptures which were not
true, because the classification of texts upon which they were based
was defective. Arius and Sabellius both appealed to scripture.
Neither of them took the position of the infidel. Each acknowl
edged the authority of the written word, and endeavored to sup
port his position from it. But in these instances the individual
raind picked up scriptural elements as they lay scattered upon the
page and in the letter of scripture, and without combining them
with others that lie just as plainly upon the very same pages,
raoulded them into a defective, and therefore erroneous statement.
The test of a system of biblical theology ; that which determines
its soundness ; is, whether the classification of textc of Scripture
is complete from which the doctrines of the system have been de
duced. This is because the word of God contained in the Scrip
tures of the Old and New Testaments is the only perfect rule of
faith and practice, in all places and in all ages. So the system of
biblical theology, of which it should be absolutely certain that its-

101
doctrines were deduced from a perfect classification of texts of
Scripture, would be a perfect system. The only rightful claim
that a system of theology can have to being new, or of advance iu
thought beyond a preceding system, must depend upon its being
able to show conclusively, that it has secured for itself a more per
fect classification of proof texts from Scripture in support of itself
than has been secured by any other system.
It is necessary to notice here, a mistake often made in which
progress in the application of truth, is taken for progress in the
truth itself. It is often said of science that it has raade great ad
vances in our time, as shown in raechanic art ; when it is not pure
science that has been the subject of progress, but that the progress
made is only in the practical application of principles and laws in
science which had been demonstrated and known as pure science
for more than a thousand years. The same mistake has been made
in proclaiming an advance in Christian truth as revelation, when in
fact there was only new interest in the practical application of the
good old revelation in itself infallible, and not subject to change
or improvement.
Now, our complaint of the view of inspiration which we find in
Progressive Orthodoxy is that it assumes progress in the truth itself,
so that now the volume of Christian truth may be said to be greater
than that contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testa
ments ; so that now those Scriptures as revelation do not contain
the only perfect rule of faith and practice. This appears from the
revelation of God claimed to have been made in other sources, the
revelation in history ; in every soul in which God dwells, and reve
lation in science, — such that the Bible has been obliged to wait for
it, before it could have a definition.
[Prog. Orth. p. 15] : —
The question. What is the Bible ? could not earlier be investigated as in
recent days, for lack, apart from other reasons, of the requisite critical
apparatus. It is assumed that, any view of the Bible as of a perfect book,
which brings it into collision with historical and physical science,
weakens Christianity, by which it appears the word of Scripture
and the rule of faith must be tried before the tar of science, and
stand or fall according to whether they make good their claim be
fore that bar. Progressive Orthodoxy is fiavored throughout with
this deference to science.

102
It is said [Prog. Orth. p. 110] : —
We believe that all the more obscure revelations of God, and all the reli
gions as truly as the religion of the Hebrews, have been an education of the
nations preparatory to the clear, glorious, and potent revelation of God in
Christ. The revelation, then, given by God in the history of the religion
of the nations, is put on the sarae plane with the revelation in the
history of the religion of the Hebrews given in the Scriptures, all
preparing the way for the advent of Christ.
It is in this view, then, not the narrow revelation in the Scrip
tures, but this raore coraplete revelation in the history of all na
tions, and the developraent of all science, that makes up the perfect
rule of faith and practice.
Thus the whole tone and style of Progressive Orthodoxy goes to
show that there is something besides the Scriptures, which must be
taken in modification of the internal evidences and contents of the
Scriptures in determining the rule of faith and practice. It is this
rationalism, this domination of Science over the Scriptures, of
which we complain, and which we believe to be in opposition to
the Creed of the Serainary. We do not claim that reason has no
vocation in relation to faith. We believe in the spiritual unity of
the Bible ; that the writings composing the Bible, though originating
in widely distant ages and in so many different authorships, never
theless when brought together, reveal a spiritual unity, constitute
an organic whole, as truth to be received by faith ; as truth to
which reason and science have no capacity to make additions, and
from which they have no capacity to make subtractions ; either
directly as by positive denial of any part of this truth, or indirectly
by an unscriptural and rationalizing method of interpretation.
Science raay iUustrate Divine truth, but science cannot produce
new truth, as an improvement upon, or enlargement of Divine
truth. This supremacy of the Word of God contained in the Scriptures
of the Old and New Testament, by which it is the only perfect
rule of faith and practice depends upon the superintending inspira-
ration of the Holy Spirit. He served the sacred writers as a
prompter. When a man goes on the stage he has a prompter be
hind hira. If the raan makes a raistake, the prorapter corrects
him. If the man makes a statement and the prompter does not
correct him, the man knows he is right. It is because the Holy

103
Spirit, by the inspiration of Superintendency, so prompted the
sacred writers that the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament
are free from error, that the Word of God is contained in them ;
and that this Word of God is the only perfect rule of faith.
Now because we find in Progressive Orthodoxy, contrary to the
Creed of the Seminary : that faith is said to be scientific ; that we
must call science to our aid before we can tell what the Bible is ;
that there are other sources of revelation besides the Scriptures ;
that the supernatural agency of the Holy Spirit in superintending
by inspiration the coramunications made by the sacred writers of
the Scriptures is virtually denied; — therefore we maintain that
Prof. Egbert C. Smyth in having composed the book Progressive
Orthodoxy does hold, maintain, and inculcate, in opposition to the
Creed of the Seminary, that faith ought to be scientific and rational,
rather than Scriptural.

ARGUMENT OF REV. H. M. DEXTER, D.D.

To the Beverend and Honorable, the Board of Visitors of the Theo
logical Seminary at Andover.
Gentlemen : It seems due to exact truth that I spend a pre
liminary moraent in some further explanation, than has yet been
made public, of the exact genesis of this procedure.
In the Andover Beview for December last, [p. 579,] referring
to a fear which has occasionally found expression of their untruth
to their public pledges, after an intimation — in which we are not
able to concur — that such a fear does not occasion ' ' profound
anxietj'^ to the religious public generally," Prof. Smyth and his
associates went on to say :
We take the liberty of adding that we have become so familiar with the
opinion of certain persons concerning our alleged inconsistency, that it is
quite superfluous on their part to iterate and reiterate that opinion. Under
the circumstances we feel warranted in referring our censors to Romans xiv.
4. [Who art thou that judgest another man's servant? to his own master he
standeth or faileth.]
We understood these Professors in this language to seek to
repudiate that moral responsibility to the general judgment of the
Christian community, from which they can no more withdraw
themselves than they can elude the grasp of the atmosphere, or
the force of gravity ; and to intimate, that, though hundreds of the
Alumni of Andover should be grieved and shocked at its appre
hended defection, under their leading, frora the evangelical truth
which it was founded to advocate ; it would be " quite superfluous
on their part to iterate and reiterate that opinion." And, we
further understood them, for substance, to affirm that your Rever-
• The argument is here presented in full, several passages having been crowded out in the
reading, by the pressu.e to close the hearing. 104

105
end and Honorable Board, by having said nothing and done
nothing disfavoring their opinions and teaching, was distinctly
permitting thera to assurae that it indorses their position, and was
by " expressive silence " declaring that position to be agreeable to
the true intent of the Founders, and (without perversion, or the
sraallest avoidance of their true design) identically the same with
the views of those Founders themselves, without the least altera
tion, addition, or diminution.
Several of us met and consulted as to this. That consultation
was repeated more than once, and enlarged by a wide correspond
ence. It ended in a conviction that the tirae had fuUy come
when your Reverend and Honorable Board ought to be approached,
and sorae inquiry made as to the warrant behind so startling a
boast. A coraraittee was therefore appointed to seek an inter
view for that purpose ; and that committee — that it might not go
as on a mere errand of idle curiosity — reduced carefully to writing
sorae of the reasons why they, and those whom they represented,
had been led into anxious solicitude as to the present condition of
at least a portion of the Seminary teaching. We took the pains
to have our statement privately printed for your convenience, aud
in order that what we had to submit, might, in its exact language,
be cotemporaneously placed in the hands of the Professors.
You, Gentlemen, very well remember, that, by your courtesy,
we met you, in this building, on the evening of 6 July last, for
the purpose named. It must further be in j'our memorj-, that the
idea of making formal charges against anybody was then furthest
from our thought ; but that we were acting in what we supposed
to be the spirit of a deliverance of your predecessors in office, of
date Sept. 1844 [Dr. Woods's History ofthe Andover Theol. Sem.
425], in words, as follows :
¦Whenever the Visitors, from negligence, or from laxity In their theological
views, shall be wanting in their duty, that guard to the purity of doctrines
taught in this School, which the Donors intended to throw around it by per
petuating in this Board their own powers of supervision, will be broken
down ; and nothing will be wanting but similar defection on the part of the
Trustees, to change this "fountain of living waters" into a "Eiver of
Death." If, in the progress of time, any officer of this Institution should
adopt and teach opinions and doctrines inconsistent with those of the Donors,
as clearly expressed in their declarations and creeds, it would be requiring of
him the exercise of the principles of common honesty only, that he should
resign. Self-respect, if no higher principle, it is to be presumed, would
induce him to do it.

106
It is to be hoped, therefore, that this Institution will always be surrounded
by friends jealous for its honor, and imbued with that love for the truth, and
fortitude, which will lead them, even at the expense of personal ease, to
sound the alarm, upon any appearance of danger.
We had no other purpose than thus to ' ' sound ' ' in your ears
an "alarm," in regard to what, to us, was an "appearance of
danger;" supposing that our duty in the premises began and
ended there. You recall the further fact, that — honorably scrupu
lous not to open your ears in his absence to any thing that might
seem to be a quasi complaint against any Professor, you requested
and directed us to reduce the substance of our paper to the shape
of formal charges ; aud made it the duty of the respected Secretary
of your Board — when that should have been done — to cite the
Professors to make answer. Here, and thus, was the whole begin
ning of this case.
As to the intimation of the distinguished gentleman from New
York, who opened the hearing upon the other side, that something
was wanting to the moral make-up of this committee ; as if our
statement that we represented others than ourselves was a dishon
orable pretence, I have only this to say ; that I think it would
open the eyes of the learned gentleman — and of our friends the
Professors, as well — should we subrait to their examination evi
dence in our possession of the number, quality and fervor of
Alumni of Andover, who have been behind us, and who speak
through us, on this occasion.
Gentlemen, bear with me in two or three further precursory
suggestions. The iteration and reiteration on the part of those
who seem to seek to serve their cause by an appeal to popular
prejudice, have had weight with many to make them think that
this is a trial for heresy — and therefore out of place in the nine
teenth century, and necessarily a narrow-minded and odious thing.
You very well know, Gentlemen Visitors, that this is not a trial
for heresy ; that it proposes no direct inquilsy into the truth or
falsehood of the opinions of the Respondent ; but concerns itself
solely with the question whether, having solemnly and repeatedly
contracted to discharge the duties of the Brown Professor of
Ecclesiastical History at Andover iu a minutely specifled manner,
he continues faithful to that contract. It is no more a trial for
heresy than the inquest whether the professor in a Homoeopathic
hospital has been guilty, contrary to engagement, of Allopathic
practice therein, would be a trial for heresy. To be sure the Re-

107
spondent has asked, "why, if this be not a trial for heresy, we
did not prosecute the Treasurer of the Institution instead of pros
ecuting him?" To which I reply that we have never come to
the knowledge of any reason to suspect the perfect uprightness
of that, no doubt, most estiraable officer. If he had established
a Monthly Review for the purpose of advocating improvements
in the multiplication table, or some new method of so subtracting
as to leave the appearance of the former amount, and had made up
by extracts therefrom, and published, a book caUed " Progressive
Bookkeeping," we should think it might be well for some one to
examine his accounts.
A good deal of fun has been made — and nobotly in such a grim
trial as this ought to object, even at his own expense, to a little
fun flashed over its dark, but we hope not angry, face — of the
expression used on our side that this was meant to be a " friendly
suit." I need not remind you. Gentlemen, that this is a recog
nized use of terms to describe a case as to which both parties seek
conclusive judgment, and therefore join in amicable submission of
it to the proper authority. It certainly appeared to us to be emi
nently for the advantage of the Professors to obtain your official
endorsement of their course, if they are right in it ; and we should
have been glad to have joined them, and borne our half of the
trouble and expense of a legal inquiry which might have had that
end — which it is to be presumed must have reached that end,
should it prove the just one. Failing this, after j'Our action upon
our first request, no alternative was open to us but to go forward
as we have done, or acknowledge that we had no imperative con
victions upon the subject — which, as honest men, we could not
do. Another expression of ours has been severely censured. In seek
ing to make plain that we were not intending a trial for heresy, we
have spoken of a " breach of trust. ' ' We never intended to charge ,
and we never did charge, any dishonesty of purpose — any conspir
acy on the part of the Professors to steal a Theological Seminaiy.
But we have felt, and, after all of explanation so far made, we still
feel, that, in point of fact, there has been, on the part of the Re
spondent, such departure from teaching at Andover what its
sainted Founders by their dead hands support him there to teach,
as amounts to an actual breach of trust. But, if this at all, surely,
in all its circumstances and consequences, it outsizes any thing
else of the sort iu the annals of a by no means unspotted century.

108
We have never questioned the eminent character as Christians and
as Christian scholars, or the entire sincerity, of these gentlemen.
We believe that they have believed themselves to be in the path of
duty. They had a right to that opinion. We believed they were
wrong, and we had a right to that opinion. It has seemed to us
that others were as much — some even more — to be blamed, than
these Professors ; that something of the blame runs back into the
spirit of the age — an age when public conscience has been weak
ened till there is a sort of coramon judgment that what under any
color may be done lawfully, may be done rightly.
One raore suggestion seeras needful here — after raany things
which have been, almost bitteriy, said — to make our position justly
understood. We have never opposed, nor do we now oppose,
progress under the Andover Creed. We believe in theological
progress under that Creed quite as heartily as the Respondent and
his associates can believe in it. In all respects, and to all extent,
within the proper sweep and circle of the Evangelical faith, we
rejoice in such progress ; and have never intended to intimate,
and never have intimated, that such progress is wrong. That is
why we never found fault with Moses Stuart — clarum et venera-
bile nomen — or Dr. Park, or Dr. Phelps, or anybody else who was
simplj- trying to file off the rust of an excessive Old Schoolism,
and oil the joints of the raachine, so that it could work without
the squeak aud friction of the dark ages lingering about it. They
were doing what, under the Creed fairly interpreted by the re
corded compromises and intent of the Founders, thej- had a per
fect right to do. And if the Respondent had been doing nothing
more than this, we would have admired and applauded his every
just achievement. We do not object to the phrase " substance of
doctrine," within its proper limits. But there must be a limit
somewhere, which shall hound this progress. Aud we understood
the need of that limit stringently to assert itself somewhere be
tween the positions of Prof. Park and the late Theodore Parker ;
and when it began to look as if that line ought to be drawn behind
these progressing theolo<2ians, it became time for serious thought
and examination. But I shall revert to this hereafter.
And, now. Gentlemen, I am to argue before you the eleventh
charge of the list, to wit, that the Respondent holds and inculcates :
That there is, and will be, probation after death for all men who do not
decisively reject Christ during the earthly life; and that this should be em
phasized, made influential, and even central in systematic theology.

109
The Respondent has raade answer by admitting that he holds
and advocates the dogma of possible probation after death, but
denies that he would have it emphasized and made central in
systematic theology ; and that it is inconsistent with the Creed of
the Seminary. I do not regard the matter of emphasis as of
importance, aud so, without further reference to that, I join issue
with hira upon the main substance of the allegation, and I insist,
and hope to prove, that, taken with its Statutes, the Seminary
Creed is so phrased as to make it impossible for a believer in
probation after death, honestly, not to say honorably, to hold the
place of Professor under it ; and therefore that the said Respond
ent does not, as to this, " raaintain and inculcate the Christian
faith as expressed in the Creed ; " and, therefore, that he is liable
to the tliird Article of the Associate Statutes, which declares that
" no man shall be continued a Professor on said [Associate]
Foundation, who shall not continue to approve himself a man of
sound and Orthodox principles in Divinity agreeably to the afore
said Creed; " and that he is further liable to the clause of the
twentieth Article of the said Associate Statutes, which makes it
the duty of the Reverend and Honorable Visitors to " take care,
that the duties of every Professor on this Foundation be intelligi
bly and faithfully discharged, and to admonish or remove him,
either for misbehavior, heterodoxy, incapacity, or neglect of the
duties of his office;" and to see that the "true intentions" of
the Founders, "as expressed in these our Statutes, be faithfully
executed." I. I ask your consideration, in the first place, to the proposition
that, taken as a whole, the Andover Creed was so approached, so
originated and so impregnated, and is so shaped and historically
braced, and morally fortified in every direction from which such a
notion could come; as to make it to the last degree improbable thnt
the dogma of probation after this life can be fairly found in, or can
be honestly harmonized with, it. What had been the faith of the
Christian world on that subject from the beginning? And what
was it in New England in the summer of 1805, when, in conse
quence of the election of Henry Ware as Hollis Professor in Har
vard College, Samuel Abbot altered the will by which two years
before he had made that College his residuary legatee for the
support of theological students ; revoking that bequest and or
daining and directing that the money be given instead to the
trustees of PhUlips Academy [Woods, 59] "to be appropriated

110
to the support of a Theological Professor in said Academy, of
sound. Orthodox, Calvinistic principles of divinity, and for the
maintenance of students in divinity"? The quality of the soU
with the environment, largely determines the nature of plant-
growth. There are six thousand species of sea-weed, but you
cannot find one of them in the interior of Africa, or on the top
of Mount Washington. In what kind of theological sod — so far
as Eschatology was concerned — did the Andover Creed germi
nate? Sorae just answer raay usefully be approached along two nearly
parallel lines : by a rapid glance at the type of theological thought
on the subject through the patristic writers down to the beginning
of the 19th century ; and by sorae succinct review of the CEcu-
menical, denominational and Church Creeds to the same period.
1. There can be no doubt as to the conviction ofthe great thinkers
of the Early Church. In the middle of the second century we
find Justin Martyr using with the Emperor [Apologia Prima,
c. xn.] the plea:
And more than all other men are we your helpers and allies in promoting
peace, seeing that we hold this view, that it is alike impossible for the
wicked, the covetous, the conspirator, and for the virtuous, to escape the
notice of God, and that each man goes to everlasting punishment, or salva
tion, according to the value of his actions. For if all men knew this, no
one would choose wickedness even for a little, knowing that he goes to the
everlasting punishment of fire, but would by all means restrain himself, and
adorn himself with virtue, that he might obtain the good gifts of God, and
escape the punishments.
During the terrible pestilence which ravaged the most populous
provinces of the Roman Erapire a little after the middle of the
third century, Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, writing on the Mor
tality [De Mortalitate, xv.J said to the pagans around them :
The fact, that, without any difference between one and another, the
righteous die as well as the unrighteous, is no reason for you to suppose
that it is a common death for the good and evil alike. The righteous are
called to their place of refreshing, the unrighteous are snatched away to
punishment; safety is the more speedily given to the faithful, penalty to the
unbelieving. In the same century Hippolytus [Omnium Hmresmm Befutatio.
X. 30] refuting .all heresies, as he draws toward his conclusiou,
exhorts all that inhabit Europe and Asia and Libya :

Ill
Do not devote your attention to the fallacies of artificial discourses, nor
the vain promises of plagiarizing heretics, but to the venerable simplicity of
unassuming truth; and by means of this knowledge you shall escape the
approaching threat of the fire of judgment, and the rayless scenery of gloomy
Tartarus, where never ,s7nnes a beam from the irradiating voice of the Word ,'
Five-and-twenty years later we reach Arnobius, the gifted Nu-
midian rhetorician, who [Adve^rsus Gentes, II : 14, 53] as a relief
for his mind propounded the theory of annihilation for those dying
in sin :
They are cast in [to the river of flre], and, being annihilated, pass away
vainly in everlasting destruction.
A century later Augustine [Enchiridion, ex.] announced it as a
doctrine settled in theology :
It is in this hfe that all the merit or demerit is acquired, which can either
relieve or aggravate a man's sufferings after this life. No one, then, need
hope that, after he is dead, he shall obtain merit with God which he has
neglected to secure here •
adding that "the services which the Church celebrates for the
dead " are in harmony with this view. And in one of his Letters
to Evodius [EpistoloB, clxiv. 13] he inquires concerning a pro
posed exegesis of the " spirits in prison " text:
If we admit this opinion, according to which we are warranted in suppos
ing that men who did not believe while they were in life can in Hades
[apud inferos\ believe m Christ, who can bear the contradictions both of
reason and faith which must follow ?
It is surely of some significance that this greatest father of the
Latin Church, of whom it has been, no doubt truly, said, that " no
one raind ever raade such an impression upon Christian thought,"
should have gone on to raise against the notion of the possibility
of repentance after death the two following objections — having
singular pertinence to the phase of discussion now present [76id.] :
In the first place, if this were true, we should seem to have no reason for
mourning over those who have departed from the body without that grace,
and it would be of no use to be anxious, and urgently to exhort men to ac
cept it before they die, lest they should be punished with everlasting death.
If, further, it be taught that in Hades [apud inferos] those only believe to no
purpose [inutiliter atque iiifructuose] who refused here on earth to accept the
preached gospel, but that to believe there will profit those who never despised
that which they had it not in their power to hear in this world, another still
greater absurdity follows [aliud sequitur absurdixis] to wit, that forasmuch

112
as all men surely will die, and it is better for them to go into Hades wholly free
from the guilt of having despised the gospel, — since otherwise it can do thera
no good to believe it when they come there — the gospel ought not to be
preached on earth; which to think is as silly as it is impious [quod sentire,
impi(B vanitatis est].
Origen alone of the patristic writers distinctly aflflrmed the pos
sibihty of reconciUation to God after death, saying [Hom. in
Levit. ix. 5] :
A day of propitiation remains to us until the going down of the sun; that
is, until the end of the world.
He, too, [Joan. torn. xix. 3] predated those ingenious modern
expositors who interpret the declaration of the Saviour that the sin
against the Holy Ghost [Matt. xii. 32] shall be forgiven " neither
in this world nor in that which is to come," as giving veiled an
nouncement of the possibility of post-mortem forgiveness for other
sins. There were also two or three writers in the 4th and 5th
centuries who thought some forra of restoration not impossible.
The early conceptions of the Intermediate State — under the
suggestions of Origen, the suppositions of Augustine, and the defi
nite declarations of Gregory the Great, slid readily into the Rom
ish doctrine of Purgatory ; a doctrine which — as I need not remind
you — taken with its connections, distinctly repudiates all idea of
probation after this life — Purgatory being for the imperfectly
righteous, and not at all for the wicked. And when Protestantism,
centuries after, began to frarae its ideas into propositions, it spoke
strongly and squarely, and almost uniforralj', to the point that sal
vation lies this side the grave ; continuing so to speak untU the
recent speculations of Kahnis, Oosterzee, Dorner, Martensen, and
others, whose influence, I take it, has assembled us here to-day.
The view which prevailed among godly men in England when
this country was settled, is very well shown in that once greatly
thought of, but now seldora seen, Treatise of Christian Beligion,
which was published in complete form in 1616, under the super
vision of the executors of the renowned Thomas Cartwright. It
[72] speaks thus :
Q,. Hitherto of the punishments [of sin] in this life : 'Wliat are they in the
life to come f
A. They are most horrible and vnspeakable : first, the soules of the wicked,
after this life, are sent immediately to hell, vntill the day of ludgement: then
at the day of ludgement, their Bodies shall bee ioyned to their Soules, and both

113
together shall be tormented in hell fire euerlastingly ; and so much the more
•tormented there, by how much they haue had more freedome from paine of
body, and anguish of soule, and losse of outward things in this life.
Such having been upon this subject the direction of Christian
thought and faith as revealed by the great scholars of the Church
through eighteen centuries, I ask you next to examine :
2. The testimony of the Creeds. On 7 October last, at Des
Moines, the Respondent declared before the American Board of
Commissioners for Foreign Missions, that neither the Gospel nor
the consensus of Christendom, condemns the doctrine of probation
after death. Speaking [Great Debate, 17] of the denial of the
wisdom of sending out as missionaries those who are not pre
pared to declare that mens' only chance for salvation is in this life,
he used these words :
I say in all calmness, but with a conviction that has been deepened and
matured by all the experiences of these trying times, that [denial] is putting
into the Gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, what the Gospel itself
does not contain, and what the Creeds of Christendom have not put there.
You may go through all the CEcumenical Creeds — and I know them almost
by heart — and there is nothing of the sort in them, I have been through
the Creeds of our local Churches, many and many of them, and the doctrine
is not there.
Gentlemen, I ara not a professor of Ecclesiastical History, and
I do not know those venerable Symbols by heart — I therefore
desire to speak with becoming modesty ; but I heard this declara
tion, when it was made, with an amazement which was deepened
when I came home to my own library again. As this is not a trial
for heresy, the question whether probation after this Ufe be a part
of the Gospel, is aside from our imraediate discussion ; but the
question what has been the attitude towards it of the Creeds of
Christendora is germane to our inquiry, and assumes a very seri
ous iraportance as we approach the interpretation of the Andover
Creed. Of course we cannot forget, that, as an eleraent of denial
and antagonism lies very near to the heart of any Creed, it is never
safe to infer that such a Symbol is hospitable to every notion which
it may not in terms denounce. Dr. Schaff, in his great work on
The Creeds of Christendom [i. 8] says :
The first object of Creeds was to distinguish the Church from the world,
from Jews and Heathen; afterwards orthodoxy from heresy; and, finally,
denomination from denomination.

114
Alraost always a new Creed has been framed as a polemic pro
test against some dogma thought to need rejection. So that if the
fact were that absolute and unhinting silence reigned in the Creed-
world as to the dogma in question, that would more prove its non
existence, than its presence with general acquiescence.
Now let us take a look at the great Denominational Creeds of
Christendora, — five-and-twenty to five-and-thirty, in aU — which
the Respondent says have nothing against probation after death in
them. They fall into four classes : (1 ) the ancient Catholic Creeds ;
(2) those of the Romish Church from Trent to the Vatican; (3)
those of the Eastern or Greek Church ; and (4) those of the mod
ern Protestant churches. Those of the flrst class include but the
few fundamental ideas which are common to all periods and
churches ; of which that called the Apostles', the Nicene, and the
Athanasian are chief. The latter contains a single statement
[clauses 40, 41, 42] which, I respectfully submit, in its connec
tion, seems raost naturally to teach that the things done in the
body are those in view of which men are to be finally assized, viz. :
From whence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead ; at whose
coming all men shall rise again with their bodies; and shall give account for
their own works; and they that have done good, shall go into life everlast
ing: and they that have done evil into everlasting fire.
The perfectly balanced parallelism obvious here between the two
classes, added to the known opinions of the time, seems to warrant
construing this against the dogma.
Passing into the second class, it is obvious that the general
drift of "The Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent" is
toward the doctrine that salvation is possible only to him who in
this life is reconciled to the Church ; and it is explained [14th Ses
sion, chap, vii.] that all priests may absolve all penitents in ar-
ticulo mortis, "lest any may perish" tor lack of such absolution.
The Eastern Church is more explicit. Its " Orthodox Confes
sion" [Qucestio LXIV.] cites Theophylact commenting on Luke,
and Matthew, in proof that penitence in the future world is hot pos
sible ; with which agrees the 372d Question and Answer of "The
Longer Catechism of the Eastern Church," thus :
" 372. In what state are the souls of the dead till the general resurrec
tion ? Ans. The souls of the righteous are in light and rest, with a foip-

115
taste of eternal happiness; but the souls of the wicked are in a state the
reverse of tte"— which can hardly be a state of continued probationary
privilege. Passing on into the Creeds of the Modern Protestant Churches,
I pause a moraent with an utterance of the Vaudois, of date A.D.
1126 [J. Leger, Hist. Gin. des ^glis. Vaud. etc. 85] which suras
itself up into the marginal note [nul remMe apris la morf] "there
is no remedy after death for a life of impenitence."
The Second Helvetic [A.D. 1566] was chief of the Swiss Con
fessions — at once most elaborate, and most catholic — and found
warm approval among nearly all the Reformed Churches on the
Continent, as well as in England and Scotland. It [chap. xxvi.
3] has this deliverance :
We believe that the faithful, after bodily death, do go directly unto Christ,
and, therefore, do not stand in need of helps or prayers for the dead, or any
other such duty of them that are alive. In like manner, we believe that the
unbelievers are cast headlong into hell, from whence there is no return
opened to the wicked by any offices of those who live.
Another of the great Reformed Confessions is the Belgic, writ
ten by Guy de Bres at about the same date with that to which I
have just referred, for the Churches of Flanders and the Low
Countries ; and revised, in 1619, by the Synod of Dort. From that
revision I cite [Art. XXXVII. (2)] :
Then the books (that is to say the consciences) shall be opened, and the
dead judged according to what they shaU have done in this world, whether it
be good or evil.
The Heidelberg Catechism, [A.D. 1563] the ripe doctrinal fruit
of the Reformation in the Palatinate, speaks on the subject before
us mainly by implication. But in its answer to the 44th question,
— of the descent into Hades — and to the 52d, — of Christ's com
ing again to judge the quick and the dead — it uses language
which the comraentators of its own Church firmly consider as
authoritative on this subject. In regard to the former. Dr.
Bethune [Lectures on the Held. Cat. i. 404] is led to comment
thus :
All well-taught Christians believe that, though the disembodied soul of
the wicked man goes to the hell of fire, and the soul of the pious man goes
to heaven, at once, the one will receive a great accession of misery, the other
of bliss, when souls are united again to their proper bodies; because then
the entire man will suffer or enjoy with greater intensity.

116
And in 1652, Petrus de Witt pubUshed a Catechizing upon the
Heidelbergh Catechisme, which, after inspection, received the appro
bation of the Classis of Hoorn, and, after sixteen editions, was
translated for the use of the English Reformed Congregation in
Arasterdara, in 1654. The Tercentenary Coraraittee [Hist^ Introd.
to Heid. Cat. (1863), 67] say that this Catechizing was "repub
lished a great many times, and had an immense reputation."
It is safe, then, to infer that it rightly gives the inner sense of the
Symbol, on the topic in dispute, as it was understood at the time.
Under Question 'LVII. [Sub-question 25, Do not the souls of unbeliev
ers presently go to Hell ?] it says :
Ans. There is a Hell into which they go presently after their death, [John
iii. 36; Isa. Ivii. 21, Ixvi. 24]. Which Christ [Mark ix. 44, 48] expressly
explaineth of Hell and eternal condemnation. . . . But the uttermost and
highest degree of Damnation shall be after judgement, in Soul and Body
together [2 Cor. v. 10].
Of very nearly the same date was the Confession Belevit and
Professit be the Protestantis of Scotland, and confirmed by Gen
eral Assembly and by Parliament ; in which we flnd this state
ment — I translate from the Latin of Patrick Adamson [Art.
XVIL] :
The elect who are dead enjoy rest from their labors, peace and tran
quillity.^. . . But, on the other hand, reprobates and unbelievers who are
dead live in troubles and tortures which it is impossible for words to
express. Even raore clearly spake the Irish Articles of Beligion [of date
A.D. 1615] [Section 101,] thus:
101. After this life is ended the souls of God's children be presently
received into Heaven, there to enjoy unspeakable comforts; the souls of the
wicked are cast into hell, there to endure endless torments.
In 1644 was published the first Confession of Faith of the Eng
lish Baptists, which was printed again in 1646. Its 52d Article
[Confession, p. 23] was thus :
LII. There shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and unjust,
and every one shall give an account of himselfe to God, that every one raay
receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether
it be good or bad.
Moreover the Baptist Catechism, which Mr. E. B. Underhill
[Hansard Knolly's Soc.'s Pubs. Confessions, etc., p. xv.j declares

117
to " give a complete idea of the prevailing doctrinal sentiments of
the Baptist body in the 17th century," has this, viz. :
Q. 42. What shall be done to the wicked at their death f
A. The souls of the wicked shall, at their death, be cast into the torments
of hell, and their bodies lie in their graves, till the resurrection and judgment
of the Great Day.
We have in order of time now reached that Symbol, which,
from its relation to the religious history of our Father land,
scarcely less than for its formative influence over the Andover
Creed, has most value for our research — the We.itminster Con
fession, of date A.D. 1647. It contains, in remarkably clear and
emphatic language, two utterances on this subject, from distinct
points of view. [C. xxxii. 1 ; C. xxxUi. 1] :
The Bodies of men, after death, return to dust, and see corruption; but
their Souls (which neither die nor sleep) having an immortal subsistence,
immediately return to God who gave them. The Souls of the Righteous,
being then made perfect in holinesse, are received into the highest heavens,
where they behold the face of God in light and glory, waiting for the full
redemption of their Bodies. And the Souls of the wicked are cast into
Hell, where they remain in torments and utter darknesse, reserved to the
Judgment of the great Day. Beside these two places for Souls separated
from their Bodies, the Scripture acknowledgeth none. . . .
God hath appointed a Day wherein he will judge the World in righteous-
nesse by Jesus Christ, to whom all power and judgment is given of the
Father. In which Day not only the apostate Angels shall be judged, but
likewise all persons, that have lived upon Earth, shall appear before the
Tribunal of Christ, to give an account of their Thoughts, Words and
Deeds ; and to receive according to what they have done in the Body,
whether good or evil.
In the foUowing year the Synod of Cambridge, N.E., adopted
this Westminster Symbol — thus anticipating by ten years the sim
Uar action of the English Independents. In 1680 the Synod of
Boston readopted the same. In 1708 the Synod of Saybrook,
Conn., again endorsed it. The Boston National CouncU of 1865
in its session on the Burial HUl of Plymouth pathetically said :
[Debates and Proceedings of Nat. Council, 361 : — ]
Standing by the rock where the Pilgrims set foot upon these shores, upon
the spot where they worshipped God, and among the graves of the early
generations, we, Elders and Messengers of the Congregational Chiuches of
the United States, in National Council assembled — like them acknowledging
no Bute of faith but the Word of God — do now declare our adherence to

118
the Faith and Order of the Apostolic and Primitive Churches held by our
Fathers, and substantially as embodied in the Confessions and Platforms
which our Synods of 1648 and 1680 set forth, or reaffirmed.
And when, at Oberlin, O., in 1871 [Minutes of Nat. Council,
(1871,) 63] the National Triennial CouncU was established, our
denominational faith was still declared to be :
In substantial accordance with the great doctrines of the Christian faith,
commonly called Evangelical, held in our Churches from the early times, and
sufficiently set forth by former General Councils.
Granting to this qualifying word "substantially" all breadth
and force which history can legitimately put into it, or ethics fairly
allow in it, there must still remain the clear conclusion that the
Westminster is, raore nearly than any thing else, our actual Con
gregational Creed to-day.
The Westminster Catechisms — Larger and Shorter, foUowed
the Confession from the Assembly's hands, so that everywhere
they must gain their true interpretation from it. The Larger says,
in the last clause of its answer to the Question [ed. 1723, p. 80] :
Q. What is the communion in glory with Christ which the members of
the Invisible Church enjoy immediately after death f
Ans. [I. c] Whereas the souls of the wicked are at Death cast into Hell,
where they remain in Torments and utter Darkness, and their Bodies kept in
their Graves, as in their Prisons, till the Kesurrection and Judgment of the
Great Day.
It has been thought remarkable by sorae who have never made
themselves minutely familiar with the facts — and I ask your at
tention to this, as having close connection with what I shall have
occasion to subrait to your Honors' notice by and by — that while,
in answering the 37th question, the Shorter Catechism declares
that at death the souls of believers " do immediately pass into
glory ' ' it says nothing at all about what, at death, becomes of
the souls of the wicked. Robert Baillie — that garrulous and con
venient Scotchman whose Letters and Journals shed such an elec
tric light upon many previously dark passages in the work of the
Westminster Divines, — says under the date of 23 Aug. 1648 [iu :
59]: We passed both the Larger and Shorter, as a part of uniformitie; but we
thought the Shorter too long, and too high for our common people and
children, and so put it in Mr. David Dickson's hand, to draw it shorter and

119
clearer. Of this he was carefull, and presented us with a draught before the
end of the Assemblie, which truely was very good and exact; but yet so high
and long, that it was recommitted to Mr. John Levingstone.
Which Geo. Gillespie confirmed in his speech at Edinburgh,
6 Aug. 1647 [Ibid., p. 452], when he said:
We have found great difficulty how to make it [the Catechism] full, such
as might be expected from an Assembly, and, upon the other part, how to
condescend to the capacity of the common and imlearned.
The exact truth with regard to this feature of the Shorter Cate
chism, then, seeras to be, that in the repeated recensions to which
it was subjected in the endeavor to reduce its inordinate original
length, the Assembly retained the first part of the Answer to the
37th question, aflSrming that the souls of believers "do immedi
ately pass into glory," because it was needed as a protest against
Purgatory, but expunged the second — and balancing — portion —
given both in the Confession and the Larger Catechism — appar
ently because nobody was then known to deny that the wicked
went at once to their award, so that the assertion being practically
needless, could be spared ; the more that more circuitously, yet
by easy inference, the same conclusion follows from other declara
tions of the same Symbol.
It is a rule of interpretation which is as common as it is proper,
that an abridgment is always to be interpreted by the full work
from which it is condensed — saving only when it is of subsequent
date, and is avowed to contain, in some points, emendation. That
this could not be the case here becomes evident from the consid
eration that the Shorter Catechism [Mitchell's Westminster As
sembly, etc. 426-431 ; BaUlie's Letters and Journals, u. 232, 242,
248, 266, 272, 306, 336, 348, 379, 388, 403, etc.] was under dis
cussion at the same time with the Confession and the Larger Cate
chism, and embodied the cotemporaneous judgment of the same
Divines. It is therefore fairly to be construed everywhere, and
always, into the closest doctrinal unity with its coetaneous docu
ments. In 1658 a Synod of some two hundred Elders and Messengers from
one hundred and twenty English Congregational [Independent]
Churches which had met in the Savoy, unanimously adopted the
Westminster Confession — with slight verbal changes, none of
which touched this subject — as their Declaration of Faith.
[Savoy Declaration, 51, 52. J

120
In 1677, the English Baptists added to their forraer Confession,
the doing of the sarae thing, retaining however the upright and
downright averment that the deeds done in the body determine the
conditions of man's future existence. [Confession of Faith, etc.
Schaff, in. 738.]
In 1729 the American Presbyterian Church adopted the same
Confession, afterwards adding both the Larger aud Shorter Cat
echisms to their Standards ; all of which reraain in force over
their frora seven to eight thousand congregations, and I raay add
their Theological Serainaries, to-day.
In 1742 American Baptist Churches in session in Philadelphia,
adopted the Westminster Confession as adapted to Baptist use by
their English brethren, leaving unaltered its doctrinal character.
In 1813 the Cumberland Presbyterians did the sarae thing, with
slight changes, leaving it as to this, unchanged.
In 1834 the Free WUl Baptists — as they then called themselves
— adopted a Confession — since three times revised. As it now
stands its language on this subject [Schcff, in. 756] is :
The soul does not die with the body; but immediately after death enters
into a conscious state of happiness or misery, according to the moral char
acter here possessed.
Gentlemen, the Respondent at Des Moines declared of the doc
trine that, by God's plan, salvation needs to be securetl in this
life, that " there is nothing of the sort " in " the Creeds of Chris
tendom." I have shown you, in most cases by direct citation, in
a few instances by close and necessary inference, that he was
mistaken in regard to nineteen of them — the Athanasian ; the
Romish ; the Greek ; the Vaudois ; the Heidelberg ; the Second
Helvetic ; the Belgic ; the Scotch ; the Irish ; the first of the Eng
lish Baptists' ; the Westminster Confession, with its Catechisms;
the Cambridge ; the Savoy ; the final English Baptists' ; the Say
brook ; the American Presbyterians'; the American Baptists';
the Cumberland Presbyterians', and the Free-Will Baptists' ; most
of a national or even a wider scope ; none including fewer than the
suffrages of an entire community or denomination of Christians
— among them being those whose influence most went to shape
the early years of this country ; and all together representing on
this subject the judgment and faith of an immeasurable majority
of the Christian world.
To this may be added in the sarae direction, in a slightly differr

121
ent form, the Creedal testimony of the Established Church of Eng
land, and of the Protestant Episcopal Church in this country. The
Thirty-nine Articles, adopted by the former in 1562, and by the
latter in 1801, do not indeed contain direct reference to the Inter
mediate State. But the XXXVth Article as it stands to this day
in the Standards of both Churches affirms that the Second Book of
the HomUies "doth conteyne a godly and- wholesome doctrine j
and necessarie for these tymes." Now we find in the Third Part
of the Homily of Repentance in that book [Homilies, (ed. 1676,)
340] the following :
But as we are most certain that we shall die, so are, we most uncertain
when we shall die. For our life doth lie in the hand of God, who will take
it away when it pleaseth Him. And verily when the highest Sumner [sum-
moner] of all, which is death, shall come, he will not be said nay, but we
must forthwith be packing, to be present before the Judgment seat of God,
as he doth find us, according as it is written ; Whereas the Tree faileth,
whether it be toward the South, or tpward the North, there it shall lie.
Whereunto agreeth the saying of the holy Martyr of God Saint Cyprian, say
ing: As God doth find thee when he doth call, so doth he judg thee.
The Respondent further said at Des Moines [Great Debate, 17]
— a fact to which I have already called your attention — that he
had "been through the Creeds of our local churches, many and
many of them, and the doctrine [of the denial of probation after
death] is not there." Now, Gentlemen, for the purpose in hand
we care nothing about the aspect towards this subject of the
Creeds now in use in our local churches, although we should not
shrink from the closest examination as to them. But it is of some
consequence to know what was the attitude of the Congregational
churches of Massachusetts toward this raatter in the first decade
of the present century, when the Andover Creed was formulated ;
because it is not very likely that the parties, were they Hopkinsians
or Old Calvinists, who were concerned iu shaping this Creed and
founding this Institution, slipped quietly into that most exactly
aud painfully phrased Declaration of Faith a doctrine on this, or
any other subject, which was at variance with the Symbolic Ortho
doxy of the time, as it found expression in the formulae which were
the corner-stones of their churches. I have therefore sought to
examine the Creeds ot fifty of those churches which, in 1808, were
nearest to the locaUty wliere the Seminary was planted — churches
ofthe vicinage, as one might say, in the phrase now current — aU,
or nearly all — selecting none and neglecting none — being within

122
some twenty miles of Andover. I have reached the following
result. I will not take tirae to specify in detail, but, if called for,
I will declare each in full, and where the proof may be laid hold
of. I flnd seven of the fifty Creeds to have been modernized since
the date referred to, while I have not been able to put my hand
upon that form of sound words which was in use by those seven
churches so long ago. I find no single instance of the employ
ment of any language which suggests, or which seems intended
to leave any opportunity for the esoteric holding of the notion
of, probation after this life. I find five which are vague in
their terms which touch on the borders of that subject, — a good
example of which is that of the First Church in Danvers, which
had been founded in 1689, being "then persuaded in matters of
faith according to the Confession of Faith owned and consented
unto by the Elders and Messengers of the Churches assembled at
Boston in New England," which that Church had modified, in
the interest of brevity and perspicuity, in 1757, by the adoption
of twelve articles of Faith, the 11th and 12th of which are these,
[lUce's Hist. 1st Par. Danvers, 77] viz. :
You believe in another life after this, and that Christ will come again,
and raise the dead and judge the worjd, and that we must all appear before
the judgment-seat of Christ, [and] that at the last day the wicked shall be
adjudged to everlasting punishment, and the righteous to life eternal.
Here is no deflnite statement which necessarily excludes the
possibility of repentance and forgiveness after death, yet surely
there is nothing in the language to favor — as there is nothing in
the circumstances to suggest — it. As I said, there are five of these.
I flnd four which make the general statement that the impenitent
man shall receive a " reward according to his works," or " deeds."
I find one which declares that "all who remain in unbelief tiU
death, will be immediately doomed to the world of misery ; " one
which affirms that "such as live and die unbeUeving, impenitent
and disobedient, shall suffer the vengeance of eternal flre ; " and
one which sets forth that " the souls of the wicked enter immedi
ately into a state of suffering, and the righteous of blessedness."
I find twelve which assert that the wicked shall be judged " ac
cording to the deeds done in the body." And I find nineteen
which refer the inquirer to the " Confession of Faith, owned and
consented unto, by the Elders aud Messengers of the Churches

123
assembled at Boston in New England, 12 May 1680," on this sub
ject identical in terms with that of Savoy and Westminster ; which
we have already seen to carry a double denunciation of any notion
of probation after death, in maintaining that men shall be judged
for " what they have done in the body," and that the souls of the
wicked after death " are cast into hell, where they remain in tor
ment and utter darkness, reserved to the Judgraent of the great
Day." Here, then, we have the pregnant, fact that of forty-three Con
gregational churches — aU which I have been able to test as to this
subject — surrounding the spot where the Andover Seminary came
into being, at the hour when its Creed was taking shape, not one
in its own Creed in any raanner favored the dogma of post-mortem
probation ; only nine refrained from some statement which would
be necessarily incompatible with it, and thirty-four — or more than
seventy-nine per cent — in terms asserted its opposite. And yet
my honored friend says he has gone through the Creeds of our
local churches, and there is nothing there against the doctrine of
probation after death !
Now, Gentlemen of this Reverend and Honorable Board, we
have been trying to get some conception of the theological quality
of the soil out of which sprang the Andover Creed, with particular
reference to the question whether there may exist any fair ante
cedent probability that that Creed would take any particular shape
of friendship, or hostility — of assent, denial, or an indifference
which might silently tolerate — toward the notion of probation
after this life. And we have found this, namely, that, almost
with the sole exception of the Neo-Platonic Origen, whose intense
conception of free-will on man's side, and of the reformatory rather
than the punitive intent of the Divine punishments of sin, led him
to teach the possible final restoration of all offenders — including
the Devil, Gregory of Nyssa, Theodore of Mopsuestia and one or
two others who achieved from the Church of the fifth century the
odium of heresy as to this, down to the beginning of the present
century ; the consent of Church writers to the belief that the things
done in the body determine raen's eternal condition, has been well-
nigh unbroken. We have found that quite to the present time,
those "Creeds of Christendom " which enshrine the faith of the
immense majority of the professedly Christian world, whether Prot
estant or otherwise, declare the same belief. And we have found
that, of nearly fifty Congregational churches which surrounded

124
Andover Hill when the foundations of the Serainary were planted
thereon, not one favored departure frora the old theology as to
this, only nine failed to use language irreconcUable with it, while
nearly eighty per cent in terms asserted its opposite.
But I am at this point reminded that our distinguished friend the
Professor of Law from New York City, argued before us that a
meliorating movement, springing frora John Robinson and his influ
ence, even made some mildness at Westminster, quite melted down
the early Congregationalism of New England, and eventuaUy left
a soft spot at Andover. I fear that the research of the learned
gentleman has neglected the nice points of Dogmatic History
for raore congenial jurisprudence. At any rate he is wofuUy
mistaken in this judgment. The simple fact is that no man ever
had more baseless nonsense talked about him than John Robinson.
A good, a gracious, a gentle, a noble, a learned and tenderly
devout man, with great sagacity as to civil affairs, and with some
strong out-goings towards very precious new ideas ; he was yet,
in his theology, wholly and inveterately, a man of his own age.
The Synod of Dort was scarcely more than well through with its
work, when half of his company started for our side of the sea.
Of that Synod Motley says [John of Barneveld ii. 310], and I
judge that he speaks the exact truth :
Arminians were pronounced heretics, schismatics, teachers of false doc
trines. . . . On the 30th April and 1st May the Netherland Confession, and
the Heidelberg Catechism, were declared to be infallible — no change was to
be possible in either formulary.
Now John Robinson, at the time when the Pilgrims were starting
for Plymouth, appears to have been occupying his leisure hours
in writing a book cordially to defend that infallibility. I hold the
book — printed in 1624 — in my hand, and I wUl read from it two
or three brief extracts, in order that we may see just how mild
and liberal in theology John Robinson was. The book is titled
A Defence of the Doctrine propounded by the Synode at Dort:
against lohn Mvrton and his Associates, etc. Who, Sir, was John
Murton ? John Murton was one of the exceedingly few EngUsh-
men of that day who were "liberal" in theology-, and was the
leader of an Arminian secession from one of the Churches of the
English exiles at Amsterdam. So that in the very act of attack
ing him, and his company, Robinson ranged hiraself on the side
of the old theology against the new. But hear what he says :

125
If they say, further, that wicked men may and shall be saved if they
repent, they say but as the truth is: but if thereupon they conclude of all
simply, that therefore they may either repent, or be saved, they erre, etc.
[p. 30.]
And let me here turn into the very bowels of these mens errour, the
sword of the Spirit which the Apostle, in this place, puts into mine hand ; and'
proue briefly, but evidently, that Christ dyed not' for aU and every person,
as is said; but onely for them, and for all them who in the end are saved, and
obtain eternall life by him. . . . The Apostle's meaning [Rom. v: 9, 17 etc.]
therefore is not, that Christ died for all particulars [i.e. : all persons as partic
ular persons], but that all for whom he dyed, shall be saved by him: which
seeing all are not; it followeth that he dyed not for all, as they mean. [pp.
60, 61.]
So, in critically explaining the text [1 Tim. ii : 6] " Christ gave
himself a ransom for all," Robinson says :
By " all " is not meant all particulars [everybody] in the ^orld, but all sorts
of people, as well kings (which many Christians, considering their cruell
hatred of Christ, and other enormities, thought rather to be prayed against,
then for) as others. The Apostle here informs them better, and that Christ
dyed for all, and would haue all, that is, men of all sorts, saved — even kings
as well as others. It is not possible for any Christian to pray for every par
ticular person in the world : nor lawfuU to pray that God would saue all in
generall: seeing we know by the Scriptures, that all shall not be saved, and
are also forbidden to pray for some in particular, [p. 62.]
Infants, therefore, bring sin properly into the world with them. [p. 139.]
It would be eas^-. Gentlemen, to quote scores of passages from
this and from other works of this distinguished and beloved man
which should demonstrate — were further deraonstration needed
— that he lived and died as far from aU liberalism in religion, as
the East is from the West.
But, we are asked, did not John Robinson utter those famous
words which declared him: " very confldent the Lord had more
truth and light yet to breake forth out of his holy Word ? ' ' And
did he not exhort the company he was sending away with his bless
ing : "if God should reveal any thing to them by any other instru
ment of his, to be as ready to receive it as ever they were to
receive any truth by his Ministery ' ' — and so on ? Most assuredly
he did. But we cannot rightly understand his words, until we
consider what he meant by this language, and in reference to what
subject, in his judgment, new light might fairly be expected.
What he had in mind in speaking to his people, aud what they
had in mind in listening to him, was not doctrinal truth. They

126
had found, or supposed they had found, their final rest as to that,
in Calvinism. What he was talking about was Church govern
ment. The major part of the Christian world was well at rest,
and for a long time had been weU at rest, in regard to theology ;
while, as to politj', then for almost half a century that portion
which they mainly knew had been in a turmoil suggestive of a
raging sea that cannot rest, whose waters east up raire and dirt.
Calvin's Presbyterianisra ; Thomas Cartwright's Presbyterianism ;
the Presbyterianism of Walter Travers and John Udal ; Robert
Browne's practical Democracy ; Henry Barrowe's Presbyterian
Congregationalism ; Francis Johnson's High Church Barrowism ;
Henry Ainsworth's Low Church Barrowism ; Robinson's own
Broad Church Barrowism — all these in conflict with the Papacy
on the one side, and the Reformed and English Churches on the
other, had perplexed and wearied them. And, as the Christian
world had not long been studying that subject, the Leyden pas
tor did hope that sorae new light might any day flash forth from
some long neglected text, untU in its mellow iUumination all these
doubting and divided brethren should see eye to eye.
But how did so wide and long a misapprehension arise? Easilj',
and thus. The record was first made by Edward Winslow in his
Hypocrisie Vnmasked, in 1646 — more than a quarter of a cen
tury after the event. The book was an argument in defence
against the slanderous accusation of the notorious Samuel Gorton,
that the Leyden church had been rigid and bitter Separatists.
Winslow denied this. Of his own knowledge he affirmed Robin
son's liberality. He referred in proof of it to that Divine's
Apology. He insisted that the church, in fact, had always held
communion with the Reformed Churches. And then he passed to
this " Farewell Address." To refer what he said of it to theology,
would be to empty it of all relevance to its place and purpose.
To interpret it as referring to polity, makes it an effective link in
its chain of reasoning. Moreover he exalts as the glorious con
summation which would follow the outbreaking of the desired
light, not any new phase of doctrinal concord, but [p. 94] :
" How easie would the differences be reconciled between the Pres
byterian and Independent way!" He afforded another proof
that polity and not doctrine was meant, by the further remark set
down frora Mr. Robinson's Ups [p. 98] : "For, said hee, there
will bee no difference between the unconformable [Nonconformist]
Ministers and you, when they come to the practise of the Ordi-

127
nances out of the Kingdome ; " and Winslow in the close of thf
same paragraph intimates that his purpose in what has been said
is to help " about the settling of Church-government in the King
dom of England." The excessive scarcity of Winslow's book —
of which fewer than a dozen copies are known to exist, and which
has never been made accessible to the public by any full reprint
— has favored that popular misapprehension which was not un
naturally set on foot, when, flve-and-seventy years ago, our Uni
tarian friends undertook, from the imperfect account given in
the pages of Neal, to make the Pilgrim pastor their apostle and
oracle. The learned Professor further traced this Robinsonian "mild
ness" down through the Westrainster Asserablj-, where he told
us one party urged "that no flxed and immutable Creed could
properly be made," to New England where — if we understood
him — he judged it to have shown itself iu the quality of early
missionary instruction to the Indians. I have brought with me
the means of exposing these misapprehensions also ; by making
it clear from the fertile pages of Baillie [ii. 110, 307, 336] that
— with the exception of some few words on Chiliasm and the like —
the debates which agitated the Assembly concerned Pastors, doc
tors. Elders, and subjects of the detail of Church government,
and were not about doctrine ; and, frora Eliot's The Day-Breaking,
if not the Sun-rising of the Gospell with the Indians in New-Eng
land (1647), that the Evangelical raessage which was here relied
upon to save the savage soul was still of the old-fashioned sort.
But I must not take time to read more than a single extract
describing the Indian Apostle's second endeavor to preach the
gospel to Waaubon, and his corapany [p. 16] :
We set forth the terrour of God against sinners, and mercy of God to the
penitent, and to such as sought to know Jesus Christ, and that sinners
should bee after death Chechainuppan, i.e., tormented alive — for wee know
no other word in the tongue to expresse extreame torture by.
I may conclude, then, this part of raj^ argument with the ex
pression of the profound conviction that the more men really
know about John Robinson's books, labors, and character, the
more profound wUl be their respect for hira, and the less their
temptation to exalt him as the father of modern liberalism, or to
reason from hira to any assuraed lenity in any Creed of our day,
or of his own.

128
3. Tliere is another source of valuable testimony as to whether
the founders of the Seminary were antecedently likely to agree upon
any creed tolerant of probation after death; and that is the judg
ment on that subject of those Theologians whose influence was then
dominant, and whose friends and disciples were foremost in the
work. Jonathan Edwards had been dead just fifty years when the
Serainary was founded, but it was a kind of death which was
yet speaking. That intense moral earnestness which exalted his
lumbering style to eloquence ; that sweetness of Christian spirit,
which, as apple-blossoms perfume the rugged tree on whose
boughs they blush, made welcome even for his mercUess logic to
appreciative souls ; and that awe-inspiring conviction of duty
to a sovereign God which dominated his system and himself ;
together made hira — though gone up on high — a more influential
citizen bf New England than perhaps any single man who was
eating and sleeping in it still. Hours might be spent in reading
from his pages passages — some, like that whole serraon on Sin-
¦aers in the Hands of an Angry God, of lurid and fairly terrific
power — which show that wherever his raind carried conviction
nobody doubted that raen's eternal state is deterrained by the
things done in this life. Near the close of the first volume of
his Works is given a short treatise of one-and-thirty pages " Con
cerning the Endless Punishment of those who die Impenitent"
[ Works i. 612-642]. It is largely devoted to a replj' to the objec
tions of Mr. Whiston, in which President Edwards is led to dis
cuss the unscripturalness and unreasonableness of probation —
or of reformation — after death, from several different points of
view. What his feeling and opinion on the question were, one
or two extracts will indicate [Works i. 621] :
15 Sect. Matt, v: 2.5, 26. "Agree with thine adversary quickly, while
thou art in the way with him ; lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to
the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into
prison. "Verily I say unto thee, thou shalt not come out thence, till thou hast
paid the uttermost farthing." These words imply, that sinners are in the
way with their adversary, having opportunity to be reconciled to him but for
a short season, inasmuch as it is intimated, that they must agree with him
quickly, or they shall cease to be in the way with him, or to have opportunity
to obtain his favor any more. But, if they shall be continued in a state of pro
bation after death to the end of the world, and after that for. (as it were)
endless ages; how far, how very far, are these words of Christ from repre
senting the matter as it is !

129
And so again [ Works i. 616] he says :
If any of the separate souls of the wicked, that are in the case that the
soul of the rich man was in, when he died and lift up his eyes in hell being
in torments, should repent and be delivered before the day of judgment, and
so should appear at the right hand among the righteous at that day, then
how could that be verified, 2 Cor. v: 10, " For we must all stand before the
judgment-seat of Christ, that every one may receive the things done in his
body, whether good or bad "? And we have reason to think that the time
of standing before the judgment-seat of Christ, which the apostle has a spe
cial respect to, is the day of judgment, if we compare this with other Scrip
tures; as that of the same apostle. Ads xvii: 31. "He hath appointed a
day in whioh he will judge the world in righteousness, by that man whom he
hath ordained." And many other places.
The younger Edwards had been dead only between six and seven
years when the Creed was shaped at Andover. For his own sake,
as well as for his illustrious father's sake, he had been very dear
to the New England churches. He had been the theological in
structor of two of the most eminent of the men who had to do with
the early days of Andover, Dr. Dwight, and Dr. Griffin. And this
is the view he took of probation after death. [ Works ii. 444] :
How can the idea . . . consist with the various declarations of the Scrip
ture that those who die in sin are "lost," " perishing," suffer "perdition,"
are "castaway," "are burnt up," etc.? . . . They are no more lost, than
while they are under the discipline of providence, in this world. Nay, they
are with respect to their true interest in no worse situation than they are in
this world, but in a vastly better, as they will be under means of grace vastly
more conducive to their highest happiness and salvation, than what they
enjoy here.
Dr. Joseph Bellamy had been dead eighteen years. He had
been a Theological Seminary in himself, and in those days of private
and pastoral instruction is judged — with a single exception — to
have trained more ministers than any other New England Divine.
He began his famous True Beligion Delineated with these three
sentences. [ Works i. 7] :
We are designed by God our Maker, for an endless existence. In this
present life we just enter upon being, and are in a state introductory to a
never-ending duration in another worid, where we are to be forever un
speakably happy or miserable, according to our present conduct. This, is
designed for a state of probation, and that for a state of rewards and pun
ishments.

130
Dr. Nathanael Emmons was then in the five-and-thirtieth year
of his mighty ministry at Franklin — where, going beyond Dr.
Bellamy, he had himself theologically educated as many as one
hundred young men. The first intent in regard to the new sem
inary which afterward was planned to be at Newburyport, was
that it should be buUt up under his eye, and care, at Franklin.
He was perpetuallj' consulted as to all the details of the institu
tion as they were gradually developed ; and it is stated in his
Memoir [Works i. 208] that before "its carefully written Creed
was adopted, every word of it was placed, again and again, before
his keen eye."
Now, in his Sermon on 27*6 Death of Sinners not pleasing to
God, Dr. Emmons [ Works vi. 299] tersely said :
Eternal death is peculiar to the finally impenitent. . . As soon as they
leave this world, they will go into a state of everlasting separation and
alienation from God, where he wiU pour out the vials of his wrath upon
them, without mixture and without end.
Dr. John Smalley was in the fiftieth year of his pastorate at
New Britain, Conn., and was recognized as a distinguished speci
men of "the sober, staid, reasoning, and conservative class of Di
vines " [Sprague, i. 565] yet we find such passages as these in his
published discourses [Sermons, p. 72] : " repent in this only space
for repentance ; " [/6id.,p. 415] : " all sinners raust repent . . .
in this space of repentance, or their sins will never be blotted
out." Dr. Moses Hemmenway, who had been at Harvard a classmate
and intimate of the elder President Adams, — a man of distin
guished ability and great learning — and who was in his forty-
ninth year of service at Wells, Me., in a Sermon on Means of
Grace to be attended before Faith, [Seven Sermons, 161] thus
declared his views :
Sinners are on probation for eternal life, under a constitution of grace. . .
A reprieve is granted to them, that they may be treated with, and called to
repentance, upon the foundation of a Covenant of grace. It is true, while
they are unbelievers and impenitent, the condemning sentence of the law
stands in force against them; and will be executed upon all who are not
when they die united to Christ, and so interested in the saving benefits He
has purchased, according to the new and gracious covenant.
Dr. Joseph Lathrop was in the fifty-second year of his labors
at Springfield, Mass. He was reputed to hold a middle ground

131
between the Arminians and the High Calvinists, so that he could
not be suspected of being over-rigid in his tenets ; yet thus he
spake [Sermons i. 150, 152] on the point before us :
The grace of the Redeemer brought him down from heaven to die for
guilty mortals. He has suffered, the just for the unjust, that he might
bring us to God. He now offers them his salvation with affectionate tender
ness, and urges their acceptance of it with an importunity that would take
no denial. But when the day of their probation shall expire, the overtures of
his love will cease. ... In the present world, many prayers are made, and
many means are used, for the recovery of sinners; and blessings are often
granted them in consequence of the fervent petitions, and kind offices of
their pious friends. But in the future world, they will enjoy such advantages
no more.
Take — by way of contrast — a young man, who had graduated
at Middlebury only two years before. Rev. Caleb Burge, and we
find him before long printing a treatise on the Atonement, which
elicited remarkable commendations from the ablest thinkers of
the time, to which he added an Appendix of fifteen or twenty
pages mainly devoted to the proof that spiritual reformation after
death is most unreasonable, and which he thus concludes [Essay
on the Atonement (ed. 1859) , p. 545] :
And now, reader, let me tell you that Jesus Christ is your Saviour; but
it you do not believe in Him, and make application to Him for pardon, you
must die in your sins, and perish forever.
Edward Payson was within nineteen years of the end of his
remarkable career at Portland when the Seminary was founded,
and, on this subject, we flnd hira — the gentle, the saintly, the
practical — in a discourse on "The End of Time" [Works ii.
593] faithfully saying :
The moment in which we leave this temporary and mutable state, we
shall enter a state which is eternal, and, of course, unchangeable. Sound
philosophy unites with Revelation in declaring that no essential change can
take place in eternity. The moment in which we leave the body and enter
the future world, eternity will set its stamp upon us, exclaiming, "Such as I
find you, you shall continue to be while I endure." " He that is righteous
let him be righteous still, and he that is sinful, let him be sinful still."
But our survey of those elements which should fairly flrst be
considered in putting its true sense upon the Andover Creed as a
whole, would be far from complete did we omit the judgment of
that great man, the grass upon whose grave by the side of his

132
meeting-house in Newport had hardly yet had tirae to get^reen
and thick. Dr. Samuel Hopkins ; whose attitude acquires some
special determinative force from the two considerations : that one
of the coalescing parties whose long-delayed harmony at last con
structed and consented to the Creed, was called by his name;
and that it was coraraonly reported fifty years ago, or more, that
WiUiam Bartlet, the largest donoi; among the Founders, had given
to all the judgments of this Divine in theology that very solid
proof of concurrence and commendation which was involved in
publishing the Doctor's (somewhat ponderous) System of Divinity ,
at his own expense.
In that System, thus published, we find the following dense
argument. [Works '\\. 38,39,44]:
The only time of probation allotted to man is that of this life, to which
the death of the body puts an end; so that every one will be happy or miser
able in the future, endless state, according to his character, which is formed
before the soul is separated from the body. This is plain and certain from
the Scripture, where there is not a word, or the least hint, of another state
of trial, after the death of the body, but much is there said to the contrary
of this. This life is represented as the sowing, or seed time, and that men
shall reap in a future state according to what they do in this life. " Be not
deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he
also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh, shall of the flesh reap corrup
tion; but he that soweth to the spirit, shall of the spirit reap life everlast
ing" [Gal. vi: 7, 8]. This life is represented as the only time to lay up a
treasure in heaven, — to make to ourselves friends, so as to be received into
everlasting habitations, when we fail here, when this life ends; — to make
our peace with God, which Christ represents and urges, by agreeing with
our adversary while we are in the way with him, otherwise we shall be cast
into prison, from whence there is no deliverance. And he represents Laz
arus and the rich man as fixed, — the former in a state of happiness, and
the latter in a state of misery — immediately upon their going out of this
world. And it is said, "It is appointed to men once to die, but after this
the judgment" [Heb. ix: 27]. And if nothing were said, relating to this
point, but the following words, it is flxed in them beyond a doubt: "We
must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that every one may re
ceive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether
it be good or bad" [2 Cor. v: 10]. If, at the final judgment, when the
endless state of men will be fixed, they shall be judged according to what
they have done in the body, then this life is the only time of probation,
and in the body they fix their character and state for eternity. . . . Death
is justly terrible, and a dreadful evil, to those who are in their sins. It de
prives them of all good; it puts an end to their probation state, and to all
hope, and fixes them in a state of sin, despair, and endless misery. This is
necessarily implied in the words just cited: "The sting of death is sin;
and the strength of sin is the law." Death could have no sting, by sin or

133
the law, more than any other change or event in life, if it did not fix the
curse of the law upon the sinner, when he dies, and put an end to his pro
bation and hope. The sting of death is the evil which sin deserves, and
which the law denounces, which is the second death. The death of the
body fixes this sting in the sinner's heart, which is endless destruction. . . .
The spirits of those who die in their sins pass into a state of darkness,
despair and tormenting wickedness; and all hope, comfort and enjoyment
being taken from them, they must be totally lost, and overwhelmed in misery;
yet looking forward to a resurrection and judgment to come with aversion
and dread, as involving a great increase of their sufferings, which can have
no end. These are the spirits in prison, of which the Apostle Peter speaks,
who are reserved to the general judgment, when each one shall receive
according to what he has done in the body.
With their great teachers uniformly teaching thus, can the sup
position be reasonably entertained for a moment, that in an insti
tution founded to perpetuate that teaching, a doctrine in flat and
fatal opposition to the same could receive legitimate endorsement ?
4. Such being the probabilities as to the shape which the Andover
Creed would take in regard to the dogma of probation after death,
growing out of the tone of the Church in all time previous, as ex
pressed by its profound thinkers, and in its great Creeds, and sug
gested by the temper and teaching of those chief Congregationalists
of the time whose influence was saturating the Churches of New
England like an atmosphere ; still more important testimony in the
same direction may be gained from the consideration of the recorded
faith and historic purposes of the individuals who gave their money,
prayers, time, strength, and enthusiasm to establish the Institution,
and of those who were first made Teachers in it, and Visitors over it.
There was, on the one side, the PhiUips Academy, which had
been founded at Andover in 1778 by the Hons. Samuel and John
Phillips, with paramount purpose to make it train Christian men,
and, if possible, ministers; which — with the help of the excel
lent, if not eminent village pastor. Rev. Jonathan French, who
was an old-fashioned Calvinist as distinguished from the then
new-fashioned Hopkinsians — had already trained a good many ;
aud around which, the election of Henry Ware as Hollis professor
at Harvard, had the effect to centre the thought and interest of
Sarauel Abbot, and Eliphalet Pearson, and a second John PhiUips,
and Mark Newraan, and Samuel Farrar, and Jedidiah Morse ; aU
increasingly persuaded that the thing which the cause of Christ
required more than aU else in New England then, was, that upon
the germ and nucleus of that Academy, already controllingly

134
Christian in its intent, should be built up a Theological Seminary.
Now, what evidence have we as to the way in which these gentle
raen were likely to stand affected toward the idea of probation
after death ?
We have first the very extraordinary and significant fact that
after the funeral of the chief original founder, the Hon. Lieut.-
Gov. Samuel PhUHps, the trustees of the Academy — being to
gether at his late residence — were informed [see Becords Gov.
Phil.'s Donations'] that, by will :
For the preservation of the essential and distinguishing doctrines of the
gospel as professed by our pious ancestors, the flrst settlers of New England,
and to guard against the dissemination of the least particle of infidelity or
modern philosophy, and also against the dispersion of such theological trea
tises, or speculations, as tend to undermine the fundamental principles of
the gospel plan of salvation,
they are asked to accept from him a legacy, in trust, to be appro
priated to the circulation, in the Institution and in the vicinage,
to preserve Orthodoxy, if possible, "in all future time," of certain
volumes : — first the Bible, next the Westminster Assembly's
Shorter Catechism. Now, we pretty well know what the deceased
Lieut. -Governor thought of the bearing of those two books upon
the question before us. What next? Dr. Watts. Let me refresh
your recollection how Dr. Watts stood on this subject. Take his
2d Hymn, 2d Book [ Works, iv. 200] :
My thoughts on awful subjects roll.
Damnation and the dead ;
What horrors seize the guilty soul
Upon a dying bed.
Ling'ring about these mortal shores
She makes a long delay.
Till, like a flood with rapid force.
Death sweeps the wretch away.
Then swift and dreadful she descends
Down to the fiery coast,
Amongst abominable fiends
Herself a frightful ghost.
There endless crowds of sinners lie,
And darkness makes their chains ;
Tortur'd with keen despair they cry.
Yet wait for fiercer pains.

135
Not all their anguish and their blood
For their old guilt atones.
Nor the compassion of a God
Shall hearken to their grones.
And that such was not his professional Psalm-Book style alone;
this, from his raiscellaneous muse [" Tlie Atheist's Mistake,"
Works, iv. 345] bears witness :
The gasp of your expiring breath
Consigns your souls to chains —
By the last agonies of death
Sent down to fiercer pains.
Chief araong other volumes with which this good man desired to
impregnate this school within and without in its earliest years, to
the end that it should stay impregnated " in all future time," was
Dr. Doddridge's Bise and Progress of Beligion in the Soul. Let
me remind you how that volume insists that death closes probation
[ Works i. 300] — as thus :
¦When surviving friends are tenderly mourning over the breathless corpse,
and taking a fond farewell of it before it is laid to consume away in the dark
and silent grave, into what hands, O sinner, will thy soul be fallen! What
scenes will open upon thy separate spirit, even before thy deserted flesh be
cold, or thy sightless eyes are closed ? It shall then know, what it is to
return to God to be rejected by him, as having rejected his gospel and his
Son, and despised the only treaty of reconciliation; and that such a one, so
amazingly condescending and gracious. Thou shalt know what it is to be
disowned by Christ, whom that hast refused to entertain; and what it is, as
the certain and immediate consequence of that to be left in the hands of the
malignant spirits of hell. There will be no more friendship then: None to
comfort, none to aUeviate thy agony and distress: But, on the contrary, all
around thee labouring to aggravate and increase them. Thou shalt pass away
the intermediate years of the separate state, in dreadful expectation, and
bitter outcries of horror and remorse. And then thou shalt hear the trum
pet of the arch-angel, in whatever cavern of that gloomy world thou art
lodged. . . . Thou must come forth and be reunited to a body, now formed
forever to endure agonies, which in this mortal state would have dissolved it
in a moment. . . . There shall I hear thy cries among the rest, rending the
very heavens in vain.
The recorded fact that the trustees " cheerfully accepted " this,
which they, at the same time, called " a sacred and important
trust," is evidence enough that on the side of the house which
they represented, there was no retrocession from the Westminster
doctrines in Eschatology, and no desire to shrink from their plain-

136
est and fullest utterance — a fact which it is useless to take time
to prove by special citations from the writings of individual men ;
but which the files of the Panoplist, which [Life of J. Morse, p. 71]
from 1805 to 1808 was under the sole control, as editor and pub
lisher, of Dr. Morse, both through his own articles and those of
contributors, abundantly demonstrate.
Turning from the Old Calvinists to the Hopkinsian side of the
house, it hardly needs — after the full expression which I have
given to Dr. Hopkins's own views, that much be said in exposition
of theirs. I wUl refer only to Dr. Samuel Spring, who was in his
thirty-first year at Newburyport, and who was the leading raind
among the corapany — including prominently besides himself,
William Bartlet, who had paid the expense of publishing Dr. Hop
kins's System, Moses Brown, John Norris, and Leonard Woods first
Abbot professor, — which, early in 1807, undertook to establish in
Newburyport that Hopkinsian Theological School, which, as the
result of well-nigh interminable diplomacy, was at last brought
to Andover, aud united with that there inchoate, to raake by a
compromise the Institution which through a kind of pious fungous
growth became attached to the original foundation of PhiUips
Academy. In an Ordination Sermon [Sermon at Ord. of Mr. Bell, p. 27]
Dr. Spring said :
Thus the good man and the bad, make the journey of life upon diametri
cally opposed principles. At times they seem to travel in company and
mutually aim at the same end. They live together in the same family.
They walk together hand in hand to the same house of worship. They are
often members of the same visible Cliurch. But while death raises one to
the mansions of endless love and increasing delight, it sinks the other into
the furnace of God's unending and increasing wrath.
Dr. Samuel Worcester — one of the closest friends of the In
stitution, who took Dr. Spring's place as a Visitor in 1819, had
then recently published a small volume [Six Sermons on the Doc
trine of Future Punishment] in which [p. 70] he says:
The door of mercy is shut against individual sinners when they die. For,
as it was formerly shown, those who die in their sins are reserved in prison
unto the day of judgment to be punished.
Dr. Woods was the first Abbot professor of Theology. And
this is the manner in which he afterward expressed the views of

137
his life in reply to John Foster's ingenious and tender-hearted
speculations [ 'Works, iii. 287] :
If it were the design of a merciful God to turn all the wicked from their
wicked ways and to make them heirs of his kingdom at some future time,
it would be natural for us to think that he would inform us of so important
and so pleasing an event. But he has given us no such information. We
look in vain for any proof that God will bring sinners to repentance and
carry on the work of sanctification in the world of perdition, or that there
will be any dispensation of grace after the present hfe, which is the accepted
time, the day of salvation. In all the accounts we have of the wicked in the
future state, not a single instance of repentance is mentioned, and not a
single intimation that any such instance will ever take place. On the con
trail, we are clearly taught, that the state of the wicked after death, and
the judgment day, wiU be unchangeably fixed.
Dr. Edward Dorr Griffin was the first Bartlet professor of
Sacred Rhetoric. Those who have read his famous " Park St.
Lectures," know what his views were — often presented with
appaUing eloquence. But I find the following in a discourse of
his " On the Uncertainty of Human Life " [Sermons, p. 8] :
By the spirits of our departed friends, by the joys of those that sleep in
Jesus, and the pains of those who have no God, I adjure you to consider
that when you have once plunged into eternity, there is no coming back to
make a second trial. If you have rushed into the presence of God with sins
unlamented and guilt unpurged, all is gone, eternally gone, without recovery
or redress.
Dr. Eliphalet Pearson was the first Professor of Sacred Litera
ture. In his Public Lecture on the Death of Pres. Willard of
Harvard College [pp. 17, 18] he said:
Of all beings in our world man alone is capable of religion, or of know
ing, obeying, loving and forever enjoying his Creator. He is also destined
to exist in two different states; the first a state of probation; the second of
retribution. The former momentary ; the latter eternal. That man is thus
formed, and thus destined, every person in a Christian land must acknowl
edge, whose conscience is not seared, as with a hot iron. What madness
must it then be, to delay preparation for eternity! ... It must never be
forgotten that this eternal weight of glory depends upon the moral charac
ter established in the present state.
It surely looks very rauch as if all who — whether as founders,
or framers — had any thing to do with the primordia rerum here,
were of one way of thinking as to this — and that the old-
fashioned way.

138
In a matter of so great moraent we can hardly be too careful
however to look well to our evidence — and so I introduce another
most important witness here. Dr. Timothy Dwight, then President
of Yale College, and who was one of the Visitors originally selected,
and, in 1808, by statute associated with Dr. Samuel Spring and
the Honorable George Bliss, and Messrs. Abbot, Bartlet, and
Brown of the Founders, as the Controlling Board of the Institu
tion. He preached the sermon, on Wednesday, 28 September,
1808, when the Seminary was formally established, its Professors
inaugurated, and the new School of Theology declared to be open
for the admission of students. He had been in correspondence
with the Founders from the very first, and he is known to have
possessed their confidence in a marked degree. It is perfectly
safe, therefore, to take him as interpreting them upon the question
before us.
The CLXIIId Sermon of his Theology ; Explained and Defended
in a Series of Sermons, etc. [ed. 1819, v: 407-424], is upon
" Death," and one head of that Discourse [p. 415] is as follows,
viz. : IV. Death terminates the Probation of Man.
That Death ends our Probation, so far as this world is concerned, I shall
not be expected to prove. That there is no Probation beyond the grave, is
evident from the fact, that such a state is never mentioned in the Scriptures.
Every thing, which is said in them concerning futurity, exhibits it only as
a state of reward.^ To this object they conduct us; and then close their
communications. But this is not all, nor even the chief proof of the Doctrine. In Eecl.
ix: 10, we are informed, that there is no work, device, knowledge, nor wis
dom, in the world of departed spirits whither we go,^ The work, here men
tioned, is plainly the work of salvation; and this, it is declared, cannot be
done. Hence Solomon exhorts us to do this work with our might, while we
are in the present world.
In Acts iii: 21, St. Peter says concerning Christ, Whom the Heaven must
receive, until the times of the restitution of all things. But Christ, we are
elsewhere informed, will come a second time to Judgment. At this time
then all things will be restored, which will ever be restored. The present
Heavens and Earth will then pass aviay, and be succeeded by new Heavens
and a new Earth, in which righteousness will dwell forever. But we are
^ It will be remembered by those who are familiar with Dr. Dwight's writings that he
often — as here, and again in a passage to be quoted further on — usee this word as applying
to evil consequences as truly as to good ones, as did the old writers, e.g., Spenser [Faerie
Queene, iii. c. 12] : Yet not escaped from the due reward
Of his bad deedes.
2 These italics are all Dr. Dwight's own.

189
abundantly assured, that, at this period, the everlasting rewards of the
righteous and the wicked will commence. There will, therefore, be no
future Probation.
In John ix: 4, our Saviour says. The night cometh, in which no man can
work : that is, the season, of which Death is the beginning, and Eternity the
continuance. All the probationary work of man, therefore, is ended when
Death arrives ; and will never be resumed.
That Dr. Dwight rightly apprehended, and in no manner shrunk
from, the legitimate consequences of the doctrine thus held, be
comes obvious from his application of the subject, e.g., [Ibid.,
p. 421] :
As this life is the only time of probation to man; the present is the only
period, in which this mighty evil [of eternal death] can be prevented. Seize,
therefore, this golden season ; and, whUe it lasts. Work out your salvation
with fear and trembling. Think what it will be to die forever. Eemember
how short life is; how uncertain; by how frail a tenure possessed; and how
apt to vanish before we are aware. Feel, that in this short period, if ever,
your salvation is to be secured.
So, in the sermon following, on The Immediate Consequences of
Death [Ibid., pp. 431, 432], Dr. Dwight says :
The Soul, after Death, returns immediately to God, to give an account of
its conduct in the present life. This appears to be the plain language of the
text [Eecl. xii: 7], in which the return of the body to the dust, and of the
soul to God, are exhibited as coexisting events. ... Its secret chambers
and all which they contain, or have ever contained, will be laid open to its
own eye, as well as to that of its Maker. In this manner, the motives by
which it has been governed, and the moral character which it has sustained,
during its probation, will be so entirely developed, as to satisfy even itself,
that the investigation has been just, as well as complete.
And then, in the application of this discourse [Ibid., pp. 439,
440], he adds:
We know that we must die : we know that death will terminate our pro
bation : and are assured that it will introduce us to the Judgment. Wisdom
therefore demands, common sense demands, that we should make effectual
preparation for death, by preparing ourselves for the Judgment. ... Let
me solemnly ask this assembly, Are you prepared for this awful event ? Is
your account ready ?
Here, now, we have an original Visitor, chosen by and asso
ciated with the Founders themselves, and one with whom we have
reason to know they were especially weU pleased, cotemporane
ously declaring iu the raost distinct, solemn, and emphatic manner

140
his belief : (1) that probation ends with this life ; (2) that there
can be no probation beyond this life ; (3) that immediately at death
all souls return to God, to give their account, and receive the re
ward of the good or bad use which they have made of their pro
bation here. Is it conceivable that, in this, he did not fairly
represent the Founders' views — views unalterably identified with
the Seminary, and from which no departure can lawfuUy be made
by any Professor?
I raay spend a moment here to put in — although out of place
in point of time — the fit testimony of another distinguished member
of the same fatally ; — a family somewhat largely represented
ou the other side in this hearing ; the' witness of one of a singu
larly serene and beautiful presence, a strong and noble and dig
nified man, who more than most men won general respect for the
sagacity of his intuitions and the soundness of his judgments;
who was a Visitor of this Seminary from 1856 to 1865 ; I refer to
Dr. WUliam T. Dwight, late of Portland, Me. In a Discourse on
Spiritualism, of date 1857, [p. 10] he said :
While we inhabit the body and are thus filling up probation in preparing
ourselves — each for his own unchangeable state hereafter, God has deter
mined that we should possess just so much knowledge of the World of Spirits
as can be acquired from His own announcements by inspired prophets and
apostles and the Saviour; and he has also determined that we should possess
no other knowledge. The fact that He has revealed to us in the Bible what
we thus actually know respecting the invisible world and its inhabitants, is
in itself decisive evidence that He purposed we should know nothing addi
tional. Gentlemen : What I have been trying to do, and what I take
leave humbly to think that I have done, is to prove to you that
the Andover Creed as a whole — and without reference to any of
its clauses in especial, is such an instrument — so related to the
Christian centuries that went before it, and so impregnated with
their profoundest and most solemn judgments ; so related to the
religious quality of its own tirae in New England ; so related to
the faith and intent of the godly men, who, with immense caution,
and intense aud minute scrutin}', laboriously, and by a wearying
succession of mutual verbal concessions, shaped it for a great
purpose, sacred to them, until they fondly hoped that it raight be,
letter by letter as it was, durable by the side of the precious thiugs
of the lasting hills ; that it is asking too rauch even of human
credulity to believe that the notion of probation after death, which

141
I shaU by and by prove was definitely abhorred and rejected by
them, can be harmonized with it.
No, Gentlemen! When one informs me that Neal Dow has
been carried home helpless from the gutter ; that Robert Ingersoll
is delivering free lectures in support of the evidences of Christian
ity ; that Phillips Brooks has exchanged pulpits with Dr. Herrick
— each presiding over the Eucharistic service for the other ; that
the Massachusetts Baptists, in annual Convention assembled, have
invited the Pedobaptist world to sit down with thera at the Lord's
table, and have prefaced that ordinance by the sprinkling of in
fants ; when one tells rae such things, I ara ready to exaraine the
evidence on which the assertion is made, before declaring a nega
tive conclusion. But when one tells me that a labored instrument
drawn up with scientific precision to contain the Orthodoxy of the
past as concentrated in the Westminster Symbols, and to conserve
the sarae, unaltered and unalterable, for the raost distant future —
in the intent that through all time it shall be training men to be per
suading other men to repent because now is the accepted time and
now is the day of salvation, and there will be no work, nor device,
nor knowledge, nor wisdom in the grave whither they are hasten
ing — is on the whole advanced, advantaged and extremely well
pleased to have its preachers moderate their message to the mild
remark [And. Bev., Aug. 1885, p. 147] : "There is rauch reason
to believe that this present life is the most favorable opportunity
for moral renewal in Christ," I have no need to look at the
evidence. The assertion itself is evidence. I can decide at once.
II. Such being the Creed, as a whole, in the respect which I have
considered, I now call your attention to the fact that it was distinctly
understood at the time when it was adopted and the Seminary went
into operation under it, that, such as it was it must forever remain;
that it could never be altered or amended in the smallest particular,
and that any Professor who — outside ofthe reasonable limits of its
own self-consistence — might change his mind concerning, and cease
in all respects to believe and teach, it, as a man of honor and of
Christian principle, was expected to resign his office, or must be re
moved by the Board of Visitors.
The intent of the Founders as to this, was as clearly and dis
tinctly expressed, as the best lawyers of the day were able to
frame it. The 27th of the Associate Statutes, adopted 21 March
1808, is as follows :

142
It is strictly and solemnly enjoined, and left in sacred charge, that every
article of the above-said Creed shall forever remain entirely and identically
the same, without the least alteration, addition, or diminution.
While the 12th Article of the same Statutes thus begins :
That the trust aforesaid may be always executed agreeably to the true
intent of this our Foundation and that we may effectually guard the same in
all future time against all perversion, or the smallest avoidance of our true
design, as herein expressed, we the aforesaid Founders, do hereby constitute
a Board of Visitors, to be as in our place and stead the Guardians, Overseers
and Protectors of this our Foundation.
Gentlemen, I respectfully submit that it was an absolute impos
sibility for the Venerable Founders — in whose place and stead
you sit here to-day that you may effectually guard, oversee and
protect the magnificent charity which they endowed — it was ah
absolute irapossibility in any speech of man for them to convey to
you, and to convey to the Professors, and to convey to the world,
their purpose, wish, injunction and solemn command, that the
Creed on which they had at last heartily agreed, should never be
altered by so much as the dotting of an i, or the crossing of a t,
and that you should exercise the lawful power they gave you to
make sure that it shall never be thus altered, if it be not conveyed
in the citations I have read from their Statutes with regard to it.
It is precisely as Gov. Strong wrote [Woods, 519] to Dr. Spring,
27 Oct. 1807 : " The original Statutes ofthe Founders appear to me
to be as great a security against erroneous pirinciples as language
can afford."
All this will be confirmed if we glance at the ebb and flow of
the process by which the union between the two projected schools
at Andover and at Newburyport, at last, after almost interminable
delays, heart-sickening to both parties, had been effected. The
correspondence published two years ago in the Appendix of Dr.
Woods's History sheds great light on this. Eveiy thing turned
upon exactness in phrasing the doctrines in the form agreed on,
and then iu applying the same fairly and honorably in all the de
tails of procedure, and especially in the choice of Professors. Dr.
Woods wrote to Dr. Spring, early in 1807 [Appetidix, 487] that
the Andover Old Calvinists felt that :
The great objection is, the apprehended danger of the union. It is feared
that Orthodoxy [that is to say Old Orthodoxy] would be borne down, and
that a counter influence [that is to say, Hopkinsianism] won! 1 prevail.

143
Moses Brown [Ajyp. 492] wanted "no mention made of Hop
kinsianism, but wanted Old Calvinism up to the hub." From the
beginning, one narrator says [Ajjp. 508], there was " a constant
interchange of bright and cloudy days." Each party was afraid
of the other. In the FaU of 1807 Dr. Pearson and Dr. Spring
prepared about a dozen articles [App. 512] " containing princi
ples and conditions of coalition ; ' ' and then Dr. Spring thought
they ought to have as raany more. They had [A2}p. 615] to
move " prudently and gradually," first on account of the scruples
of one man, and then on account of those of another. Now [pp.
508, 515, 545] it was Mr. Norris ; now [p. 500] it was Mr. Bart
let ; now [pp. 475, 523] Dr. Spring ; now [p. 107] Mr. Abbot.
AU this went on for eight months, or more. Dr. Pearson plied
his old horse aud chaise from Andover to Newburyport and back
thirty-six times [Memorial of oOth Anniv. at Andover, p. 119] iu
carrying on these negotiations. More than six weeks [ Woods, p.
103] were spent in shaping the Creed — with its three sentences,
its 36 doctrines and its 1061 words — during which the chief
minds of both parties were "together as much as was consistent
with other duties," so that they had no occasion for correspondence.
It was tentatively completed [TVoods, 102] 15 June 1807, but it
was not polished and harmonized to entire agreeraent among them
until 1 Deceraber following. Nor even then did it have rest.
One of the two raen who chiefly prepared it, has given this
account of the labor [Woods, p. 101] :
It was the special and declared object of Dr. Spring and myself, to whom
was committed this solemn work, that it should be such as would satisfy the
Orthodox community; and particularly such as would secure for our School
the support and cooperation of the great body of Congregational and Pres
byterian ministers and Churches. [Fancy their putting in the seeds of pro
bation after death, in such circumstances!] We were well aware that, in
order to do this, the Creed must contain the doctrines of our Puritan ances
tors, which were the doctrines of strict Calvinism. If it fell short of this,
it would be deemed defective. If it went beyond this, it would excite dis
satisfaction. The character of our Orthodox community made it perfectly
clear that the standard of doctrine in our Theological Academy must be
thoroughly Calvinistic; nothing short of it, nothing incompatible with it.
Such was the well-known view of Dr. Spring, and even of Dr. Emmons.
After all this patient and adroit thoroughness new troubles arose.
Mr. Norris [Woods, App. p. 574] wouldn't subscribe unless
"some minute alterations were made;" aud [p. 571] Dr. Spring
had to "resort to prayers and tears" before he did sigu. Then

144
Mr. Bartlet stood in the way as to one point [Ibid. 577] and he was
" a man of pecuUar independence, whom the world cannot move
out of his own way." Mr. Brown also bolted. These two were
finally pacified [Ibid. 578], and gained over, by the pledge that
their statutes should be " unalterably fixed." They would with
draw and go on by themselves, unless they could have their way
in this. Six months before the day of the public exercises by
which the Institution in its completed form was thrown open to
the public [ Woods, 579], Dr. Spring wrote to Dr. Morse :
I never saw Mr. Bartlet so much afraid of the union as he is this moment,
and they told me decidedly and unitedly to inform Dr. Morse that there must
be no alterations. For they are flxed, and cannot consistently yield any
further. . . . Mr. Bartlet was bold in the expression that he had rather
double the donation, and go on as at flrst intended, than to be perplexed any
further. They will not submit to any alteration.
Add to this the fact that the President of the Board of Trustees,
himself a Professor-elect, and one of the two principally concerned
in framing the Creed and the Statutes, in a Historic Sketch
[p. 7] soon published by order of the Trustees, declared it to be
the object of the Institution to set forth and adhere to :
The great system of revealed truth contained in the Bible, avowed by the
Eeformers, embraced by our Forefathers, and expressed in the Assembly's
Catechism ... as must be evident from the Creed which they [its Professors]
are required to subscribe.
Gentlemen, I cannot but regard as full of deep significance this
fact, that six months after that adoption of the Associate Creed
which we are told has forever removed the Shorter Catechism from
all right of supremacy, as a Syrabol, over the belief of the Pro
fessors on the Associate Foundation ; and as a part of the solem
nities of opening the Seminary ; it was thus publicly and officially
declared that the views of the Fathers as " expressed in the
Assembly's Catechism ' ' were those to be adhered to and set forth ;
and that the Board of Trustees then in ofl9ce — who might be
supposed to have exact understanding of the facts — gave to the
same their utmost indorsement. .
I call attention here to another point which I beUeve has
escaped the attention of previous speakers ; and that is that two
things remain to be reasonably accounted for by our friends who
insist that, once in, a Professor may rightly stay in, so long as he
thinks he is in all good conscience before God and man, able by

145
some ingenuity of explanation, or elasticity of conscience, to
imagine that he is true to the spirit of the Creed — perhaps assisted
by some tremendous, and as it seems to rae wholly illegal, aid, from
the respected Trustees. One is : why did the Founders require a
renewal of subscription once in five years ; the other, what did
they think was meant when they said so rauch, and when so
much was said in their presence, in regard to the possible re
moval of Professors; and as to what should be done in that
contingency? The exercises at the opening of the Institution on the 28th Sept.
1808, began with prayer by the Rev. Jonathan French. This was
followed by the reading of the Historic Sketch, to which I have
before referred, of the circumstances which had led to the service
of that day. Dr. Pearson, who had left Harvard because Henry
Ware had been chosen Hollis Professor, and who had been the
prime mover in the work on the side of the Old Calvinists, added
that the motives, views and expectations of the Founders as to all
this, would fully appear from their Statutes, which were then read
in f uU ; thus publicly emphasizing on this founding day the unal
terable character of the doctrinal basis of the Institution. Dr.
Pearson's Historic Sketch with the Constitution and the Additional
and Associate Statutes [The Constitution and Associate Statutes
of the Theological Seminary in Andover; with a Sketch of its Bise
and Progress. Published by order of the Trustees, Boston, 1808.
8° pp. 68] was published by the Trustees. It was at once re
viewed [1808, pp. 613, 611, 614] by the Monthly Anthology, the
Unitarian Organ, which — not unnaturally — particularly de
nounced this tying up of the Professors to an unchanging and
unchangeable Creed. It said :
Its effects must be deadly to the best feelings of the minds of the Profess
ors. ... In other communions if a man can, at the period of signing, con
scientiously believe the Creed, his mind is afterwards comparatively free.
But these unhappy men are never out of chains. It will never be safe for
them to exercise their minds on the objections which may be offered to the
minutest article of their Creed. Their interest and their duty must be per
petually at war. They have a code of propositions put into their hands, in
which all their inquiries must terminate, under the penalty of the loss of
their station and its advantages. It is their interest never to improve or
modify any one of their opinions. . . . This operates as a temptation and
premium to dishonesty. . . . Such are the horrible principles on which this
Institution is founded, that the venerable Watts himself, if he had been a
Professor in it, must, in his old age, have been turned on the world to trust

146
to the charity of his friends. What must be the effect of such an institution
on the minds of the Professors, and what its effect on those they are to in
struct ? We dare not trust ourselves with attempting to predict it.
The Panoplist [vol. iv. p. 480], which was the Orthodox month
ly of those days, and was edited by a Trustee, replied to this.
But what did it say ? Did it deny that the Founders intended to
bind the Professors by the Creed for all time ? Did it deny that
they were so bound ; aud that the Creed itself was so bound ? Not
at all. But it insisted that the Professors so bound were not
debarred from free inquiry, aud went on :
They know, indeed, when they accept an oifice in the Institution, they do
it upon the condition, that, if their opinion of the Creed should alter, they
are to relinquish their office. If they are honest men, they will rise above
any temptation from this quarter, and will never violate a good conscience
by subscribing what they do not believe. Much less will they wish to per
vert the design of such a Seminary, by introducing sentiments repugnant to
its excellent Constitution and Statutes.
In the autumn of 1818, Dr. Porter, then Bartlet Professor of
Sacred Rhetoric, preached the sermon at the dedication of the
Chapel. In that sermon [p. 14] he said:
The Professors of this Institution assent to the Creed of its Founders, not
as a ceremony of induction into office; not because it was, substantiaUy, the
Creed of the great Reformei's and of the New England Fathers; but because
in their view, it accords with the Word ot God. They are at perfect liberty
to renounce these opinions and embrace others; but in that case, they are
bound, aa honest and honorable men, to relinquish their present station.
In 1819 some person who called himself " a Lover of the Truth"
— he seems to have loved it from a Unitarian point of view —
published a pamphlet to which he added " Sorae Reraarks on the
Andover Institution." I will read a few lines from it [The Trial:
Calvin and Hopkins vs. The Bible and Common Sense, etc., p. 28],
as going to show what the outside public then understood the facts
in the case to be :
I leave it to those who dispassionately consider present occurrences, and
the probability of future results; whether an Institution established on such
principles, to which its Professors, fautors and pupils ¦mu,st adhere, is calcu
lated to do more good or evil in the circle of its influence?
On the 13th Sept. 1821, Prof. Moses Stuart, Associate Prof essor
of Sacred Literature, preached the sermon at the dedication of
Bartlet Hall, which was published. In it he spoke as follows

147
[Sermon occasioned by the Completion of the New College Edifice,
etc., pp. 26-28] :
It will be seen, by this sketch, that the Founders of the Seminary were
sincerely and earnestly bent upon preserving, as pure as possible, the princi
ples on which it had been established; and that everything which human
wisdom and foresight could do to accomplish this, has already been done.
We are aware that this arrangement has excited much animadversion ; but
we are not able to perceive any impropriety in it. Had not the Founders,
sincerely beheving as they did that the principles of their Creed were truly
Christian, and such as the great body of the pious in every age of the Church
had maintained, a right to bestow their property in such a way as to main
tain those principles, when they were removed from the present scene of
action? If you deny this, you deny liberty of conscience, and the liberty of
Christians. If you admit it, then you justify the measures which they have
taken. Will it be said that the consciences of men are bound by such a measure ;
that Christian and Protestant freedom of investigation is denied to the Offi
cers and Students of this Seminary; and that inquiry and aU improvement in
respect to the doctrines of Theology are at an end, among those who submit
to such requisitions in the true spirit of them? I know this has been said.
But if it may appear plausible in theory, it has very little concern with prac
tice The Instructors in this Seminary must be supposed to have formed
their opinion about the great points of theology before they are elected to
office here. If they subscribe ex animo to the Creed, they may surely do it
with entire integrity. If, in the course of future investigation, they aher their
opinions in respect to any doctrines of the Creed, nothing prevents the alter
ation. They are at liberty, as much as any other men on earth. They make
no promise not to change their opinions, express or implied. But the Found
ers have provided tliat, in case ofsuch a change, they cannot be retained m
their service. They [i.e., the Founders] have the same right to do this as
they had to espouse the principles of religion which they have adopted; the
same right that a parish has to employ such a minister as it would prefer;
the common, unalienable right of all men, to appropriate their property to
build up the Church in that method which they judge proper, provided it do
not infringe on the similar rights of their neighbors. They had the same
right to annex such a condition to the tenure of Professorship here that a
man has, In any case, to annex a condition to the enjoyment of a gift which
he has bestowed. And if a Professor has common honesty, he can never
Ascribe to the Creed, unless he really believes it. If he assents to this
^ZX^then inculUes principles contrary to it he surely is not a rnan
xoho ought to be retained in any important post of the Church. If in the
cZrifhl mvestigaUons he become satisfied, that any of theprinaples of
irj, eS are su^stoLiaUy incorrect, then MMm OP^^^^J-;^^^
don a vlace which he cannot conscientiously hold. If for the pal ry consia
f ation of retaining his salary, he w-iU do violence t° ^^ ~en^
conceal his sentiments, there is no human «™«f Z"-- '' 'J^/dXT-'
them, the Statutes of the Founders must be e.ecnted. ''^^^'^'^^^'^^^f ^^ " ;',
And what complaint could he have to n.ake, if they should be? He accepte A
the office with a full knowledge of all the circumstances.

148
With a prophetic insight this noble Professor seeras to have
looked forward to this very day, and anticipated the exact calamity
which has called us here. And what did he say ? [Ibid. p. 36] :
This Seminary is indeed consecrated to Christ and the Church; it is
guarded by all the ramparts, which paper Constitutions and Legislative acts
and contracts can erect. So have others been, that are now arrayed against
the faith which they were established to defend and to propagate. Let the
majority of our Legislators and Judges, our Trustees and other Officers of
this Seminary, once come to view the principles on which it is founded, as
erroneous, or superstitious, and all our paper ramparts vanish, at the first
assault. And then, explaining why he has thought it fit to say such things,
he goes on to remark [Ibid. p. 37] :
For what end, you may ask, is such an attempt to create alarm? My an
swer is ready. For this end; that you may see and feel, that the safety and
purity of this Institution depend, after all, on God only; and be led suitably
to acknowledge Him, so that He may direct its paths. Trust not in any arm
of flesh. You have, andfrom the very nature of the case you can have, no
other assurance that this Seminary will not be arrayed, the very next gener
ation, against the faith which it now inculcates, but the protection and
blessing of Almighty God.
Now, is it conceivable that such language as this could have
been employed on a festive occasion in the presence of the munifi
cent Donor of the building which they had assembled to dedicate,
and of Moses Brown his Associate Founder ; and in the presence
of his Honor William Phillips, and Hon. John Phillips and Hon.
Jonathan Phillips, of Dr. Eliphalet Pearson, of Dr. Jedidiah Morse,
of Dr. Abiel Holmes, of Hon. Samuel H. Walley, and of Mark New
man and Sarauel Farrar, Trustees ; and of Hon. George Bliss,
Dr. Calvin Chapin, and Dr. Jeremiah Day, Visitors ; and then
been printed with their license and laud, unless it voiced a princi
ple as to whose truth, and whose importance for the welfare of the
Seminary, they had — and knew of — but one opinion?
I am aware that the Respondent and his learned counsel talk
about "substantial agreeraent" with this Creed. Well, Gentle
men, we too believe in "substantial" agreeraent — in its place,
and to its outermost just and honorable limit, as really and truly
as they can. But that limit must exist, and it must lie somewhere
within the bounds of safety. When the physician prescribes for
your child milk and water, half and half; "substantial agree
ment" with his, direction is near enough, without weighing or

149
measuring either the milk or the water. But how about "sub
stantial agreement" with that physician's recipe, when the dear
chUd's Ufe hangs in the balance, and heroic treatment is involved,
and the chemist must open, his deadliest poison bottles to com
pound the dose? I rather think we all want raore than " substan
tial agreement," in such a case as that.
So, further, we are told that the body of the Creed is to be in
terpreted by the concluding promise : " according to the best light
God shall give me ; " as if, if God should not give light enough
for such a Professor to believe in the " infaUible Revelation," or
in the "three Persons" of the Godhead, orin that clause which
declares that " by nature every man is personally depraved," or in
any other of the doctrines previously enumerated ; that fact is to dis
charge him of aU obligation to believe and teach them. But this
forgets — I should say ignores — the two conclusive counter facts
— that the Professor's promise distinctly is that he wiU " raaintain
and inculcate the Christian faith as expressed in the Creed ' '
according to the best light which God shall give him ; and that
his work shall be done according to the best light which God shall
give him — in " opposition ' ' to the heresies and errors which, when he
subscribes the Creed, he goes on to enumerate. Here he is beset
behind and before by the intense and pronounced Orthodoxy of
the Syrabol, and he cannot flee from its presence.
And, if you look at the matter on the plane of every-day com
mon sense, it becomes easy to see that a more palpable absurdity
could hardly be framed into speech, than the claim which our
friends here make. You say to your son: "go to Charleston,
S.C." He asks "how?" And you answer: "go according to
the best light God shall give you." Now he might — in summer
time — paddle thither in a canoe ; and that would be good for his
arms. He might walk ; and that would be good for his legs. He
might go on horse-back ; and that would be excellent for his
general health. He might go in Dr. Holmes's " one-hoss shay,"
and, if it didn't break down, it might prove a very agreeable
method of transit. He might hire a yacht, or a two-horse coach,
and that would be bad for his purse, and probably for yours. He
might go by stearaer, or go by train. And I ara not prepared to
say that you could exactly condemn him, if, by whichsoever
method, he safely reached his journey's end — on his serious in
sistence that he had felt it to be his heaven-revealed and solemn
duty to choose the course which he actually took. But I am sure

150
that just cause of complaint would lie against hira in your mind,
should he have gone to Malaga in Spain, or to Canton in China,
when you ordered him to go to Charleston, S.C.
Or we wUl suppose the Respondent, being about to visit Europe,
to desire to invest a portion of the profits of Progressive Ortho
doxy in a new house on some one of the sweet and sunlit slopes of
Andover hill. He favors — being conservative in tastes — a large
double house with Grecian piUars, and an ample haU running
through the centre, with space, taste and corafort on either hand.
He has his plans drawn therefor, aud puts all into the hands of
an architect in whora he confides, but adds to the minute drawings
and exact verbal specifications this flnal clause :
And it is further agreed that the said architect shall give to his employer
the benefit of his best supervisory skill; and, as a man of learning and experi
ence in his profession, shall introduce any such improvements, in harmony
with the main design, as, during the progress of the work, may suggest them
selves as of real value to the best completeness of the same.
The Respondent hears from the work with great regularity dur
ing his absence in the way of a call for remittances ; and when it
is complete starts for home, in the feeling that though it has cost
more than he intended, it will offer him a charming retreat for the
rest of his days. He has seen it a good deal in his mind's eye
while absent. As the express spins by Ballardvale, he glances
toward those well-remerabered heights where his new horae ought
to be glearaing between the trees — but fails to catch the desired
gleam. The architect meets him at the station, however, and on
the way up in the coach, says that he has made rather more of
that last clause than he originally intended ; but, as he has put the
most advanced thought, and his own best aud most conscientious
work, into it, he hopes for approval. They alight before a
structure — occupying preciselj' the prescribed external feet and
inches in every direction ; but all else how changed ! In place
of the serene and classic shape assigned, behold a mixture of
Queen Anne, and King Yankee ; with bulges here, bay-windows
there and pinnacles above ; all coated with fish-scale shingles and
painted in all the colors of the rainbow ; the calm and large inte
rior cut up into petty receptacles for bric-d,-brac, and faithfully
diversified with all the modern appliances of pretentious ill taste
and laborious discomfort !
Now, my friend, the Respondent wouldn't use any bad language

151
on such an occasion, but I can conceive of his resorting to words
of considerable strength. And it would not surprise me, if, by
the time he had freed his mind in regard to the way in which that
fatal " last clause " had been worked in the case, the poor archi
tect should be in the condition of a man whom I once heard
tremendousl}' scarified in Court by the eloquent father of the dis
tinguished professor from Yale on the other side of the table ; the
man being then and there reported to be endeavoring " to charter
knot-holes for two ! ' '
How refreshing it is to turn from all such forms of dealing with
the Andover Creed, to a deliverance like that of a former pro
fessor, published in the Congregationalist of 14 June, 1882, a
portion of which is as follows :
The Statutes of the Seminary require a rigid assent to the letter of the
Creed on the part of all persons subscribing it; the Boards of administration,
however, accept a general and approximate belief in the doctrines of the
Creed as the sufficient prerequisite to subscription. But the honesty of such
general and approximate subscription has of late been publicly and exten
sively called in question; yet the Trustees are disincUned publicly to
acknowledge and vindicate it.
To remain in my office, therefore, would be to remain constantly exposed
to the charge, or the suspicion, of dishonesty without prospect of open
vindication, and with the certainty that whatever I might say in my own
defence would be largely neutralized.
In justice alike to the Trustees and to myself I must add, that our per
sonal relations are, and always have been, most kindly. The problem which
confronts them is one of extreme gravity and delicacy. They express their
willingness still to accept from me a qualifled subscription. Such a sub
scription, while it has hitherto been satisfactory to me (and stiU is so far as
my private relations to them are concerned), has ceased to be so, because,
by reason of recent discussions, it places both me and the Seminary in a
false position before the public.
But it is asked. Why do you not remain at your post and labor there to
bring about a change?
I reply, first, because my obligation to be, and be known to be, an honest
man outweighs all other obligations to Trustees or Seminary; and secondly,
because, by resigning my position for the reason given, I seem to myself to
be doing what little I can towards bringing about a change indispensable
to the prosperity of the Seminary. Yours truly, J. Henry Thayer.
Andoveb, June 8, 1882.
Gentlemen, I maintain that if there be one scrap or particle in
the Andover Creed, which by any twisting could be strained to
seem to favor such a doctrine as that in question, it must have

152
gotten in there surreptitiously ; because from the day of the Cruci
fixion down to the laying of the top stone of the first Andover
building, alraost every human being frora whose influence, early
or late, such insertion could come, had been of another way of
thinking, and had been urgently of that other way. A man of
ordinary coraraon sense, and some little knowledge of natural
history, does not need to break the egg of an ostrich, to deterraine
that neither the erabrj'on of a canary, a cat-bird, a crow nor a
crocodile is housed therein. And the Andover Creed we have
seen is such in origin, as a whole, as not only to warrant us in the
a priori security that the notion of probation after death cannot
be found therein, but to compel us to conclude that did any clause
of the instrument seem for a moment construable that way, it
ought to be construed in some other way of better harmony with
the scope of the instrument, if any such course be possible. If
my plough brings up a little iron box having the rust of centuries
upon it, aud on breaking it open I find gold and silver coins within ;
I have better warrant to believe them the genuine product of their
mints, of their dates given, than when I buy coins of the mer
chants in these days of imposture. Therefore I insist that, as
its position and surroundings control the just interpretation of any
document, pre-eminently this reasoning removes the Andover
Creed from every possibility of a lawfully lax rendering in the
particular before us.
III. I now proceed to set forth in sjjecific detail the evidence that
Prof. Egbert Coffin S^mytli, the Bespondent, is heterodox and guilty
of failure to maintain and inculcate the Creed of the Seminary,
and the "true intention" ofthe Founders as expressed in their
Statutes, in believing, maintaining and inculcating that there is and
toill be pirobation after death for all men who do not decisively reject
Christ during the earthly life. I shall call your attention to several
particulars, in their order, as suggested by the progress of thought
and language in the Associate Statutes.
1. The Second Article of the said Associate Statutes requires
that the said Respondent " sustain the character " — among other
things — of "an Orthodox and consistent Calvinist;" and he
has again and ag.ain " solemnly proraised " to sustain that char
acter ; while it is in the nature of thiugs irapossible for any man
to raaintain and inculcate the hypothesis of probation after this life,
and at the sarae tirae be "an Orthodox and consistent Calvinist."

153
This, Gentleraen of the Visitors, is a proposition abundantly
capable of being maintained on abstract grounds, and by compari
son of the hypothesis referred to with the fundamental principles,
and only logical and congruous outcomes, of Calvinism. Although
it was not a matter so lying in his way as to call for any special
treatment, yet Calvin himself, in passing, raade known raore than
once his distinct view in regard to it. In the third Book of the
Institutes [III. 25 (6)] he says:
There can be no doubt that the reprobate have the same doom as that
which Jude assigns to the devils, they are " reserved in everlasting chains
under darkness, unto the judgment of the great day " [Jude 6].
And in his Psychopannychia, or refutation of the notion that the
soul sleeps from death to judgment [Tracts, iii. 449], he says :
As long as it is in the body it [the soul] exerts its own powers ; but when
it quits this prison-house it returns to God, whose presence it meanwhile
enjoys while it rests in the hope of a blessed Resurrection. This rest is its
paradise. On the other hand, the spirit of the reprobate, while it waits for
the dreadful judgment, is tortured by that anticipation, which the Apostle
for that reason calls ^o/Jepai/ (fearful). To inquire beyond this is to plunge
into the abyss of the Divine mysteries. , *
So Calvin. What Calvinists since his time have held to be
Orthodox and consistent Calvinism on the subject, their symbolic
literature which I have already cited, has abundantly made mani
fest. But the truth is, that this is a specific and not a general state
ment. The phrase here employed, " an Orthodox and consistent
Calvinist," had, at the tirae when this Creed was framed, and in
the minds of the men who framed it, a limited and technical sense.
It was in that sense that they eraployed it, and by that sense we
are legally as well as morally bound to interpret it. Prof. Green-
leaf in his standard Treatise on the Law of Evidence [i. sec. 295]
lays it down that parol testimony is admissible to show that words
which may have two meanings, one common and universal, the
other technical, peculiar, or local, are used in the latter sense, and
to ascertain that technical or local meaning. "The same princi
ple," he adds, " is also applied in regard to words and phrases,
used in a peculiar sense by members of a particular religious sect ; ' '
which dictum he fortifies by a loug note of reference to the case
of Lady Hewley's charities, and the action of the Vice Chancellor
thereon, afterwards confirmed by Lord Lyndhurst, and still agam

154
by the House of Lords. The Respondent himself has told us that
" words and phrases must have their historic sense."
The question then becomes : what was that technical historic
sense which, in the beginning of the present century, in New Eng
land, commonly attached to the designation a " consistent Calvin
ist," in which sense it went into the Creed?
In the Life and Times of Gardiner Spring, D.D. [i: 21] it is
stated that Chief Justice Theophilus Parsons, who lived in New
buryport, and, himself a Unitarian, was fond of discussing theology
with his neighbor Dr. Samuel Spring, — chief of the Hopkinsian
originators of the Andover Creed, — was wont to say : " Dr. Spring
is right ; he is a consistent Calvinist ; for, if I were a Calvinist at all
I could not stop this side of Hopkinsianism." Dr. Emmons [Life,
422] used to say "some theologians are Calvinisticalish ; some
Calvinistical, some Calvinistic ; I am a Consistent Calvinist," —
this, because he held that Hopkinsianism, as he believed and taught
it — in strongly presenting on the one side the adorable sover
eignty of God, and, on tlie other, the deplorable sinfulness of man,
with their related harmonizing truths — set forth Scriptural Calvin
ism in its ouly self-consistent and eflBcient form. And, when the
Hopkinsians were denounced by the Old Calvinists — some of
whom, under that name, were really inculcating semi-Arrainianism
— as being at least semi-heretics, they were in the habit of retorting
that, so far from being heretics, they were the onl^' consistent Cal
vinists." In this sense the phrase occurs in the correspondence
preliminary to the Creed. Dr. Woods [Appe7idix, p. 482] wrote
to Dr. Spring in Apnl 1807 :
I consider thorough consistent Calvinism to be Divine truth. And when I
name Calvinism, I mean the system which the mbst enlightened and respect
able Hopkinsians embrace.
So, in the spring of 1807, he earnestly pleaded with Dr. Spring
[Ibid. 486] to withdraw his opposition to the union of the two
Seminaries because if one were left to be established at Andover
by itself, it would have great advantages; "America, England,
and Scotland would be searched for professors, whose narae should
be popular and famous ; " it would doubtless get the most students,
and be the most popular institution, and — here is the grand rub :
All the students coming from the [that] Seminary will be in danger of hav
ing their minds prejudiced, in some measure, against consistent Calvinism;
and so the desirable effects of impartial inquiry aud clear gospel light will be
obstructed.

155
The first Abbot Professor of Christian Theology, understood the
phrase, and constantly used it, in this sense. He said [Woods. »
102] : L , f
Some who called themselves "liberal Christians" endeavored to stigma
tize it [the Creed] by caUing it a Hopkinsian Creed ; and so they would have
called any creed which contained thorough and consistent Calvinism.
He said [Ibid. p. 103] that the Creed was " purely and consist
ently Calvinistic," and [Ibid. p. 107] that he had" been chosen
Professor in consequence of the knowledge of his views and prin-
ples of "consistent Calvinism."
Now, I maintain that this, and no other, was the sense in which
the phrase came into the Creed, and that when all parties to the
transaction agreed to require that every Professor on the Associate
Foundation should promise and covenant to be " an Orthodox and
consistent Calvinist" what they meant was that he should agree
to be at basis a Hopkinsian, except so far as that character might in
sorae particulars have been slightly modified by subsequent clauses,
to which all had agreed, in the Creed.
We have seen what Dr. Hopkins taught, and what his pupils
held, as to probation after death ; and it will at once be conceded,
on all hands, that there is nothing in the Creed to require a Hop
kinsian to believe on that subject differently from Dr. Hopkins
himself. Therefore, in holding, maintaining and inculcating the
possibUity of probation after this life, the Respondent violates his
pledge as to this clause of the Creed.
2. The 20th distinct and separate doctrinal statement in the
Creed is that " the ordinary means, by which these benefits [that
is, the "benefits of redemption"] are communicated to us, are
the Word, Sacraments and prayer." As, now, it appears to be in
the nature of things irapossible for these raeans to be active after
death, we claim that, in believing, maintaining and inculcating the
hypothesis of probation after death, the Respondent violates his
promise to hold and teach this Article of the Creed. The word
" ordinary " primarily means according to established order. Its
next sense is usual — that is "that which, in the common order
and succession of things, almost always takes place." Crabb, in
his English Synonymes Explained, illustrates the sense by citing
this passage from Burke :
It was in the most patient period of Eoman Servitude that themes of
tyrannicide made the ordinary exercises of boys at school.

156
But Burke never could have said this if he had understood the
fact to be, that only once in one hundred, or once in fifty, or once
in twenty-five, or once in ten cases, were such themes made the
exercises of boys at school. And, surely, the framers of the
Creed never would have said that men are ordinarily converted
to God by raeans of "the Word, Sacraments and prayer," if
they had supposed it to be the fact that millions more souls will
be in Heaven who have been converted to God by post-mortem
mercies, of whose nature we are not informed further than that
we seera to be authorized to be very sure that the Word and the
Sacraments cannot be among them, than have been converted to
God in this world by their gracious help.
More than half of the race is extinguished in infancy. There
are sad multitudes who lack the imperial gift of reason. And the
pagan nations which live and die and know not God, have always
appaUingly outnumbered, and outnumber still, those over whom
the radiance from the cross has streamed. Now, the Respondent
asks [Progressive Orthodoxy, p. 251] :
Are all these multitudes, through so many generations, hopelessly lost?
. . . Must we, can we, believe that they are eternally damned ? Is it pos
sible that God will never bring to them the light and motive of the gospel
of Jesus Christ?
And, in exposition of his theory of the way in which salvation
may come to such souls in the next world, he [Ibid. p. 253] says :
The revelation given in the disembodied state may be so luminous that
the actual time will scarcely be appreciable between the moment of death,
and the moment when Christ is decisively accepted or rejected. And yet,
with some, we can easily imagine that protracted processes of education and
discipline may be necessary to make them ripe for decision.
His whole theory asks acceptance on the ground of the im
measurable relief which it offers to the raind in raaking it hypo-
thetically possible, if not indeed prevailingly probable, that
uncounted millions — the vast majority of mankind — whose sal
vation was by the old Orthodoxy supposed to be impossible, by
the post-venient grace of the Progressive Orthodoxy ma}' be saved,
in Hades. Then what becomes of his agreement to hold and
teach that " the Word, Sacraments and prayer " are the " ordinary
means of human salvation ?
I do not press this point as one to which, did it stand alone,
vital importance need attach, but that we may not overlook how

157
wide-spreading is the contamination of the Creed by the dry-rot
of Dornerism in Eschatology.
3. The 24th distinct and separate doctrinal clause in the Creed
pledges every Professor to believe, maintain and inculcate that
" they who are effectually called, do in this life partake of justifi
cation, adoption and sanctification, and the several benefits which
do either accompany or flow from them ; " so that in teaching that
those who die in impenitence will repent, or that they may
repent, or that they can repent, in the future world, the Respond
ent violates his pledge to this Article of the Creed.
I recognize, Mr. President, the acute and conspicuous ability
with which the Respondent has argued in regard to this matter.
And, Sir, could this clause be looked at merely as so much lan
guage, separated from and excluded out of its place and purpose
in this Symbol, one might grant to his reasoning a considerable
show of justice. But, Sir, just as the body of each passenger in
everj' coach of a train which is running at sixty miles the hour,
shares that motion, and, so far as the track and the surrounding
country are concerned, is rushing on at that tremendous rate —
as h'e would find were he to jump out ; although, so far as the
car is concerned, at perfect rest in his seat ; so the momentum of
this whole Creed has been proved to be so conclusive in the direc
tion of the ideas which presided over its birth, as to control, in
large measure, the interpretation of its every clause. Any reso
lution passed by a convention of Democrats is entitled to a
Democratic explanation over aU others, where such an one is
possible. And, for like reason, every sentence and member of this
Creed that can be, fairly construed toward another theory than
that of probation after this life ought to be so construed, because
we know that its Founders, and their abettors, would aU have
died martyrs before they would knowingly have sanctioned what
they regarded as so grievous aud dangerous a heresy.
This clause of the Creed is taken alraost ijisissimis verbis from
the Shorter Catechism, where it makes the answer to the 32d
question, which is abridged from and controUed by the Larger
Catechism and Confession — it being the quintessence of the 10th
Chapter of the Confession, "Of Effectual CaUing." Without
further argument I submit, that, since God's purposes for human
salvation are herein declared to take effect for that salvation only
through the effectual calling of His Holy Spirit ; and that effectual
calliii" is declared to do its work only iu this life ; it becomes im-

158
possible to see how in the good faith of the Creed there can be
penitence and forgiveness in the future life, or how the Respondent
is able in Christian honesty, through Progressive Orthodoxy, to
" maintain and inculcate " that men, and even the great majority
of men, may repent and be saved in Hades, while quinquennially
pledging himself to teach that no man can be saved, except he be
effectually called in this life.
4. The 26th doctrinal clause of the Creed is, that " the wicked
will awake to shame and everlasting conterapt, and with devils be
plunged into the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone for ever
and ever." We claim that this awaking is from the unconscious
ness which accorapanies death, and that what the clause means to
say, and what, properly construed, it does say, is that, so soon as
the impenitent soul becomes conscious of a change of worlds, it be
comes conscious that its destiny is forever fixed in the dreadful
conditions which are described ; and we claira that, having prom
ised to maintain and inculcate this belief, the Respondent is false
to that pledge in teaching that there may be salvation beyond the
grave. I understand the Respondent substantially to assert that,
as the previous clause, in so many words, states that " the Isouls
of believers are at their death made perfect in holiness, and do im
mediately pass into glory," and, as there is here the omission of
any distinct averment that ') at death" the wicked will awake,
etc., or that they " are immediately cast into hell," etc., that it
becomes legitimate to infer that ages may pass after death before
their final condition shall be fixed, during which they may repent
and be saved. As — aside from a claimed general flavor of weak
ness in that direction — this — not very wide — crevice is the only
one in the Creed into which the Respondent himself ventures to
believe, or dares to claim, that it is possible to thrust the neo-pro-
bational theories, it will be well to glance for a moment at the ele
raents which raust govern a fair judgraent of such a claim.
(1) In the first place, bj' the uniform usus loquendi of the Con
fession, and the Catechism, and all their literature, the " wicked "
raeans those who persist in sin and die in impenitence. Now, if
the previous clause with reference to the righteous, came verbatim
from the Catechisms, equally did this one come frora the prophecy
of Daniel [xii : 2] in rendering which the revisers have endorsed,
letter by letter, the authorized version : " And many of them that
sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life,
and some to shame and everlasting contempt ; " where the two

159
cases of the righteous and the wicked — that is, of those who died
believers, and of those who died unbelievers — are put into the
parallelism of a perfectly balanced antagonism. It seems, beyond
question, then, that the framers of the Creed supposed themselves
to be making an assertion as to what was to happen to those who
died wicked, so soon as they began to awake to consciousness that
they were dead.
(2) But, if we grant that no immediate and instantaneous link
binds the thought of what is here asserted of the wicked to their
first conscious moment after death, and that ages of new proba
tionary privilege raay be fairly imagined to come in here, what
follows, from the inevitable force of the language, but that this new
probationary opportunity meets with the same deplorable fate with
the former, aud avails but to add to the guilt and wretchedness of
tliose who were guUty and wretched enough before ; since the Creed
insists — surely they are not to believe in Christ and be saved
while stUl asleep — that the wicked, ivlienever they do aivake,
"awake to shame and everlasting contempt" to "be plunged
with devUs " into the direful lake. There is here no suggestion
of the remotest possibility that there can, under auy circumstances
or at any period of eternity, be any other than this fearful awak
ing in reserve for them.
(3) I insist, then, that the only fair interpretation of this clause
is that which raakes it follow the silence of the Shorter Catechism
— to which, in its place, I referred — with reference to any asser
tion of the immediateness of the entrance of the dead sinner upon his
irapending doom ; on the ground that it was implied in what was
antitheticaUy said of the immediateness of the entrance of the
righteous upon their state of reward, and sufficiently suggested by
the suggestiveness of the text itself of the prophet Daniel which
was employed. I am wholly unable, therefore, to see how the
Respondent avoids infidelity to this clause of the Creed which he
binds himself to maintain.
5. The 30th doctrinal clause of the Creed is this: "that man
has understanding and corporeal strength to do all that God re
quires of hira, so that nothing but the sinner's aversion to holiness
prevents his salvation." This the Respondent stands sacredly
pledged to beUeve, maintain and inculcate. But if nothing but a
man's own fault stands between him and a given result, then he
has a " fair chance " for that result. If nothing but " my aver
sion " to take the next train to New York prevents my taking that

160
train, then I have a " fair chance " to take that train. This is
not said of any particular raan, or raen, but of man as such, and
in virtue of his huraanity. He raay be the most gifted and cul
tured graduate of Oxford or Cambridge. He may be a New
Hampshire farmer. He may be a Digger Indian. But of him,
high or low. Pagan or Puritan, the Creed says — " nothing" but
his own "aversion to holiness prevents his salvation." He raay
have the Catechism at his tongue's end; he may "know nothing
of the historical Christ and the redemption that is in Him " [Prug.
Orth. p. 63.] ; and yet — aU are on the same level as to that —
according to the Creed, "nothing but his aversion to holiness
prevents his salvation." Every raan, who is a raan, and " has
understanding and corporeal strength to do all that God requires
of him," according to the Creed — and according to Prof. Smyth,
when once in five years he says: "I believe and will teach the
Creed," has a fair chance. If he have a fair chance God treats
him justly. Yet, in Progressive Orthodoxy [p. 64] the Respond
ent says :
We may go so far as to say that it would not be just for God to condemn
men hopelessly when they have not known Him as He really is, when' they
have not known Him in Jesus Christ.
But if there be one raan on earth who has not known God the
Father in Jesus Christ, who yet has " understanding and corporeal
strength to do all that God requires of him," he has a fair chance,
even if he be so unfortunate as not to have known God in Jesus
Christ. And, if he have a fair chance and reject God, it is just
for God to condemn him for so doing. And, once in five years,
in taking the Creed, the Respondent says it is just, while the rest
of the tiine in Progressive Orthodoxy he says it is not just.
6. The 33d clause of the Creed requires every Professor on the
Associate Foundation solemnly to promise : " that I will raaintain
and inculcate the Christian faith, as expressed in the Creed, by
rae now repeated, together with all the other doctrines and duties
of our holy religion, so far as may appertain to mj' office, according
to the best light God shall give me, and in opposition, not only to
Atheists and Infidels, but to Jews, Papists, Mahometans, Arians,
Pelagians, Antinomians, Arminians, Socinians, Sabellians, Uni
tarians and Universalists, and to all heresies and errors ancient or
modern, which may be opposed to the Gospel of Christ, or haz
ardous to the souls of raen." We charge that the Respondent is

161
guilty of infidelity to this clause, and of violation of this solemn
promise, in maintaining and inculcating, in the face of it, the doc
trine of probation after death.
The first question concerning this Article must, of course, be
one of construction — of the ascertainment of what precisely the
Founders designed to be the force of it. It is impossible that they
intended to pledge their Associate Professors blindly to oppose,
and flatly to antagonize, all these heretics and errorists in all
respects and every particular ; for, with their various errors and
heresies, they hold a great deal of truth which cannot be gain
said. All except the first-named, for example, agree in affirming
the Divine existence ; so that what is meant must be other than
that. We are indebted to the Respondent, and his associates, for
a good if not entirely satisfactory rule to be here applied. In a
letter, signed by himself and five others who were then his associ
ates, of date 10 April 1882, which was published in the Congrega
tionalist of 12 April 1882, he, and they, said :
Any interpretation of the Andover Creed which opens the door to any
specifled heresy [the connection shows that what was meant was "to any of
the heresies which it specifles"] is illegitimate. On the other hand, its cor
relative Articles are properly held so long as the truths are maintained which
exclude these specified errors.
We need have no controversy over this : he cannot object to it,
and we will not. And now I charge him, in the maintenance and
inculcation of the dogma of probation after death, with opening
the door to more than one of those specified heresies which he
stands pledged to oppose, and with faUing to maintain the truths
which exclude those specified errors.
If the question respects whether, in advocating the continuance
of probation after death, he is teaching what is now a distinguish
ing doctrine of Universalism and Unitarianism, there could be but
one possible answer. The latest, and in some respects, in our lan
guage, ablest, work on The History of Christian Doctrine, by
Prof. Sheldon ofthe Boston University [ii : 397] says :
Modern Unitarians are very largely inclined to Eestorationism, regarding
future punishment as amendatory in its design, and Future Probation, with
its far-reaching opportunities, as likely to ultimate, on the part of all, m the
choice of goodness.
That "Statement of Belief" unanimously adopted 30 Oct.,
1878, by the Unitarian Association of New Hampshire, which.

162
more than any other formula, has been accepted and used by Uni
tarians in general as fairly stating their characteristic belief, on
this subject says :
There is no reason to suppose that death either causes the remission of
penalties, or shuts out opportunities of repentance.
And, five-and-twenty years ago, the Rev. W. R. Alger, in his
learned treatise entitled A Critical History of the Doctrine of a
Future Life, declared it to be the reflned and final shape which
the doctrine of Universalism has taken [p. 429] :
That the freedom and probation granted here extend into the life to come;
that the aim of all future punishment will be remedial, beneficent, not re.
vengeful ; that stronger motives will be applied for producing repentance,
and grander attractions to holiness be felt; and that thus, at some time or
other, even the most sunken and hardened souls will be regenerated and
raised up to heaven in the image of God. Many Universalists, most Unita
rians, and large numbers of individuals outwardly affiliated with other de
nominations, now accept and cherish this theory.
And again [p. 564] he says :
The conditions and means of repentance, reform&tion, regeneration, are
always within its [the soul's] power, the future state being but the unencum
bered, intensified experience of the spiritual elements of the present, under
the same Divine constitution and laws. This is the belief of Unitarians,
Restorationists, and the general body of believers known as "Liberal Chris
tians." Here it is in place to refer to the opinion of the learned Quar
terly of the Universalist denomination, the Universalist Beview,
which [July 1886, p. 373] wound up itstriticism of Progressive
Orthodoxy with these words :
We close here, with the remark before made, that the trend of the " Pro
gressive Orthodoxy" is inevitably toward Universalism. Its advocates
must either call a halt and a retreat, or be pushed by the force of logic and
the demands of the confessed " ethical consciousness," to the only possible
resting place, the assurance that allevU must be destroyed, all sin be finished,
the holiness of all souls be secured by Almighty Wisdom and Love.
But the Creed was adopted by the Founders in 1808, and we
should fairly inquire what they meant by Universalism ; what was
the UniversaUsra of that tirae, which they knew, dreaded, and
desired to pledge all their Professors to oppose ? When this cen
tury came iu there were scarcely five-and-twenty Universalist
preachers in tho country, and that denomination was but just

163
springing into Ufe. It was, yet, exceedingly active. Between
1779 and 1808 there were in New England as many as one hun
dred and thirty publications upon the subject, and the Founders
thought it to be seriously raenacing the general welfare, when they
were planning and toiling towards their Seminary. So far as the
neighborhood of Andover was concerned, John Murray was Uni
versalism, for substance, then. Nearing the end of his career, he
was, when they were signing the Creed, in his fifteenth year as
pastor of the First Universalist Society in Boston ; having for
raany previous years been laboring largely at Gloucester, where,
1 Jan. 1779, he had led in the establishment of what is held to be
the earliest organization of American Universalists. A man, it
would seem, of singular fascination in the pulpit, with some
powers which appear to have been really very remarkable, and
with an immense — and, so to speak, fiuent famUiarity with the
Scriptures — he no doubt exercised an exceedingly wide popular
influence. For more than a quarter of a century laboring thus
within twenty-five miles — on the one side or the other — of most
¦of these Founders, there can be no question that they especially de
plored his influence. The younger President Edwards even had
thought his labors of suflScient consequence for public animadver
sion in Brief Observations on the Doctrine of Universal Salvation
as lately promulgated by Murray the Universalist [i: 279] and
many other Divines had referred to him both in the pulpit and the
press. Clearly, then, at least one great thought, — if not the great
thought — in the Founders' mind when in the Creed they men
tioned Universalism as an error to be antagonized, was of this
man, his labors aud opinions ; and one thing which they especially
meant to pledge their Professors to do must have been to raaintain
and inculcate the Christian faith in opposition to him, and what
they regarded as his pestilent heresies. Even in the absence of direct
testimony one can infer when materials of inference are at hand.
If a ship be sinking in mid-ocean one can guess some of the
thoughts and feelings and speech of the endangered passengers,
without being there to take notes. And when New England was
in that case that many felt her richest ventures of faith to be in
imminent danger of foundering in the deep sea of unbelief, it be
comes easy to know what good people meant by what they said.
Now, Gentlemen, what was the Universalism of John Murray?
It was a very differeiit Universalism from that of to-day. So to
say, it was a very much more Orthodox Universalism thau that of

164
to-day, by which I mean that it had a great deal raore of old-
fashioned Orthodoxy lying around loose iu it. John Murray was
a Calvinist "for substance of doctrine," and I quote the la1;e
Dr. Hosea BaUou 2d, D.D., when I say that his Universalism "was
based exclusively on the fact of tlie union of aU men with Christ."
And to cite the learned historian of the Universalist denomination,
the Rev. Dr. Eddy [Universalism in America, i: 152] :
All men, he held, were really in Adam, and sinned in him, not by a ficti
tious imputation, but by actual participation ; equally so are all men in the
second Adam.
He reasoned mainly from the absoluteness and unboundedness
of the attributes of God. He was especially jubilant over his
conception of the universality of the Atonement, and from this
glorious fact he continually reasoned that somewhere and some
how, and at sorae time, all men will corae to the knowledge of
Christ. Now the main point to which I desire to call your atten
tion is the fact that John Murray was led to advocate — as nearly
as I can understand it — that exact hypothesis of possible future
probation which the Respondent holds and inculcates. Let me
call your attention to some proofs of this, taken from Letters and
Sketches of Sermons, by John Murray, Senior Pastor of tlie First
Universal Society in Boston, Boston, 1812-13, thus:
To assert that God cannot manifest himself and his redeeming grace to
the soul which has departed from this state of things, is indeed most arro
gantly to limit the Holy One of Israel. I might with infinitely more
propriety assert, that I could not make you understand me, except you
continued in this house. Our bodies are said to be a house. When this
house of our earthly tabernacle is dissolved, etc. Can an Omnipotent God
be necessitated to speak to the creature who is the work of his hand, in any
particular place, or at any particular time? Is God obliged to speak to us
in this house, and nowhere else? Can we not hear his voice, except we are
encrusted in this earthly tenement? Cannot the children understand the
sovereign goodness of paternal Deity elsewhere? If they cannot, what then
must become of those infants — every infant who departs out of time?
[i: 263].
Here was a whole world of unbelievers, who not only went out of the
world in a state of unbelief, but were imprisoned in the same state for
upwards of two thousand years. But, although the preaching of Noah
could not convert them while in the body, the preaching of the Spirit of
Jesus could when out of the body. ... I never heard of any individual who
had the boldness to affirm that every infant must be eternally damned. Yet
if no human being can obtain life eternal without the knowledge of God,
and if all these little human heinss have not the knowledge of God in the
present state, as it is notorious tliey have not the knowledge either of good

165
or evil; and if there be no knowledge of God, save what is communicated
to the soul while in the body, then not some infants only, but every infant
and ideot that ever came into this worid, with almost aU the rest of the
human race, from the beginning of the worid, will be banished from the
presence of the Father of their spirits, etc. [i: 291].
F. Now you talk of the day of judgment, I wish you would give me your
opinion of the state of departed spirits.
Murray. Why, Sir, I believe that until the second coming of our Saviour,
they have a world of their own.
F. And do you think the worid in which you suppose they are, is the
residence of all departed spirits?
Murray.- I do not; I believe all those who depart in the same frame of
mind with the thief upon the cross, to whom our Saviour said, "This day
Shalt thou be with me in paradise" will keep high holy day with God. In
other words, I am of opinion, that the Assembly of Divines were perfectly
correct, who say in their Catechism: "The souls of believers are, at their
death, made perfect in holiness, and do immediately pass into glory" [i: 332].
Dr. N. I assert. Sir, that no one will ever be saved hereafter who does not
believe in this worid; for "now is the accepted time, now is the day of
salvation;" this Is our state of probation.
Murray. Yes, Sir; now, and to eternity, wUl be the day of salvation.
But what do you mean by the day of probation?
Dr. N. Why, Sir, if they do not improve the present time, they never
will have another offer.
Murray. Another offer of what, Sir ?
Dr. N. Of grace.
Murray. Does God offer grace to dead men ? Is it not said, " Te are
dead, but your life is hid with Christ, in God."
Dr. N. Ay, that is spoken to believers only.
Murray. But our Apostle says: "the love of Christ constraineth us,
because we thus judge, if one died for all then were all dead."
Dr. N. Well, Sir, notwithstanding this, there are none who will be saved
eternally, who do not know God in this life, and believe in Jesus Christ.
Murray. Are you sure of this. Sir ?
Dr. N. Yes, Sir, quite sure.
Murray. By what means are you assured ?
Dr. N. By Scripture I am assured, and by reason I am assured.
Murray. Well, Sir, it is with a degree of painful pleasure, I presume to
assure you, that both Scripture and reason are against you. The Scriptures
declare that our Saviour, while his body continued in the sepulchre, was in
spirit preaching to those imprisoned spirits who were sometime disobedient
in the days of Noah.
Dr. N. Ay, but the Scriptures do not say they believed.
Murray. All who are taught by God's Spirit you will readUy grant are
believers. Dr. N. I do not think the text you have mentioned hath any thing to do
wiUi the matter.
Murray. WeU, then, Sir, quitting revelation, we wiU turn to reason.

166
There are many infants who pass out of this world without the knowledge
of God. Do they never obtain the knowledge of God, etc., etc. [i: 396].
You would know if I conceive of any probationary state beyond the
grave ? . . .
What the Father of spirits will do with those who go out of the body
without being made acquainted with the things that make for their peace,
what will be the situation of such spirits, in a state of separation, until their
reunion with their bodies, is not for me to determine. I think it possible to
bring individuals acquainted with the truth while absent from the body, else
I could have no reasonable hope that any infant could immediately be ren
dered happy. God, in his most holy Word hath given us assurance, that
every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess, to the glory of the Father;
and as the name Jesus is literally Saviour, what is it, but that all shall con
fess him their Saviour, to the glory of the Father. But we do not see all
men confess Jesus here, for all men have not faith, nor can they, until God
shall graciously vouchsafe to bestow this blessing, for faith is the gift of
God. Secret things belong to God, but things revealed, to us and our chil
dren. It is very plainly revealed, that Jesus is the Saviour of all men, and
that he gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time. But per
haps it is not so clearly revealed, when this due time will be. To confess the
truth, I flnd it sufficient for me to consider every creature in the hand of
God, whether in or out of the body. I can have no idea of any one making
atonement for their own sins here, or hereafter, by any thing they can do or
sulfer. Jesus is a complete Saviour, or he is no Saviour at all [ii: 347].
When the sower of the evil seed, and all the evil seed sown, shall be sepa
rated from the seed which God sowed, then the seed which is properly the
seed of God, will be like him, who sowed it, holy and pure, as God is holy
and pure; when the veil shaU be taken away, and the face of the covering
from all people; every eye shall then see the Saviour as he is, and they who
see him as he is, shall be like him, etc. [iii: 343].
Neither in life nor in death, in the body nor out of the body, can any of the
ransomed of the Lord be saved from misery, until they are made acquainted
with God as their Saviour. . . . Tears, weeping and wailing, will continue as
long as unbelief, the procuring cause, shall remain. These evils will be done
away together, not in the article of death, but in the day of the Lord, when
every eye shall see and every tongue shall confess to the glory of the Father.
. . . Why the Saviour does not do this now, I know not, any more than I
know why he did not assume our nature a thousand years sooner than he did,
or why he suffers any to pass out of this state of existence unacquainted with
him, as their Saviour. . . . But we rest in full assurance, that the period
will come, when every eye shall see, etc. ... A consistent Universalist is
made to understand that every man is as much interested in what our Em
manuel did as the second Adam, as they were in what was done by the first
Adam . . . his hope extends to the final salvation of the great famUy of
man [iii: 354, 355, 360, 362, 363].
There is no mistaking these passages. Over and over again,
frora different points of view, they set forth the doctrine of proba-

167
ble salvation in Hades. This seems to be, " for substance," the
exact hypothesis of possible future probation, which the Respond
ent teaches. The Brown Professor's new light is then simply
John Murray's old darkness! The Progressive Orthodoxy of
Andover to-day, in this respect, appears to be neither more nor
less than the second-hand Universalism of nine-and-seventy years
ago, which the Respondent once in five years especially pledges
himself to oppose, while at the same tirae publishing a volurae
which employs nearly seventy, out of two hundred and sixty-four
pages, laboriously to advocate !
Again, Gentleraen, we maintain that the philosophy which under
lies and justifies the Respondent's teaching of a possible future
probation, is indistinguishable from that which underlies and
justifies UniversaUsra. Our unevangelical friends — as we have
been wont to call raany of those whom the Creed, in the clause
under consideration, groups to condemn — have the sarae Bible
which we have, and most of them claim to pay a like deference to
it. Clearly, what makes them " unevangelical " is the philosophy
which shapes their interpretation of the Word, and so evolves and
fashions their doctrine. Now two factors necessarily control our
understanding of any message ; its Language, and our conception
of the sense in which that language has been eraployed. Thus, a
raan who is anxious to silence some utterer of unpleasant things,
writes us : " flnd the slanderer, and if you can't stop him in any
other way, kill him." But we know the writer to be impulsive,
and given to extravagant utterance, and we never dream of putting
any sense of homicide upon his words — only understanding that
he is much in earnest iu his desire. In precisely a like manner
men's philosophy of the Divine character controls their interpre
tation of the Bible. The Calvinistic, and, to a large degree, the
Evangelical, idea of God, emphasizes his inflnite Holiness, Justice
and Truth, and conceives of Him from the standpoint of a Ruler
more than from tliat of a Father. Not denying that He is a Father,
merciful and gracious ; it yet looks at his Sovereignty as a greater
fact about Him, whose claims must preponderate when his Father
hood suggests conflict with it ; after the same fashion as Valerius
Maxiraus [De Factis, etc., v : 5 (3)] teUs us that Zaleucus, the Lo-
crian law-giver, was controlled in his fatherhood by his position, in
the case of^his grossly offending son. The Calvinist says : I am at
a loss to know fully what God can mean by some of his tremendous
utterances ; but He would not so have spoken, if He had not so

168
meant ; so I will believe all I am able to believe, and trust Him
for the rest. On the other hand the unevangelical idea of God
thrusts to the front his paternal qualities, and so exalts them as
necessarily regnant over his nature that he must, it reasons, be ready
in their favor to sacriflce all considerations growing out of his re
lation as a ruler to men, when any conflict emerges between them.
The Universalist says: "imperfect and duU-hearted as I am, I
wouldn't burn up my children because they have done wrong and
offended me ; and it is inconceivable to rae that God, who is infl-
nitely kinder of heart than I am, should do auy such thing ; there
fore it becomes to me a reasonable necessity to conclude that when,
in the Bible, He seems to threaten any such doom even to the most
incorrigible. He cannot mean it, and His words may lawfully be
interpreted in sorae other, milder, manner." Thus the " Winches
ter Confession," which, since 1803, has been made the test of
Universalist fellowship [Schaff- Herzog, iii: 2429], says:
Art. II. We believe that there is one God, whose nature is love, revealed
in one Lord Jesus Christ, by one Holy Spirit of grace, who will [i.e. because
his love will eventually overpower all other attributes and considerations]
finally restore the whole family of mankind to holiness and happiness.
Now, if we understand correctly the Respondent's theories as
set forth in the publications for which he is responsible, he dis
tinctly therein teaches two things, viz. :
1 . That the believer has a right to dUute the interpretation of
the Bible down to the standard of his own Christian consciousness
[Andover Beview, Oct. 1884, p. 348], thus:
The Christian consciousness of to-day, which is Itself a product of the
gospel, cannot be contradicted by the gospel. Hence any theories which
claim to be confirmed by the Bible, yet against which Christian sentiment
protests, should not be accepted. There may be waiting and confessions of
ignorance, but no assent to opinions against which refined Christian sentiment
rebels. 2. That, in the exercise of this right of interpretation, it is
Scriptural to hold and teach that raany raen in this world do not
have a fair chance [Prog. Orth. p. 251] ; that it would be incon
sistent with God's justice at the end of their earthly lives to con
demn raany raen for what they have done in this world [Ibid. p.
253] ; and that therefore opportunities of salvation in the next
world raay confidently be predicted [Ibid. pp. 93, 242].
We subrait that so far as this piiilosopliy is distinguishable from

16^
that of the Universalists, the latter has the advantage, inasrauch
as — speaking reverently — it is more logical to suppose that, if
God has set his heart upon extra-Scriptural and extra-mundane
measures of salvation towards those dying in sin. He will carry
those measures to an effectual result, than that He will allow Hira
self the risk of being a second tirae postponed and defeated.
Gentleraen of the Board of Visitors, I rest here ray argument.
I have tried to prove that the Andover Creed, frora the influences
which brought it forth, and the quarter whence it came, with
the explanations and expectations which accompanied its enact
ment, publication, and reception by the religious world, can in no
sense be justly and fairly held to suffer the teaching of probation
after this life by those who are solemnly pledged to its support ;
and I have sought to raake it clear that the Respondent in teach
ing that doctrine violate^ his obligation by going counter to no
fewer than six of its definite and separate clauses. And perrait
me to remind you, here, that the rule which the Respondent sug
gests as a sufl8cient one for the purpose, — that so long as he, in his
own conscience, is satisfied that he is honestly taking the Creed
" according to the best light God shall give him," he ought not to
be disturbed in his place ; is practically no rule at all, because it
is susceptible of becoraing all things to all raen. Heterodoxy is
not on another plane frora the truth, or as if one must leap to
a,nother planet to reach and touch it ; it is simply at the other,
lower, end of a sliding scale which slants — very gradually at the
first — frohi the place where the truth abides. Who of us cannot
recaU men — sorae still living in other communions, or cast out of
all communions — who began with us in the fuU and fraternal
holding of the same common religious doctrine ; who ran well for
a time ; but who then slid off and hurried down — always further
off and ever further down — until they plunged beyond the outmost
lines of Orthodoxy — some to land in Naturalism, some in Agnos
ticism, some in absolute Atheism ? Who does not remember the
famous — I would better say infamous — John Humphrey Noyes,
and how he declared himself to keep, through all his Oneida social
ism and shame, — a good conscience toward God? I undertake to
say that, had he been a Professor at Andover, as in 1839 he was a
student there, he might — on the plea of the Respondent — have
staid there tiU his dying day ; for, to tlie last, he maintained that,
he explained the Scriptures according to the best light which

170
God gave him. He did what his " Christian consciousness " told
him to do, and why was not the plea as sound for hlji, as for
another ? The truth is there must be — as I said in the beginning
— a limit somewhere. That lirait, Gentlemen, must be good faith
to the general intent of the Creed, a,nd purpose of the Seminary. It
need not be any thing more; it cannot be any thing less.
The Seminary was founded to favor and further Evangelical
Orthodoxj^, as then in sharp contrast with Universalism and
Unitarianism. And the question which you, as sitting in the
place of the deceased Founders — to guard their rights and assure
their purposes — are to settle ; seems to us to be not in the least
what huraan ingenuitj- can raake out of their Creed and Statutes,
nor what the men of this generation may conceive to be " opposed
to the Gospel of Christ, or hazardous to the souls of men" but
what Samuel Abbot and John and Phoebe PhUlips, and Moses
Brown and William Bartlet and John Norris conceived to be op
posed to the Gospel and hazardous to huftian souls. Mr. Bartlet
was a man of raany deeds and of few words, yet we flnd him
writing, just as this founding was going on [25 Nov., 1807], to
defend his rainister frora a charge of overcaution as to the funda
mental laws of the Institution [ TVoods, p. 534] :
He is willing to see things in this matter very sure, before he yields to the
union; he is on his guard lest a perversion should take place; and I think
we ought all so to be; for the enemy is breaking in like a flood; few, very
few, stand forth and oppose the great infidelity that is prevailing through
our land at this day; and when we do meet with any that will step forth
and stand in the gap, they ought to be supported by all the friends of
Zion.
And whUe he was writing these words, there was in type, at the
oflflce of Lincoln & Edmauds, 53 CornhUl, to be sent out before a
week's time in the December number of the Panoplist, an article,
designed as an avant-coureur for the contemplated Seminaiy, en
titled the "Importance of a Theological Institution" — written
by a man who knew — if anybody knew — what they were pro
posing to found such an Institution to advocate, and what to
oppose. And in the course of that article he enumerates " many
erroneous doctrines " which it was intended to counteract. Araong
these he names " the duration of future punishment, and univer
sal salvation." And here he goes on [Panoplist, Dec. 1807, p.
-^13]:

171
These and other like errors are now openly avowed and pubhcly taught;
errors so gross, so contrary to the Gospel of Christ, that whoever had em
braced them in the days of our ancestors, would have been thought a mon
ster in religion, and deemed unworthy the Christian name.
Can any sane man suppose that such rhen, were they now here
with unchanged convictions, could fail to regard the trend and
teaching of the Andover Beview upon Eschatology as " opposed
to the Gospel of Christ, and hazardous to the souls of men? "
The way in which it manifestly lay in the minds of the Founders
— and it is the way in which it lies in our rainds still — is that
men are by nature lost in sin ; that God has interposed to save
them, and, on account of what Christ has done, offers them for
giveness and salvation on their penitence and faith ; and expects
and commands his ministers to labor to persuade them to seek
Him while He may be found, and call upon Him while He is near
— going in to the marriage-feast, before the door is shut. He
expects thera to put upon the conscience and the fear of sinners
-»- as Christ Himself did — the need of striving to enter in by the
narrow door, because many " shall seek to enter in and shall not
be able." That death terminates probation, and that death is
liable to come to any man at any moment, in the Founders' view
constituted, so to speak, the grip of the Gospel. They would,
therefore, exceedingly have deplored the new doctrine as perilously
enfeebling its power; as much so, practically, as Universalism
itself. They would expect careless sinners, engrossed in worldly
plans and anxieties, to be tempted by it to adopt Felix's answer to
each new appeal: "go thy way for this tirae; and when I have
a convenient season, I wiU call for thee." They would expect
comraon-sense worldly raen, grasping the general principles now
newly enunciated — that many men do not have a " fair chance"
in this world, and that all who have not a fair chance here will
have one hereafter — to reason that, though others may suppose
them to be having a fair- chance, God knows that a thousand
things come in, of which the world knows nothing, to prevent their
really having a fair chance here ; and so they will confidently
await the fairer chance of the future. All this at the fearful risk
— as the Fouuders must have thought, and as some of us stiU
think — of the eternal loss of the soul.
We are told that this new theory is necessary for — or at least
very helpful towards - a better Theodicy. Gentlemen, it is a very
serious question whether it isworth risking the salvation of souls

172
for the sake of a Theodicy. Doubtless Theodicies may be useful
ill removing objections from a certain class of minds, but did any
one ever personally know of any man who was turned " from dark
ness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that he
might receive remission of sins and an inheritance among them
that are sanctified by faith," by a Theodicy?
Let it then, Mr. President, be distinctly understood what we
claim, what we oppose, and what we ask. We claim that the
Respondent has gone beyond all just boundaries of the Evangelical
faith in the direction of Universalism ; that his reasonings are logi
cally indistinguishable from those of Universalists, so that Uni
versalists are justified in claiming, as they do claim, him as a
substantial — though not yet a self-confessed — recruit to their
ranks. We oppose his further continuance in this false, and for
the Seminary perilous, position. And we ask that as conservators
of the Creed and Statutes of the Seminary, j-ou will admonish or
remove hira, as to your judgraent shall seera wisest and best.
We have — we repeat — never objected, and never desired to
object, to any legitimate progress in that Serainary within the limits
of Evangelical truth. We have no desire to criticise anj' adjust
ments of New School or Old School, nor do we find fault with any
philosophy of explanation of the doctrines of the Gospel which
preserves their Orthodoxy under the Creed. What we object to,
and all that we object to, is, that the Respondent has gone beyond
the utmost reasonable liraits of such lawful progress, and broken
out into a substantial heterodoxy to which the Creed stands neces
sarily and ineradicably opposed.
But, it is said that consequences should give us pause. It has
been claimed that to enforce the Statutes iu their literal strictness,
would be to destroy the Seminary by depopulating it of instructors.
Yet we do not believe that all the Westrainster theologians are
dead, nor that it would prove a thing irapossible — if even very
difficult — were every one of these professorial chairs left vacant
to-morrow, speedily to find competent men to fill thera, who could
take the Creed not only in the sense, but with aU the cordiality, of
the Founders. Yet if that could not be, we respectfully submit
that there would be no doubt that the Courts, by virtue of a decree
of Cy-pres, would re-estabUsh some legal method by which men
with a conscience could conscientiously fill the vacant places. But
if that could not be, we still further submit that it might be better
to close the Serainary, than to keep it open through a chronic and

173
crescent dishonesty which cannot fail to infect and poison every
rill of influence flowing thence.
And on this point we beg leave to adopt the language of one
who " had perfect understanding of all things from the very flrst,"
and who early contemplated the exact contingencj' here suggested.
More than a generation has passed since he said [ Woods, 362] :
But suppose the time should come, when no man could be found, who,
besides possessing the other necessary qualifications, would be willing to sub
scribe to the Doctrinal Standard appointed by the Founders, taken without
any exceptions, in its true and obvious sense. What should be done? With
out hesitation I reply that the Guardians of the Institution, rather than
countenance any deviations from the Creed, or any violation of the Statutes,
should suspend the operation of the Seminary. The principle of public jus
tice and official fidelity is far more important than any good which could be
accomplished by an unlawful use of charity funds.
Even heathen ethics rose to the height of the maxim : fiat jus-
titia, ruat coelum. And may it not be possible that a great silence
on that "holy hill" — dumb for the truth's sake — might more
make for righteousness than a thousand voices issuing thence to
proclaim a message which, to the minds which commissioned it to
speak, God never sent?
Sir ! the heavens never do fall, when right things — though they
be perplexing, and sad, and difficult things — are done ; but those
right things bear themselves aloft as pillars of salvation on which
the great future rests calm aud secure.
And this is what we ask frora you — a ei&ht decision. We
hold the Respondent in sincere respect and long regard. We should
esteem it a genuine misfortune to the cause of sacred learning
were he to be displaced. We have never so much as suspected
his perfect integrit\' of purpose. Could he resume his ancient re
lation of fidelity to the truth as he formerly held and taught it, we
should ask for no better raan in his place. But we do not see how
he, or even an angel frora heaven, preaching another gospel than
that which the Creed preaches, can be in the way of his duty in
the chair which he holds in the Seminary.
Gentlemen, we have counted ourselves happy, that, in this pain
ful and difficult task, we have had the privilege to speak to those
who are expert in all these customs and questions, and who have
nobly illustrated an unbounded patience. Eminent in Church, and
eminent in State, aud eminent iu both Church and State, each of

174
you has been already privileged to associate his name with useful
and shining deeds. But, in whatever distinguished manner you
may already have served your generation, suffer me to say that I
believe — in the greatness and far reach of the issues now await
ing your decision — you confront the supreme moment of your
lives !
God help you so to decide this weighty question that by and by
— seri in coelum redeatis — it shall be given you to greet with
exceeding joy the good and generous men whom you represent
to-day in your solemn oflSce ; and with a still richer ecstasy to
stand approved in the radiant presence of Him whom to know is
Life — whom to serve is Heaven !

CLOSING ARGUMENT BY HON. E. R. HOAR.

Mr. President, and Gentlemen, — When about two years
ago, two years ago, I think it was, last summer, some gentle
men of eminence in the branch of the Congregational Church
which has Andover largely for its representative, came to me
for advice as a lawyer on what were the remedies which the
law gave them, and in what manner those remedies should be
pursued in the case of a departure from the Creed of the Semi
nary at Andover, I felt it was a very high professional compli
ment. Those gentlemen were aware that I had not entertained
the sarae theological opinions which belong to that institution,
or to their branch of the Congregational denoraination. I gave
them a written opinion. And when, afterward, a committee of
the alumni and one of the Trustees were about to present to the
notice of this Board of Visitors a matter, and ask them to take
the action upon it which their sense of duty might require, I was
again applied to as to the form and metliod of presentation ; what
the questions would be for your decision, and by what rules of
evidence or forra of procedure the case would be governed. And
again I consented to appear before your Board, aud that is my
whole connection with the case. I was gratified to find that these
gentlemen, representing as I beUeve a considerable constituency,
were satisfled that I could attend to the legal aspects of their case,
to what rules of law and of procedure should govern its presenta
tion, somewhat to their assistance, and to produce the result that
there might be au effectual decision of the question which inter
ested their minds.
I have been sorry when coming here to find iu the openiqg of
the case for the respondent, by the eminent counsel who was em
ployed to render that service, that he thought it necessary, that
he even could think it possible that it could be of any use to him
or his cUent's cause, to make the personal attack which he did
175

176
upon these gentlemen who conduct this prosecution, if you may
term it so. When they signed theraselves "A committee of the
Alumni," and have stated before you that they were such, and it
was not set out who these particular alumni were, he drew the
charitable construction, without the slightest evidence to support
it, which he stated in these words of his pamphlet: "The object
of this description apparently was to gain a credit for their charges
by appearing to act in a representative character." And he then
says, "As it now appears, these four raen comprise all the Trus
tees and all the alumni who engineer this movement." What
raakes it so appear? Who has been asked to testify about it?
Who has intimated any such thing, except the gentleman in his
speech, and ou a subject upon which apparently he has no personal
knowledge, and therefore I take it, did not undertake to appear
as a witness concerning it. Aud upon that foundation he goes on
and corapares these gentlemen to the men iu buckram of Falstaff :
" What slaves are ye to hack your swords as ye have done, and
then say it was in fight ! " A pretty strong suggestion of false
hood and deceit in gentlemen occupying the position of Christian
ministers, aud men of character, in this community ! Does my
friend who made that statement, I must believe without due con
sideration, think that this Board of Visitors are a set of fools ;
that you corae here in absolute ignorance of whatever has hap
pened in this country in theological circles within the last two or
three years ? No following ! Men in buckram ! Has my friend
heard nothing of the echoes of the great contest at Des Moines ?
Is this a new matter that is suddenly put before you by some pre*
tenders, or is it a grave question iu the Christian churches, on
which your authority has been invoked, and on which your decis
ion will be held in great value by a large company of Christian
believers ?
There is a good deal in my brother's opening of this case on
which, if tirae would serve, — and I do not wish to take up ranch
time on it, — I should desire to comment a little. There followed
this attack upon the gentlemen who conduct, at your request, this
prosecution, various technical objections to the mode of procedure.
At the earlier hearing of the case, when we flrst carae before this
Board, the objection was that it ought to be governed by all tho
rules of criminal procedure, and it was urged and urged strenu
ously. A change of heart, or a change of mind, seems to have
come across the gentlemen who made that contention ; and now

177
they say it is a suit in the nature of a suit in equity governing a
trust, and that it is enforcing a contract, and that the rules of
civU procedure must be followed, and there must be a party in
interest who has a right to prosecute. Well, I thought we went
over all that sufficiently, and I think all that needs to be said
about that now is that under the Establishment of this Institution
for theological education at Andover, the Founders have provided
that there should be a Board of Visitors, whose duty it should be
to see that the scheme upon which their foundation was established
should be faithfully pursued and carried out, whose duty it is made
to inquire into it, and who, when they come to execute that duty,
may act for themselves, just as far as they please.
This is not any suit to transfer the funds at Andover. It is not
a suit on the part of the public to see if there is a perversion of
trust. And I raay say that as this opening address was made, I
concluded at the time it was addressed much more to the audience
in the further part of the hall than to the tribunal ; and it got to
be almost curiously noticeable that sometimes in the most impres
sive parts of it, when I looked up at the gentleraan who was de
livering it, his back was turned entirely to the tribunal, and his
remarks were all delivered in the other direction. This Board
is not governed by any system of ecclesiastical law, and it was
not held to be so by the Supreme Court of Massachusetts when
they had the matter under consideration in the case of Prof.
Murdock. The Board of Visitors, whose duty it is to see that .1
thing is carried on in a certain way, and upon a certain scheme,
have a right to inform themselves, have a right to proceed in any
raanner which is suitable and proper to give them the information
necessary to discharge their duty ; the only limitation beiug that,
where they are to deal with a question which affects a private
right, like the continuance of a professor in his office, they must
proceed consistently with the legal principles which protect per
sonal rights, and that is the whole of it. Our friends talk about
this beiuo- like a libel in an ecclesiastical court, a suit in equity, a
case which must have a party in interest for the plaintiff ; there is
no such case here, nothing of the sort. You gentlemen, under
the constitution of the Andover Theological Serainary assumed
certain duties. You were yourselves required each to make and
subscribe to a declaration of your belief in the Seminary Creed,
and you were enjoined, and by the acceptance of the trust you
proraised and engaged, to look to it that the purpose of the found-

178
ers in maintaining that Creed should be preserved inviolate in that
institution, so far as you had jurisdiction and authority. And
when by a complaint from the community at large, or by the re
quest of any single raan who chooses to come to you, (because in
the diffusion and teaching of religious truth every member of the
community and of the human race has an interest,) you feel
obliged to exercise j-our authority and make an inquiry, you say
to the person or persons who have called to j'Our attention the
current rumors or criticisms, whatever term may be used, with
regard to the teaching at Andover as being inconsistent with the
Creed, We will inquire into it, and for greater convenience we ask
you to inforra us in what particulars, and by whom, any act is done
in violation of the constitution of the Seminary. They do so, and
they come before you and offer you the proof. You take their
statement and send it to the person concerned, to give him a full
and fair hearing, with every possibility of stating any defence or
any objection to the prosecution ; and then you proceed to inquire,
under your official duty, with that aid in presenting the case on
one side, whatever you choose to allow, which we raay give, — and
we have no standing before you except by your allowance, — and
with the fullest opportunity and right to be heard by himself
and counsel on the part of the respondent. You are restricted
only by the rules and principles of law which entitle every man to
a fair trial, — that is to say, that he shall know what is charged
against hira with sufficient clearness to understand and answer it,
that he shall have opportunity to furnish any arguraent or evidence
iu his defence which he desires, within the bounds of a reasonable
lirait of tirae. And then you decide the question.
And when you have decided it, as I understand it, if you have
proceeded according to the principles of natural and legal justice,
your decision is conclusive, because you have conformed to the
law in all that the law has any charge of, or concern in. You are
the tribunal to determine the theological question. When it is
said that a Professor has taught or inculcated doctrines which are
inconsistent with and contrary to the Andover Creed, doctrines
which he was bound to oppose, you are to determine what is the
just exposition of the Creed in regard to those doctrines, and
whether those doctrines thus taught are antagonistic to it. That
is your duty, which you have voluntarily and solemnly assumed.
If on a pretence something were set forth that had nothing to do
with the Creed, which was not in itself improper and unbecoming

179
behavior, inconsistent with the position of the Professor, ;\v.d \ ou
should proceed to remove the Professor on that ground, the Court
would interfere, because you had exceeded your jurisdiction, be
cause you had undertaken to remove from office a Professor who
held the office not subject to that exception. But where there is
and can be no doubt, I apprehend, in anybody's mind, that the
only question is whether doctrines taught by the Professor con
tinue to support and be in consistency with the Creed of the
Seminary, on that question of the interpretation of the Creed,
and of its consistency with the teachings of the Professor, your
judgment is the final one. In deciding that question, you will
have proceeded according to the law and according to the duty
committed to your charge.
The next thing I wish to comment on in this somewhat remark
able, very able and eloquent and, in manj- respects, interesting
opening of my brother Dwight, is that, after passing through
these technical objections, a great deal of space is devoted to
criticism of the Andover Creed. It is hardly necessary for me
to read passages, but on looking it over, when you shall have
occasion to do so, you will find that the intimation is constantly
raade that such a Creed is not appropriate for such an Institution,
and should not be encouraged or tolerated, if you can help it. I
think that is a fair stateraent of the effect of Mr. Dwight's dis
cussion of the subject. He has addressed to you a strong, clear,
valuable and impressive argument, if the question before you had
been what it is wise and best to do in regard to religious opinions,
and the forra of religious instruction. It would have been an
admirable argument to address to a constitutional convention
determining whether there should be any restraint upon religious
liberty. It would have been, perhaps, very appropriate to have
addressed to the assembly of Westminster divines, if he, instead of
tbe Boston aud Hartford clergymen, who he thought would have
improved that body so much if they could have gone over there,
could have gone himself and delivered it before thera. I certainly
syrapathize heartily, and I cannot but believe that my clients do,
and the Respondents we know do, with the doctrine that the right
of man to hold his convictions on religious subjects with no re-
sponsibiUty but to his God, and with perfect freedom for inquiry,
is one of the best settled of American institutions. We all abide
by it and aU accept it. But what has that great doctrine to do
with this case? It has no more to do with it than what the elo-

180
quent gentleman, who spoke in so impressive and loud a tone at
the close of the respondent's case, said about Procrustes's bed, —
that you were putting the professors of Andover on a Procrustean
bed, and you should not do any thing of that kind ; the furni
ture of the Andover bed-chambers, if you did that, he thought
would be horrid. But that is an argument against having any
Creed ; and when that question comes up before any body, I shall
listen to the exposition of my friend on the subject with great
pleasure, and I have no doubt with comfort and satisfaction.
But that is not the question before you, gentlemen of this Board
of Visitors. The whole of Prof. Dwight's argument on that sub
ject, as the whole burden of all his associates have said, has
been that you must somehow or other construe this Creed into
something that it never meant, if you find that it comes across any
gentleman's opinions, who is honestly and studiously, in the fear
of God and the love of man, endeavoring to pursue a course of in
struction. That has nothing to do with the question that I came
here to hear discussed, and I think, having listened attentively, I
was going to say nine, but I should say, perhaps, fifteen or six
teen hours, to what has been said in behalf of the Respondents,
that very much too much tirae has been devoted to that which has
nothing to do with the case.
It has been stated that the New England idea, and the idea of
Cromwell and his Independents, was to claim for any Creed that
it should be favorable to tender consciences. My recollection
travels back, — I have not verified it, and so it is not to be taken
as a citation that brother Russell has got to have to look over and
raake an answer to, — to a time when I read that Oliver Cromwell,
on one occasion when an Irish town that he was going to take by
storm sent a fiag of truce to capitulate, and in proposing terms of
capitulation asked among other things that they should have liberty
of conscience, replied in this memorable utterance, after discuss
ing the other terms of capitulation : "As for what you say touch
ing liberty of conscience, God forbid that I should ever disturb
any man's conscience. But if by liberty of conscience j'ou mean
libertj' to celebrate the Mass, God forbid that that should ever
be allowed where the Parliament of England hath authority."
(Laughter.) Mr. Russell. That is the exact precedent you put this case
under. You say, " You may have liberty of conscience if you do
not infringe on these gentlemen."

181
Mr. Hoar. You may have liberty of conscience where you
have a right to be in its exercise. Liberty of conscience is not to
be indulged which wiU exclude others who have equal rights. My
friend and neighbor, Mr. Emerson, I remember once saying in a
public address, when the subject of liberty of speech was under
consideration, that he thought sufficient attention had not been
devoted to the right of people to the liberty of their ears ; and I
do not know but the Visitors think that in the discussion that has
gone on here, that fundamental right has been a little infringed.
(Laughter. )
When you go off on to the question of liberty of conscience,
the point is, where do you draw the line ? That our Pilgrim fathers,
and Oliver Cromwell and his Ironsides, and the Founders of the
Andover Seminary, and a large body of the Congregational Church
of this very day, have certain convictions which they consider
absolutely essential to any religious character, however erroneously,
I do not think any intelligent person can deny. And when some
donors, holding these convictions, and with that feeling, have un
dertaken to say that in the Institution which they established in
struction shall be carefully confined to a certain line, and have a
right legally to say so, and the question is whether the instruction
given conforms to that line, there is no question arising about lib
erty of conscience, or whether it would have been best for them
to do it. They have done it, and there it is.
Now, I wish to call attention to one thing in this Creed. I do
not admire it myself, — and I speak with thorough respect to this
tribunal, and to the authors of the Andover Creed, and aU con
cerned, — but it is there. They regarded it as a matter concerning
vital Christian truth, the relation of man to his Maker and to his
fellow men, to his duty and his destiny ; and more serious topics,
never to be approached but with gravity, solemnity, even, of
thought and utterance, could not be found. And when I am upon
the question of how. much importance these Founders attached to
their Creed, in connection with this Institution, I may caU your
attention to what seems to me a marvellous expression of it. I
doubt whether it would be adopted in our time in that form, or in
that way. It is at the beginning, where the Professor is required
to be a Master of Arts, discreet, honest, learned, a devout Chris
tian and "an orthodox, and consistent Calvinist;" and after
careful examination by the Visitors with reference to his religious
principles, he shall, on the day of his inauguration, "publicly make

182
and subscribe a soleran declaration of his faith in divine revelation,
and in the fundamental and distinguishing doctrines of the gospel,
as expressed in the foUowing Creed, which is," — not which are,
and the verb is raost important in that connection, not " the fun
damental and distinguishing doctrines of the gospel, which are
supported," but, — "the fundamental and distinguishing doctrines
of the gospel as expressed in the following Creed, which is sup
ported by the infallible revelation which God constantlj' makes of
himself in His works of creation, providence and redemption."
Well, perhaps, to most of our modern habits of thought and
speech, the idea which that literally expresses, that the thunders
araong the mountains, the roar of the sea, the beauty of the
dawn, of the sunset, and of the starry heavens, are the infallible
supporters of the Andover Creed, would not be the style of ex
pression we should select, but it is worthy of attention because it
points out so strongly what these Founders meant, and how they
felt about the Creed. They felt that they had, after these seven
or eight months of reflection, got together an expression of the
designs of God in creation, in the continuance of the race, in
the redemption of raan, in the object of raan's existence, in the
nature of all the relations between God and raan, and raan and his
fellow men, so explicit and clear and in such plain language, the
best that the country and the times afforded, that they had ex
hausted the subject. And they provided, and proceeded formaUy
to provide, that that was to be retained and never altered in any
jot or tittle, that it should so forever bs.
On such a proposition, where is there room for stating rules of
construction which are to be given according to the general effect
which one construction or the other might produce in your view
of what ought to be established in the community? The argu
ment leads at once to an absurdity. It is said that the Professor
when he subscribes to this Creed, also undertakes, while adhering
to all these and other doctrines of our religion which are not
stated, that he will explain the Scriptures and teach in the Semi
nary according to the best Ught God has given him. WeU, that
is his duty as a Christian man, as a man of conscience. But did
any of the Founders who formed that Creed ever suppose it would
be possible that any one signing that Creed, adopting that Creed,
undertaking to teach that Creed, not to be altered in one sentence
or letter forever, conld arrive at conclusions, by following anv
light that God should give him, which were utterly inconsistent

183
with and repugnant to it, and yet continue to be recognized as a
proper instructor upon the foundation ? I apprehend not. What
a man may do, he must decide between himself and his God and
his feUow men for hiraself. Where he shall do it is not infre
quently a question which involves the rights of somebody else.
I have heard of an English gentleman, said to be converted to
Paganism early in this century, who complained as an invasion of
his libertj' of conscience, and as persecution for his religious
opinions, that his landlady in a London boarding-house was not
willing he should sacrifice a bull to Jupiter in her back parlor.
As an illustration that is, perhaps, a little coarse, but it applies
here. The back parlor of the Andover Founders is not a place to
teach the Christian religion, even, if it does not conform to what
they say is the Creed which God in His works of providence, crea
tion and redemption has infallibly shown it to be. They did not
consider as the Christian religion anything which was repugnant
to that, and they had a right so to decide for themselves and their
benefaction. The question, therefore. Gentlemen, as it has been stated with
great accuracy several times, comes back to this : You are to
determine, whether under the articles of the complaint and the
specifications, anything which has been taught and inculcated by
this Respondent is inconsistent with and repugnant to the Seminary
Creed, and therefore prohibited, by the provisions of the Founders,
in the Seminary teaching.
I entirely agree with my brethren on the other side in what has
been said as to the rule of charitable construction, and I thought
one of the illustrations, — I think it was used by ray brother
Russell, — was pretty good, so far as it went. He said the Judges
of the Suprerae Court of the United States each take an oath to
support the Constitution, and that they sit and hear cases as they
come before them, and when they come to decide some constitu
tional question, there wiU sometimes be four on one side and five
on the other, but that nobody thinks of charging the minority
with a violation of trust, or of a breach of their official oath,
because they did not coincide with the views of the majority.
So far that sounds well, and so far I have nothing to object to in
its application to the case before you.
I will say for myself once for all, — and I am not employed,
certainly I am sure my clients do not think I could be hired to
suppress the opinion or to entertain a different one, — that I

184
listened with great admiration to the defence of Prof. Smyth,
and that I look upon him as an upright, able, conscientious.
Christian man, eminently so, and nothing involved in this case
would lead rae to question it. And there is nothing in this case
which involves it. There may be suggestions here and there, as
there were those which I thought very unworthy attacks on the
prosecutors, about a Professor attempting to smother or to con
ceal his opinions, to hold on to his place, or soraething of that
kind. I do not think there is a raan in Massachusetts, who ever
heard of him, who woiUd believe or would suggest such a thing.
He has been throughout manly, and honorable, and frank, before
you. The poor statement that we had not called any witnesses
to swear that they ever heard him say such things, which was
intimated by one of his counsel, and the suggestion that wc had
not called any of his pupils to show that these things were taught
in the lecture-room, were all done away with by his own manly
utterance that he was not here to say that any view which he had
entertained and published on iraportant theological questions did
not find its way into the lecture-roora. That is not the question,
let me repeat, between the Visitors and the Professor. It is not
the question whether his opinions are or are not very much better
than those of the Creed. If new light breaks out from God's
word, in the phrase of Robinson, or if in teaching, under the
injunction of the Foundation, according to the best light that
God has given him, he teaches something which is for the world's
interest, and the interest of every student of theology, he should be
welcomed to the work by everj- friend of religion and of freedom.
But at the same tirae there is no question about it here. The
question is whether that is to be preached in the building put up
by the donors' money, and to be supported by their funds, when
you find that it is not consistent with, but that it is a new thought
which disposes of, sets aside, vacates the foundation upon which
they built their Institution.
There is no breach of trust suggested against Prof. Smyth b}'
me, and there has not been. It must have been only casually, by
inference, if it has erer been introduced into these proceedings.
We never expected any such thing would be done. It is the Board
of Visitors that for the first time will comrait a breach of trust, if,
honestly believing on full and careful examination that the doc
trines taught by Prof. Smyth are inconsistent with and subversive
of the Seminary Creed, they do not say so, when they have ac-

185
cepted a trust which requires them to say so. The complainants
have said, undoubtedly, many times, and In many forms, that they
consider it would be a great breach of trust to aUow the Andover
Institution, founded for such purposes, and with such limitations
and restrictions as it was, to be carried on by teaching what is
taught. It is not a prosecution for heresy ; it is not a persecution
of any individual that is sought. So far from beiug heretical,
they raay be moral, pious and Christian to any extent. That is
not the question before you. Gentlemen, as you sit watching the
trepidations of the balance. Do these two things correspond? I
am willing to aUow and to suggest that the rule of charitable con
struction shall go as far as it has been claimed to go, in some
respects. The judge of the Supreme Court who differs from his
brethren, from the time the opinion is announced by the majority
who decide the law, is bound by it, and whenever he holds a court
in the country he has got to rule the law aud hold the law as the
majority have decided it. If he is not prepared to do that, if that
decision does not convince his mind so that he can honestly and
fairly state it, he cannot continue to go on with his judicial office.
I think we had in Massachusetts a pretty noticeable example once
of a gentleman by the narae of Curtis, who was a member of the
Supreme Court of the United States, who, at the time of the Dred-
Scott decision, resigned his office because he could not quite stand
the constitutional views of the persons there. Beyond that, how
ever, I ara willing to concede to this rule of charitable construction
all that I think can properly be asked for it.
Now, to make a single suggestion, and with absolute respect,—
I have not had an opportunity, and I do not know as I should
have done it if I had, to ask either of the gentleraen whether what
I iraply is not true, — when it says in this Creed that " the wicked
will wake to shame and everlasting contempt, and with devils be
plunged into the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone for
ever aud ever," I might ask, do the Calvinist, the Orthodox Con
gregationalists of the present day, do the Presbyterians, do the
members of this Board of Visitors, believe that that is intended
to describe some literal lake, whatever the shores of such a lake
might be, situated somewhere, and consisting of what we find so
terrible to our bodies, if they get into it, fire aud brimstone? I
suppose it is generally understood that the Christian world, most
of it, at least, would say that that was a figurative expression. If
T am wrong, I have no right to use the argument ; but it is in the

186
interest of what I should consider to be the proper mode of con
struction. God's wrath against wickedness, the punishment of
sin, the method of man's redemption and salvation being the
essentials, if upon those particulars every thing is agreed, — while
an unlearned person might believe Scripture with absolute literal-
ness in all its terms, and with a thoughtful person it would go
without saying that certain expressions, though of terrible sub
stance and import, were not intended to be a literal account by a
personal observer of a physical fact, — there would be no trouble
in explaining the Andover Creed, to say that where its essence
and spirit, the rules that it lays down, the essential things it con
tains, are approved and adhered to in instruction, then a difference
on such points and raatters would be immaterial.
Probably nobody ever heard an important truth stated with
exactly the same comprehension and application of it that his
next neighbor did, who heard it at the same time. There is an
immense diversity, not only in men's comprehending, but in their
mental perception of truth, which is very much affected by culture
and reflection, and by the Spirit of God. And within any such
limits, I should not think for a moraent that this tribunal would
entertain this complaint. But you must draw a line somewhere.
I should suppose that if any doctrine, held as a distinctive doctrine
by the interesting company of persons, not intended in any way
to be approved, commended or forwarded by the Foundation of
the Andover Theological Seminary, who seem to be grouped here
at the end of the Creed, almost on the principle of the tares, bind
ing thera in bundles to burn them, — "In opposition not only to
Atheists and Infldels, but to Jews, Papists, Mahometans, Arians,
Pelagians, Antinomians, Arminians, Socinians, Sabellians, Unita
rians aud Universalists, and all other herSfeies and errors," — I
should suppose that there could be no doubt that if there were
anything which could be included in that listj which could be
proved and established in this theological discussion ' as having
been taught by a Professor at Andover, you would have no diffi
culty about it.
Nor should j-ou have any difficulty, it would seera to me, if any
thing which is a distinctive doctrine, as it was understood by the
Founders ; (and it hardly needs to be argued here, because it must
have been understood bj' you gentleraen who have taken the sub
scription to this Creed,) if what you understood as essential in any
part of this Creed is contradicted by the teachiug of an Andover

187
Professor, I submit you have assumed the duty that you wiU by
appropriate methods cause that to cease. Take an extreme case.
Papists. There have been some remarkable conversions, starting
with New England Congregationalism even, to the Church of
Rome. The liberty of the Church of Rome is as dear to every
American citizen as that of any other church, as far as it rests on
the intelligent choice of the member of that church. Many of our
objections to it are on the ground that it does not consist with
personal and individual liberty ; but so far as that goes we are not
now taking that into view. Supposing an Andover Professor,
by the best light God has given him, should conclude that the
sacriflce of the Mass was the thing which was required to be en
couraged, and that the infallibility of the Pope or of an ecumeni
cal council, — I do not mean any such sort of council as Dr. Dex
ter held down at Plymouth, but one of the Catholic affairs, — was
to be the governing force. There is no use in talking about whether
that could be taught at Andover under the Creed.
An argument has been submitted to you that the doctrine held
by the Respondent amounts substantially to what was taught by
the head of the Universalist denomination in this vicinity at the
time the Creed was drawn and established. Universalism clearly
could not be taught at Andover under the Creed. No charitable
construction, so as not to be a clog on a teacher, can reach the
point. It is a question of where j'ou draw the line. Where you
come to anything which this Board of Visitors regard as the sub
stance of Christian doctrine, as expressed in the Andover Creed,
and they flnd that the teachings in the Serainary bj' any Professor
are in contravention or open disregard of that, their duty under
the trust which they have assumed arises, and is to be performed.
I do not propose to go into a single theological consideration as
to whether that is the fact or not. It has been presented to you
on both sides with great ability. I certainly, speaking for my
self, should be very much inclined at once to say "non ¦nobis
tantas componere lites." I should get out of my depth very
easilj'. There have been ringing through my head in my dreams
by night during this week of the closing hours of the year, some
of these theological phrases, which I can only, as ray personal
wish, hope may be profitable and of iraportance to the people
who believe in them. The question before you does not involve
any niceties of theological discussion. The question for you is,
not can a man hold such and such a view, — because human be-

188
ings hold all sorts of views and every variety of them, — but can
a raan, a Christian raan, thoroughlj' imbued with the principles of
the Scriptures, and in the fear of God and devotion to Christ,
reading and construing fairly this body of doctrine, and believing
and adhering to it, hold a particular doctrine which it is proved
that he does hold? With all reasonable explanations, with all
proper charitable constructions, can he continue in good faith to
inculcate that Creed, and at the sarae time the doctrine in ques
tion? If he can, your duty is easy and pleasant. If he cannot,
it is your duty to say so, whether pleasant or otherwise.
I have been asked by my associate to make a little coraraent
upon the Norris case. You will see, Gentlemen, when you come
to look at this case, if you have occasion to do so, that it is as
simple a case as ever was, and has no application of the kind
which is made by our friends on the other side. In the Norris
case the Court had before them the original Foundation of the
Andover Academy, — nothing to do with the Theological School.
That Foundation provided for the instruction of the j-outh in
virtue and in piety, and in certain branches of secular education.
It also provided that as there might be youth there who were
seeking to enter the ministry, they should have instructions in the
principles of the Gospel, a certain number of doctrines, three or
four, which at that time were considered as clearly and unques-
tionablj' principles of the Gospel, according to all persons having
any connection with Andover. There is not a reference in it
to Calvin or Calvinism, to Hopkins or Hopkinsianism. It goes
on to say tbat its purpose is first, to teach the virtue of right
living to the young, and second, to teach them the human knowl
edge which is requisite for their proper success in life.
On that is grafted afterwards a Theologfcal Seminary, and the
Theological Seminary has two sets of supporters, or those who
wish to be supporters, and they make a compromise in adopting
this Creed. Some of tlieir opinions may not be strictly, theologi
cally, carefully considered, consistent with each other. The
Hopkinsians and the Calvinists differed undoubtedly in some
particulars which we can now make out in the distance. The
Supreme Court were asked on behalf of the heirs of the lady who
gave this fund to the Serainary, to say that PhiUips Academy,
which was the corporation to which the Seminary was attached,
could not take it, for two reasons : One was that a corporation
could not take a trust of that kind and hold it. That the Court

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disposed of. The other one, and the only one which has been
spoken of here, was that the opinions held in the Theological
Serainary were such that giving the fund to that, under this Creed,
was not according to the design of the original founders. And the
counsel made the mistake of supposing that the original Founders
of the Theological Seminary were intended, and the subsequent
Associate Foundation was intended. But the Court say no.
Here is an Academy to train youth in piety and virtue, and to give
them a good education, and it has a provision in it that, as some
of them may be ministers afterwards, it is desirable to instruct
thera in the principles of the Christian religion, and it enuraerates
some few of those. And now you argue that they cannot take a
fund and hold it for the purpose of assisting in the education of
these ministers, because it is inconsistent with the design of the
founders, because they have set forth these few articles. And the
Court say that on reading them over they cannot see that there is
any inconsistency between them. It is perfectly consistent with
the original design of the Founders that young men should be
taught and carefully instructed in piety and virtue, and in getting
a good literary education ; and that they shall also afterwards be
educated for the gospel ministry, and that the foundation raay
be established for that purpose ; that there is no doubt that is
not repugnant to the design of the Founders, and that putting in
these items of faith, which were enumerated to be taught by one
teacher in the Academy, would not be inconsistent, as far as they
had stated it, with any thing either in Hopkinsianism or Calvinism.
That is the whole that case decided. And what application has
that to this case ? It sustained a charitable bequest where there
was no reason why it should not be sustained. The question here
is whether the doctrine taught corresponds with the Creed which
you have before you, with the interpretation which you think
should be put upon it, which you put upon it yourselves. That is
the whole practical question, as I have said before.

THE JUDGMENT OF THE VISITOES.

IN THE CASE OF PROFESSOR SMYTH.
At a meeting of the Visitors of the Theological Institution in
PhiUips Academy in Andover, held on the fourth day of
June in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and
eighty-seven, the complaint, as amended, against Egbert C. Smyth,
D. D., Brown Professor of Ecclesiastical History in said Institu
tion, the answer thereto, the evidence laid before them, and the
arguments in behalf of the Complainants and Respondent, were
further considered by the Visitors, and they find that said Egbert
C. Smyth, as such Professor, maintains and inculcates beliefs in
consistent with, and repugnant to, the Creed of said Institution,
and the Statutes of the same, and contrary to the true intent of
the Founders thereof, as expressed in said Statutes, in the follow
ing particulars, as charged in said amended complaint, to wit : —
That the Bible is not " the only perfect rule of faith and prac
tice," but is fallible and untrustworthy even in some of its reli
gious teachings ;
That no man has power or capacity to repent without knowledge
of God in Christ ;
That there is, and will be, probation after death for all men
who do not decisively reject Christ during the earthly life.
And thereupon they do adjudge and decree that said Egbert C.
Smyth be, and he hereby is, removed from the office of Brown
Professor of Ecclesiastical History in said Institution, and said
office is hereby declared vacant.
Voted, That the Secretary notify said Egbert C. Smyth, the
Complainants, and the Trustees of PhiUips Academy, of the fore
going findings and action thereon by the Visitors.
A true copy of Record.
Attest: W. T. EUSTIS, Secretary.
191

192

m the cases of professors tucker, CHURCHILL, HARRIS,
AND HINCKS.
At a meeting of the Visitors of the Theological Institution in
PhiUips Academy in Andover, held on the fourth day of June, in
the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and eighty -seven,
before proceeding to consider the several complaints, as amended,
against WiUiam J. Tucker, Bartlet Professor of Sacred Rhetoric ;
John W. Churchill, Jones Professor of Elocution ; George Harris,
Abbot Professor of Christian Theology ; and Edward Y. Hincks,
Smith Professor of Biblical Theology, severally in said Institution,
Rev. Mr. Eustis declined to act thereon with his associates, upon
the ground that he was not present on the day of the hearing on
said complaints, whgn said Respondents severally appeared and
made their statements in defence thereto. Thereupon these com
plaints, as amended, were taken up and severally considered, and
none of the charges therein contained were sustained.
Voted, That the Secretary notify these Respondents of the action
of the Visitors on these several complaints against them.
A true copy of Record.
Attest: W. T. EUSTIS, Secretary.

EEPOET OF THE TEUSTEES.

The Trustees issued an elaborate paper. Dr. WeUman alone
dissenting, of which the following is a summary : — The Trustees
regret that the charges against the Professors were not prosecuted
first before them, and claim that they have immediate, and the
Visitors only supervisory and appellate, jurisdiction over the
Professors ; that the establishment of the board of Visitors was as
a safeguard, and not as a substitute for the Trustees ; that for
the Visitors to exercise jurisdiction in matters which have not
been passed upon by the Trustees is contrary to the purpose of
the Statutes of the Founders and to propriety ; that this case was
brought first before the Trustees with a request that they invite
the Visitors to investigate it, which was denied on the ground that
such an investigation ought to be made by the Trustees them
selves, if at all, a readiness to make such an investigation, upon
the proper presentation of charges, also being expressed ; that
the Trustees should have been recognized by the Visitors as a
party in the trial before the latter ; that the Jones Professorship,
held by Professor Churchill, is not under the jurisdiction of the
Visitors at all ; that an utterance should be made by the Trustees
for the sake of its moral weight; that the charges against the
Professors are not sustained ; that the question at issue is not
whether the views and teachings of the Professors are contrary to
historic creeds, or to the creeds of the Churches in Eastern
Massachusetts when the Seminary was founded, or to any of the
known views of the Founders, but whether they are contrary to
the views which the Founders embodied in the Creed of the
Seminary ; and that this Creed is to be interpreted according to
the ordinary rules of creed interpretation and to the liberal usage
which began in the lifetime of the Founders, has continued to this
day, ajad only because of which could either the Founders them
selves or the former Professors have signed the Creed. Several

194
of the charges against the Professors then are considered specific
ally, namely: the flrst, of holding, etc., that the Bible is not
the only perfect rule of faith and practice, but is fallible and un
trustworthy, even in some of its religious teachings ; the third, of
holding, etc., that no man has power or capacity to repent without
knowledge of the historic Christ; the sixth, of holding, etc., that
the atonement of Christ consists essentially and chiefly in His be
coming identified with the human race through His incarnation,
in order that, by His union with men. He might endow them with
the power to repent, and thus impart to them an augmented value
in the view of God, and so propitiate God to men and men to
God ; and the eleventh, of holding, etc., that there is, and will be,
probation after death for all men who have not in this world had
knowledge of the historic Christ. It is attempted to refute these
charges, and the document closes with an expression of sympathy
for the Professors.

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