Unity and Diversities of Belief even on Imputed and Involuntary Sin; with Comments on a Second Article in the Princeton Review relating to a Convention Sermon. By Edwards A. Park, Abbot Professor in Andover Theological Seminary. Bibliotheca Sacra, July, 1851, p. 594–647.—PRINCETON REVIEW, October, 1851.
ARTICLE III.
It is not our intention to reply to the long article of which the title is given below. Our object in what follows is to present in few words our reasons for putting an end to the discussion between Professor Park and ourselves, so far as we are concerned.
His Convention Sermon presented three legitimate topics for discussion. 1. The nature of the theory therein proposed. 2. The correctness of that theory, and 3. Its value as a general solvent of all allowable creeds. We have endeavored to adhere strictly to these points. In that sermon our author set forth a theory which he seemed to think new and important. He applied that theory to neutralize some of the great doctrines of the Bible. It was incumbent on those to whom those doctrines are dear, and who saw them evaporating, in Professor Park’s alembic into thin air, to examine the nature of the process, and to ascertain whether it was a real discovery or only another Paine-light. Professor Park is very importunate in urging that we should drop this subject, and take up a very different one. After presenting in an interrogative form a variety of objections to the doctrine of inherent sin, he says, “We request an answer to these questions as a favor. We are entitled to demand such answer as a right.” 1 We cannot accept this challenge. It may suit Professor Park’s purposes to divert attention from the real point at issue, but we are not disposed to aid him in the attempt. In our preceding article we distinctly stated the subject we intended to discuss. After presenting an outline of the two great systems of doctrine, which have so long been in conflict, we said, “The question is not which of the antagonistic systems of theology above described is true; or whether either is true. Nor is the question which of the two Professor Park believes. His own faith has nothing to do with the question. * * * The point to be considered is not so much a doctrinal one, as a principle of interpretation, a theory of exegesis and its application. The question is, whether there is any correct theory of interpretation by which the two systems above referred to can be harmonized. Are they two theologies equally true, the one the theology of the intellect, the other the theology of the feelings? or, in other words, are they different forms of one and the same theology?”2 On the same page we say, we proposed, 1. To show that the above statement of the question was correct, (i. e. that Professor Park had really undertaken the task of reconciling the Augustinian and anti-Augustinian systems of theology), 2. To consider the success of this attempt, and 3. To examine the nature of the theory by which that reconciliation has been attempted. The prosecution of this plan involved the careful statement of the doctrines to be harmonized by the new theory, but it excluded a discussion of the truth of those doctrines. When, therefore, Professor Park calls upon us, with such authority, to answer his objections to the doctrine of original or inherent sin, he is travelling out of the record.
Again, where is the matter to end? The two systems which Professor Park proposes to harmonize embrace almost the whole range of theology, in its two great departments of anthropology and soterology. Are we to go over the whole of this ground? Must we write a system of polemic theology in answer to a Convention Sermon? This is a great deal more than we bargained for. When we ran out of the harbor in our yacht to see what “long, low, black” schooner was making such a smoke in the offing, we had no expectation to be called upon to double Cape Horn. Our author indeed confines his present challenge to the discussion of imputed and involuntary sin; but these are only two out of a long concatenation of doctrines embraced in these systems; and if we admit his right to demand a discussion of these at our hands, we concede his right to keep us busy to the end of our days. We beg to be excused. Our relation to Adam, the effect of his sin upon his posterity, the nature of sin, ability, and inability, regeneration, grace, predestination, and election; the work of Christ, justification, faith, and perseverance, topics on which thousands of volumes have been written, are some of the subjects on which Professor Park assumes the right to call us out at pleasure. This is one of the numerous mistakes into which our author has been betrayed by a want of due discrimination. The truth of his theory and the truth of Augustinianism are two very different things. We are open to all fair demands as to the former, but we never volunteered to defend “Gibraltar” against his attacks.