USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > History of the Old South church (Third church) Boston, 1669-1884, Vol. II > Part 60
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We cannot forbear to express our high esteem for Brother Gordon, and our profound regret at his departure from our vicinity, and com- mend him as a brother beloved, and an efficient and faithful servant of Christ, who has made it evident to us that he has not been en- amored by the love of change, but has carefully listened for, and obeyed, the voice of God in this matter.
We express also our sincere sympathy for the Church at the loss of one so greatly beloved and useful, and our great satisfaction that they so unitedly acquiesce in the manifest leadings of Providence. Also, we congratulate them, in view of the prospect that the good work which Brother Gordon has begun, promises to be continued and carried forward without break or hindrance.
Mr. Gordon arrived in Boston on the Ist of April, and took possession of the Old South parsonage, which had been made ready for him. The council for installation and recognition assembled in the chapel of the Old South on the day following, Wednesday, April 2, at 3 P. M. A large congregation was pres- ent to witness the proceedings.1 The Rev. Dr. Webb called the council to order, and was chosen moderator. The Rev. William Burnet Wright was chosen scribe. The roll of pastors and delegates, when made up, was as follows : -
1 A snow-storm prevailed during the roads when Mr. Thacher was settled, afternoon and evening, but it was not such a storm as that which blocked the
February 16, 1669-70. See ante, vol. i. p. 159.
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THE COUNCIL OF 1884.
Park Street Church, Boston : the Rev. J. L. Withrow, D. D., pastor ; Deacon Ezra Farnsworth, delegate.
Union Church, Boston : the Rev. R. R. Meredith, D. D., pastor ; Deacon O. S. Sanders, delegate.
Berkeley Street Church, Boston : the Rev. William Burnet Wright, pastor ; Deacon S. Brainard Pratt, delegate.
Central Church, Boston : the Rev. J. T. Duryea, D. D., pastor ; Deacon J. N. Denison, delegate.
Mt. Vernon Church, Boston : the Rev. S. E. Herrick, D. D., pastor ; Deacon Andrew Cushing, delegate.
Shawmut Church, Boston: the Rev. E. B. Webb, D. D., pastor ; Brother M. F. Dickinson, Jr., delegate.
Phillips Church, South Boston: the Rev. F. E. Clark, pastor ; Brother Calvin W. Angier, delegate.
Second Church, Dorchester : the Rev. E. N. Packard, pastor ; the Rev. Elijah Cutler, delegate.
Village Church, Dorchester : the Rev. S. P. Fay, pastor ; Brother Reuben Swan, delegate.
Pilgrim Church, Dorchester : the Rev. J. W. Ballantine, pastor ; Brother W. Cohoone Greene, delegate.
Evangelical Congregational Church, Brighton: the Rev. W. H. Leavell, pastor ; Brother Chas. S. Cook, delegate.
Eliot Church, Roxbury : the Rev. A. C. Thompson, D. D., and the Rev. B. F. Hamilton, pastors ; Deacon Charles W. Hill, delegate.
Immanuel Church, Roxbury : the Rev. M. Burnham, pastor ; Deacon Joseph S. Ropes, delegate.
Highland Church, Roxbury: the Rev. W. R. Campbell, pastor ; Deacon John C. Proctor, delegate.
Walnut Avenue Church, Roxbury : the Rev. A. H. Plumb, D. D., pastor ; Brother George H. Davenport, delegate.
South Evangelical Church, West Roxbury : the Rev. C. A. Beckwith, pastor ; the Rev. N. G. Clark, D. D., delegate.
Central Church, Jamaica Plain : the Rev. G. M. Boynton, pastor ; Deacon S. B. Capen, delegate.
Boylston Congregational Church, Jamaica Plain: the Rev. S. S. Mathews, pastor ; Deacon G. E. S. Kinney, delegate.
Harvard Church, Brookline: the Rev. Reuen Thomas, Ph. D., pastor ; Deacon H. S. Burdett, delegate.
First Church, Cambridge : the Rev. A. Mckenzie, D. D., pastor ; Brother J. M. W. Hall, delegate.
North Avenue Church, Cambridge : the Rev. C. F. Thwing, pastor ; Deacon Wm. Fox Richardson, delegate.
First Church, Charlestown : the Rev. G. W. Brooks, pastor ; Deacon Anthony S. Morss, delegate.
Winthrop Church, Charlestown : the Rev. A. S. Twombly, D. D., pastor ; Brother C. E. Rogers, delegate.
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HISTORY OF THE OLD SOUTH CHURCH.
First Church, Somerville : the Rev. W. E. Merriman, D. D., pastor ; Brother Edward C. Porter, delegate.
First Church, Chelsea : Brother Rufus S. Frost, delegate.
First Church, Newton Centre: the Rev. T. J. Holmes, pastor ; Brother George P. Davis, delegate.
Second Church, West Newton : the Rev. H. J. Patrick, pastor ; Deacon H. P. Barber, delegate.
Eliot Church, Newton : Brother Geo. C. Dunne, delegate.
Hancock Church, Lexington : the Rev. E. G. Porter, pastor ; Brother Geo. W. Berry, delegate.
Kirk Street Church, Lowell : the Rev. C. A. Dickinson, pastor ; Brother Jacob Rogers, delegate.
South Church, Salem: the Rev. E. S. Atwood, D. D., pastor ; Brother J. C. Osgood, delegate.
Second Congregational Church, Greenwich, Conn. : Deacon Charles Mead and Brother L. P. Hubbard, delegates.
High Street Church, Portland, Maine : the Rev. W. H. Fenn, pastor ; Brother James B. Libby, delegate.
Congregational Church, Temple, Maine: the Rev. A. G. Fitz, pastor.
Also,
The Rev. G. W. Blagden, D. D., New York.
The Rev. W. J. Tucker, D. D., Andover.
The Rev. W. M. Barbour, D. D., New Haven.
The Rev. I. N. Tarbox, D. D., West Newton.
The Rev. C. A. Stoddard, D. D., New York.
The Maverick Church, East Boston, voted to accept the invi- tation, but neither its pastor nor delegate was able to be present. The Rev. J. H. Means, D. D., Dorchester, and the Rev. J. H. Thayer, D. D., Cambridge, were also invited, but could not attend. Thirty-four churches were represented, and thirty-nine clergymen and thirty-two laymen were on the roll.
After the action of the church and society and the corre- spondence in reference to the call had been read, the pastor- elect presented the following paper : -
In the book of Genesis we are told that when the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every fowl of the air he brought them before Adam to see what he would call them, and whatsoever Adam called every living creature that was the name thereof. If the Lord God had brought these same fowls of the air and beasts of the field before some of Adam's children, Seth, Enoch or Methuselah, for example, they might have named these living creatures differently, and because of this verbal difference hasty men might have concluded that
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MR. GORDON'S PAPER.
Adam and his children must be contemplating different orders of creation. Nevertheless a glance at the living creatures which Adam named and at those which his sons named would have revealed the supremely important fact that in both cases the living creatures were the same. Both alike beheld with wonder and admiration the same fowls of the air, the same beasts of the field, and so were in essential agreement.
Every earnest Christian thinker looks into the living facts of God's revelation for himself. He cannot rest until his own eyes have seen the relations which God sustains to men and which men sustain to God. God's dealings with men from the beginning, God manifest in Christ, the two great laws of the spiritual life - the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus and the awful law of sin and death - are living things upon which his own eyes must rest. Perhaps he will name some of them for himself, rejecting the old names. But because he does this in any case, or in all cases, it must not be inferred that he is not beholding with love and awe and praise the same living things which all other Christian thinkers behold.
I believe in the existence of one only living and true God. His name in the Scriptures is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I believe in his existence because my reason demands a sufficient ground for all that appears within me, about me, beneath me, and above me ; an original fountain from which this Divine fullness comes -a power able to bring into being, and to maintain in being, all forms of de- pendent existence. To me nothing could be more irresistible than this cry of reason, that for everything that has appeared, or does appear, or will appear, in this universe, there must be a sufficient ground. I believe that this ground of all things is intelligent, because, to my mind, nothing else can account for the sublime order and won- derful adaptation of means to ends everywhere visible in the universe. I believe that this ground is a moral ground for another aspect of the same reason. In the experience of the individual, in the experience of society, and in the records of history, there is revealed a moral order which the individual perceives, which society perceives, but which neither the individual nor society makes. To me this moral order is at once a witness of the existence and of the moral intelligence of God.
I do not think that the phrase, " consciousness of God," adds any- thing to these arguments. It simply states them in another way. When a thoughtful man tells me that he has a "consciousness of God," I understand him to mean that his intellect and heart are at rest in a conclusion to which he has been led, and in which he is main- tained by the necessity of a sufficient ground for all dependent exist- ence, by the marks of creative intelligence in matter and in mind, and by the moral order of the world. So, too, with the idea of God. When
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HISTORY OF THE OLD SOUTH CHURCH.
analyzed, it means the capacity which is native to the mind for forming the conception of God. This capacity is elicited and filled out into an actual conception by finding in experience evidence which forces one to believe in a first cause, and that the first cause must be intelli- gent and moral. However, there are in the general idea of God certain purely a priori elements, such as infinity, eternity, and absolute perfection, which seek, but seek in vain, for complete verification in experience, and which point with great impressiveness to one who is in experience, and who transcends it, - to a being who is all-powerful; all-wise, and absolutely good. This is the God in whom I believe.
Another impressive evidence of the truth of my faith in God I may state thus : Begin with the assumption that there is a God. Build individual, domestic, social and national life on this principle. Indi- vidual, domestic, social and national life thus attain to the highest possible development in peace, power and splendor. Herein is found a verification, a justification, of the spiritual assumption from which we set out. That must be true which makes us true.
I believe that God has given to men a special revelation of his will. This revelation is made through the history of the chosen people, cul- minating in the person and life of Jesus Christ. Underneath the spiritual life of the whole world, in explanation of it, I would place these words of John: " In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that hath been made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men." But God's treatment of the Jewish people was special and peculiar, and from one of this race the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and unveiled his own and his Father's eternal glory.
I would use the word revelation in two senses ; first, in reference to the discovered will of God, wherever or by whomsoever made ; second, in reference to that special and practically complete unveiling of the Divine mind which we have in the Bible. By inspiration, I mean the fitness which God has given to the men whom he has called to the special work of apprehending and expressing his will. The revelation contained in the Bible is the unveiling of God's will which I find in it ; inspiration is the means which he employed for that purpose - the state of mind in the human agent necessary for the apprehension and expression of that will. Thus the will of God is the objective truth. This truth is progressively discovered through a great number of men, in different periods, who were enabled to apprehend and express it, each apprehending and expressing a part, all the parts going to constitute the whole, the whole being summed up and set forth in the life of the Lord Jesus Christ. This, then, is the order of my thought upon this great topic. First, I believe in God; second, I find God revealing himself in the human life of which the Old and New Testaments give
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us a record ; finally, I believe that God has qualified, that is, inspired, the men who were the channel of this communication.
I believe that in Jesus Christ we have the incarnation of the eternal Son of God. I accept him as God manifest in the flesh, as God's un- speakable gift to men. In him God appears reconciling the world to himself. I do not pretend even to an adequate, much less to a com- plete, apprehension of the work of Christ in reconciliation. I believe in it. I am a student of it. I hold it to be intelligible. In respect to it I anticipate as among my chief delights greater clearness and extent of vision. I earnestly believe that prolonged and independent study of the word of God, much personal experience of Christ's power upon the human heart, wide and intimate acquaintance with the forms which the Christian life assumes in other men, are absolutely essen- tial to right ideas upon a subject so vast, so profound, so purely spiritual. To the question, What is the purpose and end of the incar- nation, life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ? I answer that the purpose is the manifestation of the love of God, and that the end is the spiritual emancipation of the human race.
To the further question, How does Christ become the reconciler of men to God? I reply, by the truth which he reveals and . by his method of revelation.
First-There is a revelation of the true character of God. God is love. God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. He is our Father in heaven. He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. He is a righteous being. His righteousness is declared in Christ. In Christ that righteousness is seen to be propitious to penitent sinners. This truth is arrayed against all false and inadequate ideas of God which prevail among men. It makes war upon them. It scatters, confounds and consumes them. This is one mighty element in reconciliation, a true conception of the righteous God.
Second - There is in Christ a revelation of the essential relation of sonship between God and a human being, and of what God may be- come to a human being in the evolution of his life. Christ reveals the fact that we have our being in God, that we can live in the recognition of this fact and so become conscious of his power working in us that which is well pleasing in his sight. This truth is set in antagonism to all practical atheism, to all merely human, to all godless ideas and modes of living current in the world.
Third - There is, therefore, a revelation of the only life worthy of a human being, the life of trust in the unseen God. This truth concerning the only life worthy of man deepens and interprets the consciousness of sin, awakens the desire of freedom, discovers and condemns all those ideas of life which lead men into spiritual bondage. These are truths in the atonement in regard to which I am clear and certain.
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HISTORY OF THE OLD SOUTH CHURCH.
But I would never separate the truths themselves from the method by which they are revealed : they are revealed through the whole personal history of the Incarnate Son of God; through his humble nativity ; through his perfect obedience to his Father ; through his doing and his suffering; through weariness and weakness ; through his agony and bloody sweat ; through his cross and passion ; through his whole life, and through his death and resurrection. What the nature of God is ; what he is essentially, and can become practically, to men ; what kind of lives human beings ought to live, - are truths which appear as living realities in Jesus Christ. They are wrought out of his personal experience. Through a person, through a char- acter, through a life, - a life in which there is untold sorrow, in which there is a death and a resurrection, - these truths about God and about man come forth and enter the mind and heart of the world. Thus they acquire their clearness and force, their divine beauty and splendor. Thus they gain their power over men. In and through Christ, they become the power of God unto salvation to every one who believeth. The truth in reference to the nature and condition of man, which is pre-supposed in the mission and work of Christ, I recognize and hold. I believe that all men are sinners. They are in bondage. They need a deliverer. In the deliverance of men from their moral bondage the agency of the Holy Spirit is a necessity. I hold that without him no one can enter and no one can abide in the spiritual life.
On the dark and difficult topic of retribution a few things are clear to me. These I will state as plainly and as frankly as I can. They relate to the nature of retribution, to the duration of it, to a possible crisis in sinful experience, and to my own mental attitude with refer- ence to the whole subject. What is the nature of the divine retri- butions? The nature of sin makes this evident. Sin consists in wrong spiritual relations. It is a denial of the claims of God and of man upon the individual spirit. It is practical atheism and inhumanity. It is moral disorder. It is a bad spiritual state, and the consciousness which accompanies that state is its punishment. Sin and punish- ment are linked together as cause and effect. The cause is a moral cause, the effect is a moral effect. The retributions of God are therefore moral retributions. The words eternal life and eternal punishment, I am fully persuaded, refer primarily to a certain kind, to a certain quality of being. But the question of duration can- not be suppressed. Therefore, the next point to be met is whether eternal punishment is also endless? I answer without reservation that it may be so. A soul may sin forever, and so be in a state of moral death forever. This I maintain as a clear possibility. It is a possibility to which all sinners are liable. They become more and more liable to it the longer they persist in wrong-doing. I assert,
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MR. GORDON'S PAPER.
then, the possibility of everlasting punishment as a consequence of the possibility of everlasting sin. Whether there will be, as matter of fact, any who will sin forever, whether the possibility will be con- verted into a reality, is a question which I have no means of deciding. The questions of possibility and of fact are, in my mind, distinct. The one I can answer, the other I cannot. I hold the same view in refer- ence to the possibility of a crisis in the sinner's experience. If there is such a thing as the possible possession of an assured Christian character, the attainment of a fixed position in the divine righteous- ness, it is clear to me that there must be also a limit in the sinner's experience, beyond which he will remain steadfast in sin. This would be my conception of the final judgment. Moral life and moral death declare themselves in their final form. The processes of moral life and moral death are thus summed up and set forth.
To the question whether this world is the only place where human beings can leave unrighteousness for righteousness, the fellowship of devils for the fellowship of God and his Son, I can give no answer whatever. I do not know enough about the world to come to decide whether those who are impenitent at death remain so forever, or ulti- mately, through the discipline of woe, become partakers of Christ's life. I will say, however, that where men have steadfastly resisted light here, we have no reason to believe that they will not resist there ; that, in view of our ignorance, all men should be led to feel that the question of eternal life and eternal death in point of duration, no less than quality of being, may be forever settled by the choice of the present hour.
To the further question as to what influence the fact of physical death may have upon the destiny of the sinful soul, I return no answer. It may have much. It may have none at all. As my mental attitude in reference to the whole question, I would say that I intend to assert the laws of righteousness as found in the Bible and in human experience. I would hold forth eternal life as an infinite and unutterable good, as a good that is in peril every hour throughout mortal existence, as a good that may be lost finally and forever, whose loss is spiritual per- dition, confirmed practical atheism and inhumanity. Further, I shall earnestly endeavor to keep my mind free from opinions where I think the facts of Scripture and of life warrant none. In reference to many aspects of this and other questions touching the divine adminis- tration of the world, I believe that the mental habit of suspense is rational, healthy, fruitful of much peace, and an indispensable safe- guard against the waste of intellectual and spiritual power.
Finally I profess myself an inquirer, a student of the things of God and the life of man. Christ and his Scriptures are my supreme au- thority and guide. I count not myself to have apprehended the divine meaning of life. It is a vast continent on whose shores I stand. I
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HISTORY OF THE OLD SOUTH CHURCH.
feel the power of its sublime attractions upon my spirit. I would press on into it eagerly, gladly, solemnly and reverently, with those whom God may give me as my spiritual companions, my fellow-travel- lers and fellow-explorers among the unsearchable riches of Christ.
It would have been well for all concerned if the public pro- ceedings had been brought to a close at this point. The spirit- ual character of the occasion would not have been marred, the fellowship of the churches would have been strengthened, not strained, and the opposition would have been spared the morti- fication of a signal defeat. All the documents relating to Mr. Gordon's ecclesiastical standing were regular ; his withdrawal from his pastorate at Greenwich had been in strict accordance with Congregational usage ; and he had been received into the membership of the Old South Church. He had also read a carefully prepared and very full statement of his religious be- lief. This statement the council had heard only once; the members did not have it before them in print, and it would not have been strange if some of them had desired to ask one or more questions on particular points for their own better under- standing of it. To questions asked in this way there could have been no objection ; but this did not appear to be the sole or chief purpose in the cross-examination of the pastor-elect which now followed, and which, as we have reason to believe, had been preconcerted. We have the corroborative testimony of the Congregationalist on this point : 1_
The letter-missive calling the council conspicuously violated a fun- damental principle of Congregationalism, by going back to the days when our churches were crude in polity and vague in faith, and select- ing a form which in language failed to submit to the decision of the body the question of the fitness of the candidate for the place. The invited churches and the council, however, saw fit charitably to con- done the mistake thus made, and proceed as if they had been invited in ordinary form.
We must turn aside from our narrative for a moment to con- sider some of the assertions in this very offensive paragraph. There is no evidence that any of the invited churches had found fault with the form of the letter-missive, or that any one of them had voted " charitably to condone" it.2 Nor did the council ex-
1 April 10, 1884. We have already commented on the first part of this par- agraph, ante, vol. i. p. 365, note.
2 To condone, according to Worcester,
who says that the word is rarely used, is to pardon, to forgive. It is to be hoped that its use in any such connection as above will continue to be rare. We
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THE LETTER-MISSIVE " CONDONED."
press any opinion of any kind upon the letter, or take any action whatever in reference to it. A small, self-constituted commit- tee on the state of the churches, which had been holding fre- quent sessions in private during the preceding two years, had assumed to pass judgment upon the letter, and its members had determined to "proceed as if they had been invited in ordinary form." But the action on the part of this committee was not the action of the churches, and it became the action of the council only by default on the part of the latter. And now we may well inquire by what rule these gentlemen proceeded in the council "as if they had been invited in ordinary form." Turning to a well-known work, Congregationalism : What it is; Whence it is ; How it works ; by the Rev. Henry M. Dexter, D. D., we find the following authoritative statement on the sub- ject Letters-Missive : "These have the same relation to the ac- tion of the council that the ' warrant ' has to that of a town-meet- ing. They furnish the authority on which the council meets, define its membership, and limit its powers. The council, when assembled, has . . . no right to consider and offer advice upon any subject not fairly embraced in the terms of the letter-mis- sive." Our appeal is from the learned editor of the newspaper to the learned author of the manual. What would Dr. Dexter say (we may with propriety mention his name as author) if half a dozen citizens should agree among themselves "charitably to condone " a warrant which had been published for a town-meet- ing, and, by mere force of will, should proceed to take action on a "subject not fairly embraced in the terms of the" warrant ? Would he have any use for the word "charitable" in such a connection, and would the "mistake " lie, in his judgment, with those who had issued the call, or with those who had trans- gressed its terms ? It is hardly worth while, however, to con- sult a denominational manual upon such a question. The most elementary hand-book on conduct would tell us that those who
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