Calvary Baptist Church

Calvary Baptist Church, Grenada, MS

Holding to the truths embraced by Baptist for centuries.

I do not misrepresent the theory of conscience so universally received in this country and in England when I sum it up in these few sentences : The conscience is a distinct faculty, like the eye, and, therefore, like our senses, can not be instructed by law, human or divine; that its dictates are always infallibly right; that it is the ultimate and highest source of appeal; and that its monitions should be obeyed at all costs, "all other things," even God's Bible, "to the contrary notwithstanding," and "uncaring consequences." It would seem that propositions so frightful as these would strike the mind of every thinking, and especially every religious man, with horror, but, strange to say, it meets with almost universal approbation ; and it finds its most constant and enthusiastic supporters in the Protestant and Catholic ministers of this country. I have most bitterly opposed and exposed this theory for more than a quarter of a century, as a student,* an editor and minister, as the doctrine and gospel

* When a student, at the age of seventeen, preparing my lesson on conscience from Wayland's Moral Science, and having read the chapter containing the above, I startled my elder brother from his book, in another part of the room, by an emphatic — " That's false! "with a violent hand-stroke upon the table. This was forty-five years ago, before a contrary theory had ever been published, known to the writer. Haven has since exploded it.

the pit, fraught with every form of evil to society and governments, and as certainly destructive of the soul as of the very principles of Christianity! But little did I think I should live to see all the horrors with which it was pregnant wrought out and discharged, in one mighty birth, upon my own nation.

Before noticing the bitter fruits this most unreasonable and pestilent theory has borne in America, let me briefly expose its fallaciousness.

If conscience be a distinct moral sense, sustaining the same relation to facts in morals that the other senses — sight, taste, smell, etc.— do to facts in nature, then its decisions, like those of the eye and the ear, are fixed, reliable, and unalterable; no instruction, no laws, no change of country or society, no religion, no amount of knowledge from other sources, can affect its decisions; they are absolutely fixed and infallible, and the decisions of all men, in all nations, touching the moral quality of any and every act, must be the same, as are the decisions of each and all the senses in all men. To the Hottentot and the Esquimau black is

black and white is white, sweet is sweet and bitter is bitter, as well as to the most educated Caucasian. The senses in their normal condition are infallible in their decisions. To suppose instruction or increased knowledge or the Word of the living God, to avail to correct the errors of the sense of conscience in regard to moral acts, would be as preposterous as to suppose the legal opinions of Blackstone or Coke, Moses or Christ, would avail to reverse the judgment of the eye in regard to colors, or the sense of smell in regard to odors. Men must, then, infallibly agree respecting the decisions of the conscience, not only in a multitude of cases, but in all cases where moral actions are the object, as they agree in the decisions of all the senses. Black is black, white is white, bitter is bitter, sweet is sweet, to all men of all nations ; but do all men, or even the members of the same family, agree in regard to the moral quality — the right and wrong — of religious acts?* There is the utmost diversity. The Christian's conscience stings him with remorse for doing what the Pagan approves, the Protestant's conscience for doing what the Catholic's conscience approves, and the conscience of the Baptist for doing what both Protestants and Catholics approve as religious and right. How do we account for this?

They have all the same Sense, or Faculty of conscience, if it be a Sense; but their views of right and wrong, owing to the difference of education, are widely different, and consequently it can not be a "Distinct Sense" or "Moral Faculty." The demonstration is clear.

It may be said that the Pagan's or Catholic's conscience is denied. There is no question of it; but that admission, instead of meeting the difficulty, surrenders the statement that the conscience is a distinct faculty or sense. The Pagan and the Catholic may say that the Christian's or Protestant's conscience is defiled; and who shall decide between them? Who ever heard it charged that a heathen's sense of sight.

* I say religious, because every conceivable religious act is a moral act, and therefore must be & personal and voluntary one. If baptism is a religious act, it must be the personal and voluntary act of the individual. The baptism of an unconscious infant, therefore, is not a religious act.

or smell was defiled? No one; since nothing but physical injury can affect the operation of die physical senses. Who ever heard of a Pagan's Senses discerning things so differently from those of a Christian? No difference of education or character can alter the decisions of the Senses in reference to their appropriate objects. The Pagan's sense of sight reveals to him all colors, his sense of taste all flavors, just as the Christian's does to him. The reason why men religiously differ must be obvious to the dullest apprehension,— because conscience is not, like the eye, a sense, but the creature of education. The experience of all men also refutes this theory. The children of two families, though separated by only a yard-fence, can be made to possess consciences wholly unlike and contradictory touching every religious action. What the consciences of the one pronounce to be right, the consciences of the others pronounce wrong. The children of one family are taught by Jewish or Catholic teachers, and those of the other by Christian ones. Now, interchange the teachers, and the verdicts of the consciences of those children will soon be the very opposite of what they were before. This fact also disproves the theory.

This theory is opposed to the teachings of God's Word. That teaches us that a man may have a good conscience, or an evil or defiled one. "Pure," "evil" or "defiled" are terms that can not be predicated of the Senses. Paul declared that he had ''lived in all good conscience before God;" and yet that very course of action he pursued so conscientiously—even the delivering men and women to death for no other reason save they believed on Jesus of Nazareth—he afterwards condemned as most sinful; and for which, though he believed God had forgiven him, he never forgave himself, and accounted himself the least of all saints and not deserving to be called an apostle of the Lord. He charged others with having a defiled conscience ; he taught that an evil and defiled conscience could be changed into a good one, so that its decisions would be the very opposite of what they were before the change; but the decisions of a Sense can not be changed; and, therefore, if the Bible is true, conscience is not a Sense.

We have seen that the former erroneous theory made Red Republicans in France, and plunged the mightiest nation of Europe into in-

fidelity and atheism, and baptized it in fraternal blood. This American theory made Black Republicans of a portion of this nation, who, for the last forty years wrought out this theory; and, at last gaining the balance of power, plunged this nation into civil war. The same cause that produced the reign of terror in France produced the reign of terror in America, viz: A false theory of conscience acted out.

The past generation had been taught from childhood—in the family, in the common schools, in the Sabbath-schools, from the Pulpit, in the Academies, the Colleges, Universities, Lecture-rooms, and Lyceums, from all sources of instruction — that the voice or impulse of conscience was the Divinity, speaking in unmistakable language to their souls, and the impulse of conscience, unquestionably the pulsation of the Great and Mighty God; and this voice and impulse were to them a Higher law, that must be obeyed at all costs, and ''uncaring consequences." They were educated, religiously and politically, to believe that one man is the equal of another, and entitled to the same rights and relations, social and political, in society and government, irrespective of race, color or qualification. They conscientiously believed this. They had no other argument but that they felt it to be so; that God said so to their consciences, and it must be so. They had been taught that every thing, human or divine, that contradicts this is, must be, erroneous and false. Following the dictates of their own consciences, they trampled under foot the most solemn compacts, disregarded law, and overrode the Constitution of the land. They, without compunction, severed every cord and ligament that bound together this once peaceful and happy republic. Following the dictates of their own consciences, in utter disregard of the Bible, they were led to adopt the same motto of the atheistic French: ''Liberty, Duality, Fraternity." In other words, "the Fatherhood of God, and the brotherhood of man." And what has resulted? An ocean of fraternal blood has rolled, like a flood, across this continent; desolation and ruin and distress mark all that was once lovely, prosperous, and happy; and all this to force into theoretical equality a race that God ordained to be inferior, mentally, socially, and politically. I can not doubt this with the Word of God in my hands, and my eyes resting upon this decree, declarative of the eternal purpose of the Most High. "And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren. And

he said, Blessed be the Lord God of Shem, and Canaan shall be his servant. God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the land of Shem, and Canaan shall be his servant." (Gen. 9 : 25-27.) Social equality was prohibited by the decree of God, as clearly as intellectual and political or national inequality established between the three races. Who will say that social equality can exist between master and servant? and who that believes the Bible will deny that God, by sovereign decree, established this relation? Had God constituted the three sons of Noah constitutionally and intellectually equal, humanly speaking, it would have been impossible for the descendants of one to have been for ages the servants of the posterity of the other brethren. But this prophecy has been literally fulfilled in all ages, and despite the ravings of Higher-law theories. The descendants of Canaan will ever be an inferior race • though the scenes of his servitude may change, lie will still be a slave, in its essential sense, somewhere, and to somebody, until the dawning of the Second Advent, when, for the first time, every curse of sin will be removed, and every yoke and distinction it has imposed be broken.

And it was the same Sovereign God, who has the unquestioned right to execute his will among the inhabitants Of earth as in the armies of heaven, who decreed to enlarge Japheth, that he should dwell in the tents of his brother Shem, and be served by Canaan,— should, by virtue of his intellectual and constitutional superiority, enter and possess, at his pleasure the countries inhabited by Shem. And this, too, has been fulfilled to the very letter — the Caucasian, or Japhetic race to-day dominate the world. And it should be observed that God prohibited, by express enactment, the commingling of the races by intermarriages; else how could this and multitudes of other prophecies concerning the races be fulfilled ? It is as sinful for the Jews to intermarry with the descendants of Japheth and Canaan to-day as it was in the days of Moses. And He has planted in the sons of Japheth a constitutional abhorrence of the color and odor with which he has forever marked the descendants of Canaan.

I have said this much to vindicate the teachings of God's Word, and God's truth, that abideth forever, and to check the spirit of infidelity which the results of the late conflict have greatly stimulated, and this pestilent higher-law doctrine is disseminating all over the land. Nor would I be understood to utter these my convictions as a politician; for I am no poli-

tician, I utter them as a Christian minister, and in the spirit of a Christian. From my stand-point, I more pity than blame the war citizens, who had adopted these views, and our Christian brethren of the North, as I do the poor mistaught, deceived, yet conscientious, heathen who bows down to an idol his own hands have fashioned, or tears his flesh, or throws himself beneath the car-wheels of his god to be crushed. They both have been so taught from infancy; it is their religion to believe so; and I would undeceive them. The Bible, it can not be denied by any candid man, as clearly sanctions and regulates the relation of master and slave as it does the marriage or parental relation. But they would not hear it on this subject; and if you could convince them that it sanctions a relation their consciences so disapprove, they will tell you, that '' the written Bible [as I once heard Mr. Beecher affirm] may be mistranslated, or we may misinterpret it; but the voice of God speaking within us can neither be misinterpreted nor mistranslated. If any man, therefore, tells me that any line of it does countenance slavery by regulating it, I will tell him I know that he mistranslates or misinterprets his Bible; because the Bible God has written in my soul tells me, in unmistakable language, that the relation of master and slave is sinful per se, and an utter abomination in the sight of God." The majority of the population North believed this, and the dictates of their consciences taught them that it was their duty to stamp out the institution, at the cost of millions of treasure and of innocent human beings —

It is thus they exalt conscience above the Bible, God's own and only revelation to man. I can pity, and pray for, and forgive them, as I can the mistaught and deceived. Their false theory of conscience must be exploded, and a generation be educated by teachers and textbooks inculcating a correct Bible theory of conscience, before the nation will ever find repose on this subject. Marvel not, you, my hearers,*

*This was first preached before the Mississippi Baptist State Convention during the war, and, by request, several times since, always in the interest of national brotherhood. That I may not be misunderstood, if any should wish to misrepresent me, I will record what have ever been my conscientious convictions on the subject of servitude:

I. God did establish the institution of domestic servitude among his ancient people, and gave laws to regulate it; it was not service for wages, but a possession, and servants were reckoned an element of wealth.

2. Slavery existed among the nations to whom the gospel was preached, and among whom churches were organized, and slaves and their masters often belonged to the same church, yet Christ nor his Apostles for bade or rebuked the institution as sin, but gave laws for its regulation. Paul did not intimate to Philemon that it was his duty to emancipate Onesimus, but reminded him that he was now a brother as well as master to him. The relation of master and servant is no more a sin, per se, than the marriage relation, but like that is liable to abuse, and this is what is strictly condemned in both Covenants.

3. I have never doubted but that it was the purpose of God to cause it to work for the greatest good to those nations he appointed to inferiority and servitude as a punishment for evil doing; and the history of those nations, past and present, seems most clearly to prove it,— the idolatrous and licentious heathen were brought into the families of the Jews, and obtained thereby a knowledge of the true God and of His worship. Their condition in every respect was greatly improved. Africa, before her sons were enslaved, was the terra incognita; but through this means millions of her children have been Christianized, and they are now returning from their servitude with the Gospel of Salvation to their fatherland; and the Christian nations are introducing the arts of peace and civilization into her most central regions, and Ethiopia is stretching forth her hands unto the Lord.

May I never be tempted to say that God committed a sin of blackest dye when he doomed the descendants of Canaan to perpetual servitude. Say that the God of all the earth can not make human servitude right! It is simply blasphemous. I never expect to adopt Higher-lawism instead of the Word of God, and pronounce Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Job, and all the Patriarchs, and thousands of the first Christians, to whom the Apostles preached, as sinners of the darkest hue because they were slave-holders.

4. I think the day is past when domestic servitude would prove a further blessing to the South or to the sons of Africa. God has doubtless served his double purpose with it on this continent. Nor can I think that the North was justified in abolishing it by fire and sword, and by shedding the blood of a half million of innocent men and women, and in defiance of God's Word and the Constitution. The South may have abused the institution — thousands of masters did do it, as tens of thousands of husbands have abused, and do now abuse, the institution of marriage— and the Lord may have sent the sword through our borders as a punishment, not for the sin, but the abuse of domestic servitude; but, the hand that so madly and cruelly used that sword, God will judge when He shows mercy to the land that was desolated by it.