use. But unfortunately this has not been the case. Over a wide section of the land we find it still holding its ground, without any regard to the disgrace with which it has been overtaken in the North and East. Peculiar circumstances have conspired to promote its credit on this field.
It is within the range particularly of the German Churches that a new life may be said to have been communicated latterly to the system of New Measures. No field is more interesting at this time than that which is comprehended within these limits. A vast moral change is going forward upon it, involving consequences that no man can properly calculate. From various causes a new feeling is at work everywhere on the subject of religion. As usual, the old struggles to maintain itself in opposition to the new, and a strong tendency to become extreme is created on both sides. The general mind unhappily has not been furnished thus far with proper protection and guidance in the way of full religious teaching; and the result is that in these interesting circumstances it has become exposed more or less at almost every point to those wild fanatical influences which in this country are sure to come in like a desolating flood wherever they can find room. Upstart sects have set themselves to take possession, if possible, of the entire field in this way, on the principle that the old organizations are corrupt and deserve to be destroyed. Their reliance, of course, in this work of reformation, is placed largely on New Measures! Thus a whole Babel of extravagance has been let loose upon the community far and wide in the name of religion, one sect vying with another in the measure of its irregularities. In these circumstances it has not been easy for the friends of earnest piety always in the regular churches to abide by the ancient landmarks of truth and order. The temptation has been strong to fall in, at least to some extent, with the tide of fanaticism as the only way of making war successfully on the dead formality that stared them in the face in one direction, and the only way of counteracting the proselyting zeal of these noisy sects in the other.
This and other considerations have had the effect of opening the way for the use of New Measures to some extent in the German Reformed Church, and to a much greater in the Lutheran. It is well known that a large division of this last denomination has identified itself openly and zealously with the system, both in doctrine and practice. The Lutheran Observer,111 which has a wide circulation and great influence, has lent all its authority to recommend and support the Anxious Bench with its accompaniments, taking every occasion to speak in its favor and making continually the most of its results. The “revivals” of the Church latterly have been very generally carried forward with the use of New Measures, as may be perceived from the reports of them published from time to time in the Observer. The great awakening of last winter, pronounced by the editor of that paper to have been probably the greatest since the days of the Apostles, seems almost everywhere to have involved the free use of this method. Thus ministers and congregations have become extensively committed in its favor; so that with many the use of the Anxious Bench, and a zeal for evangelical godliness, are considered to be very much the same thing. It might seem indeed as though all the interests of religion, in the case of the German community, were to the view of a large class suspended on the triumphant progress of New Measures.112 These are with them emphatically the “great power of God,” which may be expected to turn and overturn, till old things shall fairly pass away and all things become new. 113 And it must be acknowledged that the system bids fair at present to go on conquering and to conquer in its own style within the limits at least of this widely extended and venerable denomination. It seems to bear down more and more all opposition. It has become an interest too strong to be resisted or controlled. What are to be its ultimate issues and results, time only can reveal.
All this is within the reach of the most common observation. And no one reflecting on the actual state of things at this time on the field occupied by the German Churches can well fail to perceive that there is full occasion for calling attention to the subject which it is here proposed to consider. An inquiry into the merits of the Anxious Bench and the system to which it belongs is not only seasonable and fit in the circumstances of the time, but loudly called for on every side. It is no small question that is involved in the case. The bearing of it upon the interests of religion in the German Churches is of fundamental and vital importance. A crisis has evidently been reached in the history of these Churches; and one of the most serious points involved in it is precisely this question of New Measures. Let this system prevail and rule with permanent sway, and the result of the religious movement which is now in progress will be something widely different from what it would have been under other auspices. The old regular organizations, if they continue to exist at all, will not be the same Churches. Their entire complexion and history in time to come will be shaped by the course of things with regard to this point. In this view the march of New Measures at the present time may well challenge our anxious and solemn regard. It is an interest of no common magnitude, portentous in its aspect, and pregnant with consequences of vast account. The system is moving forward in full strength, and putting forth its pretensions in the boldest style on all sides. Surely we have a right, and may well feel it a duty, in such a case, to institute an examination into its merits.
Nor is it any reason for silence in the case that we may have suffered as yet comparatively little in our own denomination from the use of New Measures. We may congratulate ourselves that we have been thus favored, and that the impression seems to be steadily growing that they ought not to be encouraged in our communion. Still, linked together as the German Churches are throughout the land, we have reason to be jealous here of influences that must in the nature of the case act upon us from without. In such circumstances there is occasion, and at the same time room, for consideration. It might answer little purpose to interpose remonstrance or inquiry if the rage for New Measures were fairly let loose, as a sweeping wind, within our borders. It were idle to bespeak attention from the rolling whirlwind. But with the whirlwind in full view, we may be exhorted reasonably to consider and stand back from its destructive path. We are not yet committed to the cause of New Measures in any respect. We are still free to reject or embrace them as the interests of the Church, on calm reflection, may be found to require. In such circumstances precisely may it be counted in all respects proper to subject the system to a serious examination.
It has been sometimes intimated that it is not safe to oppose and condemn the use of New Measures, because of their connections and purpose. Their relation to the cause of revivals is supposed to invest them with a sort of sacred character which the friends of religion should at least respect, even if they may not be able in all cases to approve. The system has taken hold of the “horns of the altar,” and it seems to some like sacrilege to fall upon it there, or to force it away for the purposes of justice to any other place.114 It is a serious thing, we are told, to find fault with any movement that claims to be animated by the Spirit of God. By so doing we render it questionable whether we have ourselves any proper sympathy with revivals, and furnish occasion to the world also to blaspheme and oppose everything of the kind. But this is tyrannical enough to take for granted the main point in dispute, and then employ it as a consideration to repress inquiry or to silence objection. If New Measures can be shown to proceed from the Holy Ghost, or to be identified in any view with the cause of revivals, they may well demand our reverence and respect. If they can be shown even to be of adiaphorous115 character with regard to religion, harmless at least if not positively helpful to the Spirit’s work, they may then put in a reasonable plea to be tolerated in silence, if not absolutely approved. But neither the one nor the other of these positions can be successfully maintained. It is a mere trick unworthy of the gospel for any one to confound with the sacred idea of a revival things that do not belong to it in truth at all for the purpose of compelling a judgment in their favor. The very design of the inquiry now proposed is to show that the Anxious Bench, and the system to which it belongs, have no claim to be considered either salutary or safe in the service of religion. It is believed that instead of promoting the cause of true vital godliness, they are adapted to hinder its progress. The whole system is considered to be full of peril for the most precious interests of the Church. And why then should
