spiritual Christians in distinction from psychic or carnal Christians. See Schaff, History of the Christian Church II:109–111. Phrygia was the ancient homeland of the goddess Cybele; her rituals included ecstatic dancing ending with her male devotees castrating themselves (Encyclopedia of Religion, 2nd ed., 3:1452; 3:2108–09).]
120. [While Nevin might have been justified in calling for discrimination, he was never able to recognize the historical and spiritual continuities of the older Reformed evangelical piety he approved with the New Measures techniques he abominated. See Layman, general introduction to Born of Water and the Spirit, 4–12.]
121. [Those who adopted and employed Charles Finney’s (1792–1875) pelagian theology and new measures strategies of revivalism. See Finney, Lectures on Revival of Religion.]
122. [Methodism represents a movement within eighteenth-century Protestantism that traces its heritage back to John Wesley (1703–91) and his attempts to reform the Church of England from within.]
123. [John Winebrenner (1797–1860), born in Frederick, Maryland, was a German Reformed pastor who founded the “Church of God,” known for his enthusiastic style, which included support of revivals, tolerance for neighboring Methodist pastors, and vigorous preaching against theatres, balls, lotteries, gambling, horse racing and, above all, slavery. In September 1828 he was removed from the Reformed Church. By October 1830 he had founded his own conservative evangelical denomination called the “Church of God,” a restorationist movement that claimed no creed but the Bible. See Kern, John Winebrenner.]
Chapter II.
The merits of the Anxious Bench not to be measured by its popularity; nor by its seeming success.—Circumstances in which it is found to prevail.—No spiritual force required to give it effect.
The Popularity of the Anxious Bench proves nothing in its favor.124 We find it, to be sure, extensively in vogue, and with a large portion of the community in high honor. There are whole sects that seem to have no conception of any thing like a vigorous life in the Church without its presence. And beyond the range of these, scores of ministers and congregations are found who glory in it as the very “gate of heaven,” and consider it no less essential than the pulpit itself to the progress of any considerable revival. During the last winter, as already mentioned, there were places where the spirit of the Anxious Bench might be said to carry all before it, and it is likely that it will be so again during the winter that is to come.
But all who are at all acquainted with the world know that the worst things may thus run for a season and be glorified in the popular mind. And especially is this the case, where they hold their existence in the element of excitement, and connect themselves with religion, the deepest and most universal of all human interests. No weight of fashion enlisted in favor of the Anxious Bench can deserve to be much respected in such a trial of its merits as we are here called to make.
It should be remembered, however, that this popularity, such as it is, is in a certain sense but the echo of a sound which has already ceased to be heard. Whatever may be the pretensions of the Anxious Bench, on the field we are now contemplating, it is after all a stale interest, so far as the Church at large is concerned. Not many years since it stood in very considerable credit in different parts of the Presbyterian Church and over a large portion of New England. But on this ground the thing has fairly exploded. It has been tried and found wanting. Here and there, it may still be held in honor. But in a general view even those who were formerly its friends have come to look upon it with distrust, and are no longer willing to give it their countenance. As with general consent, throughout New England and New York, the Congregational and Presbyterian Churches have abandoned the use of the Anxious Bench for “a more excellent way.”125 With all its popularity then where it now prevails, it is after all a stale interest, worn threadbare and flung aside in a different quarter of the religious world. In these circumstances no great account is to be made of its present credit in any view.
Nothing can be argued again in favor of the Anxious Bench, from the Success with which it may appear to be employed in the service of religion. This is often appealed to for this purpose. We are referred triumphantly to the actual results of the system as tried in different places. We are told of hundreds awakened and converted in connection with its use. God, it is said, has owned it, and impressed His seal upon it by working through it mightily as a means of salvation; and if He choose to honor it in this way, who are we that we should find fault or condemn?126 We should rejoice to see souls brought into the kingdom in any way. We should be willing to make room in such a case for the manifold grace of God, allowing it to have free course in any channel through which it is found to flow, and not seeking to force it into conformity with our own narrow views. All this carries with it a plausible sound. But after all the representation is entitled to no respect.
In the first place, to draw an argument for the Anxious Bench from its immediate visible effects, is to take for granted that these are worth all they claim to be worth. We are pointed to powerful awakenings, of which it is considered to be the very soul. We are referred to scores and hundreds of conversions effected directly or indirectly by its means. But who shall assure us that all this deserves to be regarded with confidence as the genuine fruit of religion? It is marvelous credulity to take every excitement in the name of religion for the work of God’s Spirit. It is an enormous demand on our charity when we are asked to accept in mass, as true and solid, the wholesale conversions that are made in this way. It will soon be made to appear that there is the greatest reason for caution and distrust with regard to this point. No doubt the use of the Anxious Bench may be found associated, in certain cases, with revivals, the fruits of which are worthy of all confidence. But this character they will have through the force of a different system that would have been just as complete without any such accompaniment. In such cases the revival may be said to prevail in spite of the new measures with which it is encumbered. On the other hand, in proportion as the spirit of such measures is found to animate and rule the occasion, there will be reason to regard the whole course of things with doubt. One thing is most certain. Spurious revivals are common, and as the fruit of them false conversions lamentably abound. An anxious bench may be crowded where no divine influence whatever is felt. A whole congregation may be moved with excitement, and yet be losing at the very time more than is gained in a religious point of view. Hundreds may be carried through the process of anxious bench conversion, and yet their last state may be worse than the first. It will not do to point us to immediate visible effects, to appearances on the spot, or to glowing reports struck off from some heated imagination immediately after. Piles of copper, fresh from the mint, are after all something very different from piles of gold.
Again, it does not follow by any means that a thing is right and good because it may be made subservient occasionally in the hands of God to a good end. Allow that the system represented by the Anxious Bench has often had the effect of bringing souls by a true and saving change to Christ, and still it may deserve to be opposed and banished from the Church. God can cause the wrath and folly of man both to praise Him in such ways as to Himself may seem best. And so, under the influence of His Spirit, He can make almost any occasion subservient to the awakening and conversion of a soul. But it would be wretched logic to infer from this the propriety of employing every such occasion, with preparation and design, as a part of the regular work of the gospel. It is sometimes said indeed that if only some souls are saved by the use of new measures, we ought thankfully to own their power, and give them our countenance; since even one soul is worth more than a world. But it should be remembered that the salvation of a sinner may not withstanding cost too much! If truth and righteousness are made to suffer for the purpose, more is
