have decided to come out from the world and be on the Lord’s side; while all who refuse to come are treated as showing just the opposite temper; and it often happens that the preacher, in the warmth of his zeal, charges upon their refusal in this view the same guilt and madness and peril precisely that lie upon the deliberate rejection of Christ himself. Now it is an easy thing to say, in these circumstances, that after all the Anxious Bench is not substituted for Christ. So the Puseyite and Papist disclaim the idea of putting into His place the Baptismal Font.151 But in both cases it is perfectly plain that Christ is seriously wronged notwithstanding. In both cases the error is practically countenanced and encouraged that coming to Christ and the use of an outward form are in whole, or at least to some considerable extent, one and the same thing; with the difference only that the form in one case is of divine prescription, while in the other it is wholly of man’s device.
It is true indeed that the “mourners,” as they are sometimes termed, are still treated after coming to the bench or altar as persons yet unconverted. This should neutralize, it might seem, the idea of any such saving virtue in the measure as is here supposed to be encouraged in the usual style of calling out the anxious. But this is not the case. The coming is not accepted at once as conversion, though exhibited apparently as the same thing immediately before; but still it is taken practically for something closely bordering on conversion. The mourners are counted nearer to the kingdom of heaven than they were before. They are exhorted now to “go on,” as having actually begun a divine life. The process of conversion is commenced. They have come to the birth; and all that is wanted to bring them fully into the new world of grace is the vigorous prosecution of the system of deliverance to which they have now happily committed their souls. The Anxious Bench is made still to be the laver of regeneration, the gate of paradise, the womb of the New Jerusalem. Conversion is represented to be far easier here than elsewhere. We find accordingly that this idea fairly carried out leads certain sects of the full New Measure stamp to profess a peculiar tact and power in carrying the process of spiritual delivery regularly out at once to its proper issue. It is only for want of proper treatment, they say, and because “there is not strength to bring forth,” in other cases, that souls are brought thus far without being born at once into the kingdom. Their Anxious Bench, or the altar where their mourners kneel and roll, is commended to the world as a more perfect organ of conversion. Once fairly within its grasp, the soul as a general thing is quickly set free; often in the course of a few minutes, and very commonly before the close of the meeting. They know how to “get the anxious through.” All this is sufficiently extravagant; but still it is only a gross expression of the feeling, commonly encouraged by the use of the Anxious Bench with regard to its virtue as a help to conversion. The whole measure is so ordered as to promote the delusion that the use of it serves some purpose in the regeneration of the soul.
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