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Unregenerate Doings: Selflessness and Selfishness in New Divinity Theology William Breitenbach University of Puget Sound, [email protected]

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Unregenerate Doings: Selflessness and Selfishness in New Divinity Theology William Breitenbach University of Puget Sound, Wbreitenbach@Pugetsound.Edu University of Puget Sound Sound Ideas All Faculty Scholarship Faculty Scholarship Winter 1982 Unregenerate Doings: Selflessness and Selfishness in New Divinity Theology William Breitenbach University of Puget Sound, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://soundideas.pugetsound.edu/faculty_pubs Citation Breitenbach, William. "Unregenerate Doings: Selflessness and Selfishness in New Divinity Theology." American Quarterly. 34.5 (1982): 479-502. Print. This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Faculty Scholarship at Sound Ideas. It has been accepted for inclusion in All Faculty Scholarship by an authorized administrator of Sound Ideas. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Unregenerate Doings: Selflessness and Selfishness in New Divinity Theology Author(s): William Breitenbach Source: American Quarterly, Vol. 34, No. 5 (Winter, 1982), pp. 479-502 Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press . UNREGENERATE DOINGS: SELFLESSNESS AND SELFISHNESS IN NEW DIVINITY THEOLOGY WILLIAM BREITENBACH Universityof Puget Sound ELIJAH PARISH WAS PLAYING POLONIUS. THE CONGREGATIONAL MINISTER OF Byfield,Massachusetts, admonished his son to consider the "vast impor- tance"of sound preaching when he chose hisplace ofresidence. For his part, the elder Parish solemnlydeclared, he "would rathersit under the most ordinarypreacher, than attend a ministerof wrong principles, possessing the most profoundgenius and the most powerfuleloquence."' His fatherlyadvice seems unobjectionableenough. Yet ReverendParish was a Hopkinsian,a proponentof thetheological system set forthby Samuel Hopkins,the disciple of Jonathan Edwards. The Hopkinsian(or New Divin- ity)theologians, who flourishedin New England duringthe second halfof the eighteenthcentury and the firsthalf of the nineteenthcentury, were infamousfor their belief that sinners could performno acceptable duty,not even in such actions as prayingor Bible reading.Why then should Parish concernhimself about the qualityof thepreaching that people heard,when he and his fellowNew Divinityministers claimed thatthe unconverteddid nothingbut sin when theyheard it? To theircritics, the Hopkinsians' proposition seemed to encouragesinners to "neglector abuse ... the prescribedmeans of grace."2To Ezra Stiles,the "uncouth,venemous & blasphemous"idea impliedthat an "Unconverted Man had betterbe killinghis father& motherthan praying for convertlinig 'WilliamB. Sprague,comp. and ed., Annals of the American Pulpit; or Commemorative Notices of DistinguishedAmerican Clergymenof VariousDenominations, from the Early Settlementof the Countryto the Close of the YearEighteen hundred andfifty-five (New York: Robert Carterand Brothers,1859), II, 271. 2Moses Hemmenway,Seven Sermons, on the Obligation and Encouragement of the Unregenerate,to Labour for the Meat whichEndureth to EverlastingLife (Boston: Kneeland and Adams, 1767), 196. 480 American Quarterly Grace."3Luckily, opponents noted, New Divinitypreachers like Parish had a wayof ignoringthe obnoxiousdoctrine in theirown lives.They compelled theirwicked childrento prayand rejoiced when theirdissolute neighbors flockedto public worship.Yet even thoughthe Hopkinsianspartially re- deemed theirimperfect principles by their inconsistent practice, their adver- saries warnedthat they professed an offensivedoctrine: it seemed unevan- gelical at best and anarchical at worstto deny the value of sinners'best efforts. The New Divinityposition on unregeneratedoings has been much criti- cized and littleunderstood. The doctrineemerged during the mid-eighteenth centuryin responseto thechallenges facing New EnglandCalvinism. By the 1740sand 1750sArminians, both Anglican and Congregational,were attack- ing the "arbitrary"tenets of Calvinism,in particularthe idea that God bestowedsaving grace withoutany reference to the endeavorsof theuncon- verted.Accusing Calvinistsof preachinga creed thatdebilitated morality, Arminiancritics maintained that God gavegrace to sinnerswho strovefor it. Calvinistsresponded with explanationsof how God administeredhis conditionalcovenant with men. They agreed withthe Arminiansthat the Scripturescontained promises, that it was theduty of sinners to seek gracein theuse ofmeans, that saving grace was ordinarilydispensed through means, thatsinners had encouragementsin theirstrivings, and thatthese encourage- mentsincreased in proportionto the sinners'diligence. Yet the Calvinists parted ways with the Arminianson the question of whetherthere were promisesof special grace made upon conditionof unregenerateendeavors. True, God's covenantof grace was a conditionalone, but the promisewas thatGod would save thosewho had faithin Christ,and thatfaith was a free and graciousgift of God, not a rewardfor human effort. Sinners could not earn justificationby theirown righteousness,for there was no moralexcel- lency in theirworks. Still, because they did not want cutthroatsand fornicatorsdefending wickedness by spouting the doctrine of free grace, Calvinistscarefully explainedthat their theology did not "cut theSinew" of sinners'efforts. For one thing,duties like prayerwere "materiallygood" thoughthey had no "formalGoodness" or "trueMorality." For anotherthing, the encourage- mentsunder which the unregeneratelabored providedstrong motives for exertion.Nudging the idea ofencouragement until it teetered on thebrink of becoming a promise,Calvinists persuaded themselves"that not a single Instance will be foundof any Sinnerin the Day of Judgmentable to stand 3Ezra Stiles, The LiteraryDiary of Ezra Stiles,D.D., LL.D., ed. FranklinBowditch Dexter (New York: Charles Scribner'sSons, 1901), II, 505, 115. Selflessnessand Selfishness 481 forth,and plead in Truth,Lord, I did mybest Endeavour to the verylast ... but afterall was deny'd."4 The ticklishproblem facing the Calvinistswas to preach freegrace with- out provokingimmorality. They foundtheir task complicated by the injudi- cious zeal of some of theirCalvinist brethren. In New England,the Great Awakeningwas generallyinterpreted by its supporters as a divinevindication of thosewho preachedthe doctrine of justification by faith in itsCalvinistic purity.Yet theGreat Awakening had also hatchedsome extremeNew Lights, bellicose sectarianslike AndrewCroswell and JamesDavenport, who so exaltedChrist's imputed righteousness and so vilifiedman's polluted works that they seemed intentupon resurrectingthe antinomianismof Anne Hutchinson'sday. These New Englandextremists were part of a broaderreactionary move- mentwithin eighteenth-century Calvinism, which responded to theEnlight- enmentby proclaiming increasingly antinomian positions on thedoctrine of justification.Participants in this movementshared a convictionthat the preservationof Calvinismrested on a repudiationof any hint of works righteousness.They complained that manyof the orthodoxdid not ade- quatelyemphasize the sufficiencyof Christ.They warnedagainst substitut- ing a relianceon human activityor the means of grace forfaith in Christ. Thus, the extremeNew Lights of New England could draw upon (and reprint)the works of intellectuallyrespectable British theologians of an "antinomian"cast: WalterMarshall, Thomas Boston,Ralph Erskine,Ebene- zer Erskine,Robert Sandeman,William Cudworth, and JamesHervey. By the early 1760s New England mainstreamor "Old" Calvinistswere doublybeleaguered. On the one flankwere the Arminians,attacking them formaking too littleof moralityand forpromoting fatalism and licentious- ness. On theother flank, antinomian enthusiasts assailed them for mongreliz- ingdoctrine and formaking too manyconcessions to humanworks. The Old Calvinists'problems were just beginning,for in 1765 Samuel Hopkins publishedhis Enquiry concerning the Promises of the Gospel; Whetherany of themare made to theexercises and doingsof persons in an Unregenerate State.5Thereafter the Old Calvinistswere triplybeleaguered. Hopkin's point was simple enough. He respondedto the Arminiansby statingflatly that before regeneration everything done bya sinnerwas totally 4JedidiahMills, A Vindicationof Gospel-Truth,and Refutationof some dangerousErrors, In Relationto thatimportant Question, Whether there be Promisesof theBestowment of special Grace, made in Scriptureto the Unregenerate,on Conditionof anyEndeavours, Strivings, or Doings of theirswhatsoever? (Boston: Rogersand Fowle, 1747), 75, 45, 77. 'Hopkins'sEnquiry may be foundin his Worksof Samuel Hopkins,D.D. (Boston: Doctrinal Tract and Book Society,1852), III. 482 American Quarterly wickedand unacceptableto God. Moreover,while the sinnerremained unregenerate,the more he usedthe means of grace, the more he aggravated hisguilt. Yet Hopkins was not just another antinomian reactionary. In fact, his argumentscontained an implicitattack on antinomianpassivity. He claimedthat sinners had an abilityto performGod's commands.Accord- ingly,the unconverted were to be exhortedto immediaterepentance. Hopkin'sformulation managed to offendjust abouteveryone who had previouslyconsidered the matter. The immediateconsequence of his publi- cationwas a paperwar-fiercest in the 1760s and 1770s,but warmly pressed wellinto the nineteenth century-that created and consolidatedthe New Divinityparty. The ultimateconsequence was the transformation ofCalvin- isttheology and religiousexperience in NewEngland. * * * The inspirationfor Hopkins's New Divinitycame fromJonathan Ed- wards'streatise on thewill. Edwards's aim in that work had been to demon- strate"that God's moralgovernment over mankind, his treatingthem
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