Morning journal and courier., 1882-10-11

not to be separated from them, but really tc
 be nearer them. He should do anything for
 them. He never was in warmer personal sympathy with them than he now was, but he laid down the responsibility that they had
 borne. He took it off them and put it on himself Mir. Beecher explained that he made this exposition in order to meet the loose general representations and mis- representations in respect to what he be- lieved and taught He held that of the views that had been presented by the Pagan Greek barbarians, one of the most barbaric concep- tions was the impassivity of God, concep- tion that perfection of character required that being should not be susceptible to pain of any kind, to sorrow or to suffering. The divine heroism must stand in the power of God to suffer. It is the very root and force of the atoning life and death of Jesus Christ
 Right over on the other side was another eie- ment sprir ging from barbaric nation and not from an esthetic, namely, that God is clothed with human passions. Terms of that kind were not wanting in the Old Testament,
 but men had constructed their conception of God from the example of their animal incli- nations and appetites, not from the example of their reason and moral sense. And so we had barbaric conception and that was spir- itual barbarian. The whole view of God
 which was laid down in the confession of faith of the Westminster school in relation
 to decrees and in relation to the whole process and operation of divine grace.
 MT. Beecher held that view of the charac- ter of God to stand over against tho representation of God as made by the Lord Jesus Christ a frightful Gorgon stood over against the head of an Apollo in heath en mythology. He held it to be monster In place of loving master and master of love. He rejected with an impetus that touched the very foundation of his soul the doctrine of mans moral and physical in ability to obey the laws of God He reject ed also the representations of future punish ment, which were gross and physical that
 were made from the sensuous Roman school
 He believed in future punishment. He be- lieved that wholesome and restraining in
 huence of that doctrine had been very large ly destroyed by substituting a slaughter
 house notion, gross carnal, corrupting and diaDollcal representation of hell and the suf-
 ferings of those who were subjected to them. Suffering would be not bodily, but as he
 held, mental, according to the laws of moral sensibllity and all the affections; not ma chine of sulphur and fire, deluge of devils and all manner of annoyances epitomized and represented in the art of Angelo's Last Judgment" and represented more abomina- bly and inexcusably by Cornelius and the German school. That was barbaric. He re garded also the whole doctrine of original sin as founded in the fall of Adam as bar
 barrie, that is as the conception of men that wer,' as yet ignorant and uneducated on this subject. It was not used single time in the whole scope of instructions of all ages of the Old Testament. You could not find it in the Old Testament. You cannot look through all the teachings of the four gospels and find single passage that except by inference and
 misconstruction can be applied to it. You can find it only in the Pauline writings. He accepted without analysis the Trinity. Any attempt to divide the functions was i1autile. He believed in a providence who overruled human life by and through natural laws. Christ was infinite within finite limits, and ir
 taking his place as man he became subject te the laws of time, space and matter. He be-
 lieved, fully, enthusiastically, without g
 break or asingle line of tremulous alteration 1 in the divinity of Christ; Christ that was GoG manifest in the flesh.