صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

least to the greatest." "I will give him for a covenant to the people, for a light to the Gentiles, to open the blind eyes," &c. Is. xlii. 6. Thus will God be honoured; not as some poor religious maniacs suppose, by the ignorance and misery of his offspring; but by their knowledge and happiness.

"Let the infuriate Calvanist, in the insanity of his mind, transplant the imaginary character of his God into his own bosom. Let his own family be the theatre of the exhibition of his theology, his own children the recipients of his frowns and his fury; and there let him show his honour! This house would be a hell, and the father a devil. We should behold a few loaded with favours, and the residue made wretched for the father's honour. We should behold the rejoicing few, shouting songs of triumph, and exulting at the misery of the sufferers. And the father's honour would appear brightest from the disclosure of the fact, that his decisions were arbitrary, having no regard to the merit or demerit of his children,

Again, the scriptures say, the law of the Lord is perfect converting the soul, not by destroying them who violate it, by inflicting cruel penalties injurious to the offenders, but by inlightening their understanding, opening their blind eyes, bringing them out of darkness into light, guiding them with his counsel and afterwards receiving them into glory."

Must not that law be imperfect which cannot convert the soul? But the "law of the Lord is perfect converting the soul." The substance and sum of all law from the beginning to the end of

the scriptures, is comprised in these few words, and nothing can be better: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, &c. and thy neighbour as thyself." If love will not convert the soul, it must remain in sin and hatred. How astonishing is the conclusion, that a law which requires supreme love to God and man, should end in supreme hatred; and instead of converting and enlightening the soul by the influence. of love, should consign the soul to endless mi

sery.

This command was given by God to Moses, and to this, and all other commands that were given, rewards for obedience and penalties for disobedience are annexed. "If thou harken not unto the Lord thy God," &c. "all those curses shall come upon thee." (See Deut. xxviii.15.) But not one word of punishment hereafter, for transgression is mentioned.*

Therefore, it is conclusive, if there is an endless punishment for sin, or, indeed, if any punishment after this life, it cannot be for transgressing the laws of Moses.

*No: nor endless happiness for obedience neither. A man must be very vain, or weak, to think that he can do any good in this world, even if he does as much, or more than a Howard, (the great philanthropist,) to deserve everlasting happiness. As it is well and truly observed by Franklin, "I am," says he, "far from expecting to merit heaven by my good works. By heaven we understand a state of happiness infinite in degree [not infinite in degree, this must be a mistake] and endless in dutation. I can do nothing to deserve such a reward. He that, for giving a draught of water to a thirsty person, should expect to be paid with a good plantation, would be modest in his demands, compared with those, who think they deserve heaven, for the little good they do on earth. Even the mixed imperfect pleasures we enjoy in this world, are rather from God's goodness than our merit; how much more so the happiness of heaven? For my part, I have not the vanity to think, I deserve it, or folly to expect it, or ambition to desire it, but cantent myself in submitting to the disposal of that God, who made me, who has hitherto preserved and blessed me, and in whose fatherly goodness I may well confide, that he never will make me miserable, and that the allicfions 1 may from time to time suffer, will tend to my benefit.

As a writer observes, that "believers in endless misery might with as much propriety say, that the law of God, given from Sinai, threatens endless misery to every man who wears long hair, as to say it threatens endless misery to any of Adam's race." And as there was no such law given then, nor never before; it would be most unreasonable that there should be any such law for sin under the gospel, for reasons which I have before briefly stated. More might be stated, but it will be best for the reader to examine and consider for himself, whether I am not right in stating as I have done, that there has never been any law given, recorded in the scriptures, that threatened eternal punishment for sin, which, if he cannot find any such law, which I am sure he cannot, he must then give up the curel doctrine of eternal misery in toto.

The advocates of eternal misery, must acknowledge that it was preached but very little, if at all, for above 4000 years. Eternal, or everlasting punishment for sin, is not once mentiontioned; and it is a truth, that in the present day there is more said in a single sermon, than there is in the scripture fron the beginning to the end; or that there is more preached about hell and everlasting punishment, now on one sabbath, in one hour, than there was preached in 4090 years. And there is something farther that may be taken into consideration; that is, the more wicked people are, the more warnings they have had of the consequences of their sins and wickedness. And although they were much more wicked in the course of the 4000 years than they are now, at least in our part of the world, or in America,

yet there was not so much said, even as limitarians erroneously construe several texts about going to hell, and being damned forever, as there is often said now in half an hour or less. As says a late excellent writer, "This silence of the apostles respecting hell, could not be because the people in those days were all so very good, that they did not need to be saved from hell. No, the whole world lay in wickedness around them, yet not a word is said of the torments of hell to alarm their fears, and turn them from sin to God. No calculations were then made, as in our day, of the numbers who were daily and hourly going down to hell to suffer eternal misery. No, nor was there such a variety of schemes adopted by the apostles to raise funds to save men from hell as we see resorted to in our day. As they expressed no alarm about the vast crowds going to hell, so we do not find them expressing their joy because they were saved from it. They deeply grieved to see men living in sin, and their spirit was stirred within them to see whole cities given to idolatry; but they never assert that all such were on the road to hell. They had great joy to see men walking in the truth, and often congratulated them on account of their being saved from their former course of life, but not a syllable escapes them, that such persons had been saved from hell or endless misery. You search the scriptures in vain to find a single instance where the apostles make any attempt to work on the fears and feelings of men by giving terrific discriptions

*See p. 137, 140.

of hell, or the horrors and howling of the damned. As they never held up the torment of hell to make men Christians, so we never find them using it as an argument to induce Christians to love and good works. The latter are often reminded that they formerly were idolaters, working all uncleanness with greediness to induce them to holiness, but where do we find a word said of their being saved from hell, as any inducement to it? In view of these things, how are we to account for them, if they believed hell to be a place of eternal torment for the wicked? Can it be possible that they did believe this, yet preserved such a dead silence on the subject? This silence is an indisputable fact. To account for it is above my comprehension."

From the past examination of the scriptures from beginning to end, and from all the observations that have been made, it is most certain, that no law has ever been given that threatened eternal death or punishment for sin; and no such punishment for upwards of 4000 years, was ever taught by Jews, Christians, prophets or apostles.

I will just mention another inconsistency and gross absurdity. The advocates of an eternal hell, do not pretend to quote from the old testament, to support their favorite doctrine of eternal misery except only two or three sentences which have no reference to any thing but the grave or state of the dead; but from the laws of Moses, or any thing previous thereto they quote nothing; but it is almost altogether from a few passages in the New Testament on which they ground their doctrine of eternal misery. Now reader, consider how absurd it is to think to find

« السابقةمتابعة »