Chapter XIII: Part 13

1157. “_Gentlemen_: Whoever takes a view of the world, will find, that what the greatest part of mankind have agreed to call religion, has been only some outward exercise esteemed sufficient to work a reconciliation with God. It has moved them to build temples, flay victims, offer up sacrifices, to fast and feast, to petition and thank, to laugh and cry, to sing and sigh by turns; but it has not yet been found sufficient to induce them to break off an amour, to make a restitution of ill-gotten wealth, or to bring the passions and appetites to a reasonable subjection. Differ as much as they may in opinion concerning what they ought to believe, or after what manner they are to serve God, as they call it, yet they all agree in gratifying their appetites. The same passions reign eternally in all countries and in all ages, Jew and Mohammedan, the Christian and the Pagan, the Tartar and the Indian, all kinds of men who differ in almost every thing else, universally agree with regard to their passions. If there be any difference among them, it is this; that the more superstitious, the more vicious they always are, and the more they believe, the less they practise. This is a melancholy consideration to a good mind; it is a truth, and certainly above all things, worth our while to inquire into. We will, therefore, probe the wound, and search to the bottom; we will lay the axe to the root of the tree, and show you the true reason why men go on in sinning and repenting, and sinning again through the whole course of their lives; and the reason is, because they have been taught, most wickedly taught, that religion and virtue are two things absolutely distinct; that the deficiency of the one might be supplied by the sufficiency of the other; and that what you want in virtue, you must make up in religion. But this religion, so dishonourable to God, and so pernicious to men, is worse than Atheism, for Atheism, though it takes away one great motive to support virtue in distress, yet it furnishes no man with arguments to be vicious; but superstition, or what the world means by religion, is the greatest possible encouragement to vice, by setting up something as religion which shall atone and commute for the want of virtue. This is establishing iniquity by a law, the highest law; by authority, the highest authority; that of God himself. We complain of the vices of the world, and of the wickedness of men, without searching into the true cause. It is not because they are wicked by nature, for that is both false and impious, but because to serve the purposes of their pretended soul-savers, they have been carefully taught that they are wicked by nature, and cannot help continuing so. It would have been impossible for men to have been both religious and vicious, had religion been made to consist wherein alone it does consist; and had they been always taught that true religion is the practice of virtue in obedience to the will of God, who presides over all things, and will finally make every man happy who does his duty.

1158. This single opinion in religion, that all things are so well made by the Deity, that virtue is its own reward, and that happiness will ever arise from acting according to the reason of things, or that God, ever wise and good, will provide some extraordinary happiness for those who suffer for virtue’s sake, is enough to support a man under all difficulties, to keep him steady to his duty, and to enable him to stand as firm as a rock, amid all the charms of applause, profit, and honour. But this religion of reason, which all men are capable of, has been neglected and condemned, and another set up, the natural consequences of which have puzzled men’s understandings, and debauched their morals, more than all the lewd poets and atheistical philosophers that ever infested the world; for instead of being taught that religion consists in action, or obedience to the eternal moral law of God, we have been most gravely and venerably told that it consists in the belief of certain opinions which we could form no idea of, or which were contrary to the clear perceptions of our minds, or which had no tendency to make us either wiser or better, or, which is much worse, had a manifest tendency to make us wicked and immoral. And this belief, this impious belief, arising from imposition on one side, and from want of examination on the other, has been called by the sacred name of religion, whereas real and genuine religion consists in knowledge and obedience. We know there is a God, and know his will, which is, that we should do all the good we can; and we are assured from his perfections, that we shall find our own good in so doing.

1159. And what would we have more? are we, after such inquiry, and in an age full of liberty, children still? and cannot we be quiet unless we have holy romances, sacred fables, and traditionary tales to amuse us in an idle hour, and to give rest to our souls, when our follies and vices will not suffer us to rest?

1160. You have been taught, indeed, that right belief, or orthodoxy, will, like charity, cover a multitude of sins; but be not deceived; belief of, or mere assent to the truth of propositions upon evidence, is not a virtue, nor unbelief a vice; faith is not a voluntary act, does not depend upon the will; every man must believe or disbelieve, whether he will or not, according as the evidence appears to him. If, therefore, men, however dignified or distinguished, command us to believe, they are guilty of the highest folly and absurdity, because it is out of our power; but if they command us to believe, and annex rewards to belief, and severe penalties to unbelief, then they are most wicked and immoral, because they annex rewards and punishments to what is involuntary, and, therefore, neither rewardable nor punishable. It appears, then, very plainly unreasonable and unjust to command us to believe any doctrine, good or bad, wise or unwise; but, when men command us to believe opinions which have no tendency to promote virtue, but which are allowed to commute or atone for the want of it, then they are arrived at the utmost pitch of impiety, then is their iniquity full; then have they finished the misery, and completed the destruction of poor mortal man; by betraying the interest of virtue, they have undermined and sapped the foundation of all human happiness; and how treacherously and dreadfully have they betrayed it! A gift, well applied, the chattering of some unintelligible sounds called creeds; an unfeigned assent and consent to whatever the church enjoins, religious worship and consecrated feasts; repenting on a death-bed; pardons rightly sued out; and absolution authoritatively given, have done more toward making and continuing men vicious, than all the natural passions and infidelity put together. For infidelity can only take away the supernatural rewards of virtue; but these superstitious opinions and practices have not only turned the scene, and made men lose sight of the natural rewards of it, but have induced them to think, that were there no hereafter, vice would be preferable to virtue, and that they increase in happiness as they increase in wickedness; and this they have been taught in several religious discourses and sermons, delivered by men whose authority was never doubted, particularly by a late Rev. prelate, I mean Bishop Atterbury, in his sermon on these words: ‘If in this life only be hope, then we are of all men the most miserable,’ where vice and faith ride most lovingly and triumphantly together. But these doctrines of the natural excellency of vice, the efficacy of a right belief, the dignity of atonements and propitiations have, beside depriving us of the native beauty and charms of honesty, and thus cruelly stabbing virtue to the heart, raised and diffused among men a certain unnatural passion, which we shall call a religious hatred—a hatred constant, deep-rooted, and immortal. All other passions rise and fall, die and revive again; but this of religious and pious hatred rises and grows every day stronger upon the mind as we grow more religious, because we hate for God’s sake, and for the sake of those poor souls, too, who have the misfortune not to believe as we do; and can we in so good a cause hate too much? the more thoroughly we hate the better we are; and the more mischief we do to the bodies and states of these infidels and heretics, the more do we show our love to God. This is religious zeal, and this has been called divinity; but remember, the only true divinity is humanity. W. PITT.”

_Offer of Guidance by a Mundane Spirit._

1161. The Rev. Allen Putnam, whose narrative of his conversion to Spiritualism, has been submitted, gave a very sensible and interesting lecture on this new doctrine, at the Melodeon, in Boston, last October. One of his remarks struck me as being very well warranted by my own observation and experience. He said that we are wont to express indignation at the absurd, cruel, and unnatural Chinese custom of cramping the female foot; but to him it appeared that in Christendom a much worse practice existed, that of cramping the minds of females by bringing them up zealous sectarians, their opinions, in general, being determined by their parentage. Thus Miss A. is a Romanist; Miss B. an Episcopalian; Miss C. a Calvinist; Miss D. a Methodist; Miss E. a Jewess; all most excellent creatures in any other respect excepting the effects of educational sectarianism, which had been interchanged, had their parentage been commuted. (259.)

1162. One of the blessings of Spiritualism, according to my view, is, that this cramped state of the mind, which attaches importance to various phases of analogous educational error, will be removed by receiving their opinions from the same source. But it seems that one of the most amiable and interesting among those angelic devotees, has been actuated by the same anxiety for my salvation from hell, that I have felt for her emancipation from the educational ligatures imposed upon her otherwise excellent understanding. The following letter is the fruit of her zeal in my favour:

August 1, 1855.

1163. _My dear Sir_: You have too much kindness yourself, not to receive in kindness what is so intended; and you have too much politeness not to grant as much as you ask of a friend. I, therefore, with all confidence, send you the enclosed letter, written by one of the first intellects in the country. Now, if when you send your pamphlets and the papers you wish me to read, you will state that you have read this letter, (_with_ the _care_ you wish me to read yours,) not to refute but to comprehend the mind of the writer, I will do the same. But, as what I send to you requires higher power than any power in _created_ man, I will continue to pray to this higher power, this Creator of all things, that you may so read under his blessing and guidance, (before whom you and the very world upon which you tread, are but a molecule or mite,) that _you_, I say, may find that salvation for your immortal soul, which you seem so much to desire. If you believe that your father and sister exist, and consequently, that you _have_ a soul that cannot die, you must feel a deep anxiety with us all for the future welfare of this soul, and will not treat with indifference the attempt to offer you that which is a complete satisfaction to your friend!

1164. I would avoid argument, as two persons at opposite points can never see the objects in the same light; but I send simply the Christian’s plan of salvation, to which I only ask you to attend as carefully as I attended to the statement of your theory. When I return to New York permanently, I will inform you. As I am anxious to retain these papers, and life is uncertain, please so arrange them that they may easily be found, should any thing happen.”

1165. The following lines, which are subjoined in the title page of my pamphlet, addressed to the Episcopal clergy, would have forewarned any but an enthusiast, that there was an outwork to be conquered before any impression could be made:

1166. If God can creatures make to suit his will,
Foresee, if they can, his design fulfill,
Wherefore those creatures to trial expose,
Traits to find out, which he thus foreknows?

1167. Persons who should differ about axioms could never agree in mathematical demonstrations, nor is it possible for A and B to agree in theology, when A assumes what to B appears to comprise a contradiction within its premises and conclusions. Having for years held the opinion conveyed in the above lines, to be self-evident truth, it is of course useless to debate with those who take an opposite view, especially just at this time, when I believe that opinion to be sanctioned by my spirit friends. This opinion was urged in my letter to the Episcopal clergy; yet this kind adviser has not seen, or has not taken pains to understand, its all-important bearing.

1168. The letter of this charming woman commences with begging the question. It is assumed that the arguments of her clerical friend _require for comprehension a higher power than any power created in man_. But this to me appears fanatical presumption, just as much as it would be in any other sectarian. The excellent authoress of the epistle puts herself in a class of females whom it has been my object to emancipate from the restraint imposed upon their minds, no less cramping than that to which the feet of Chinese ladies are subjected.

1169. It must be evident, that unless there was a successful precursory effort by facts and reasoning, to make me believe that what appears to me _below_ good sense, is actually above it, her inference that discussion would be useless is quite evident. But this amounts to an admission that the opinions which it is her object to impart, are not founded in reason.

1170. Her clerical friend falls into the same error, as will appear from the following quotation. The last postulate in the world which he could induce me to admit, would be that any thing which owes its existence entirely to barbarous, wicked, ignorant, covetous, and blood-thirsty men, can be God’s word, and, therefore, paramount to human reason.

1171. How would he enable an idiot to believe in the Bible, or in any thing? Is not our capacity to believe correctly, greater as our reason is better by nature? It is only through his own intellectual faculties that he has received his opinions and can defend them. It is through my reason that my head and heart repel the Old Testament as, for the most part, the work of a set of unprincipled bigots, comprising allegations which the present state of astronomy and geology demonstrate to be fallacious, and which, independently of that cramping of the intellect by education, which it is my ardent desire to remove, would be denounced replete with indecency, immorality, and misrepresentation of God.

1172. It is striking that this kind lady, in referring to my sister and other spirit friends, should suppose that I would slight the _direct heartfelt evidence received from them_, in obedience to _impressions felt by her in common with every other devotee to any religion whatever_. They could, with just as much consistency, appeal to their tenets, and assume their “Koran,” their “Shasters,” or “Zendavesta” to be above my reason.

1173. But the whole tenor of this application shows that the authoress expects to set aside the results of nearly twenty months’ investigation, creating in me a firm devout conviction that I have a correct knowledge of the spirit world, received through my relatives, friends, and high spirits, in deference to those of a set of people of whom I know nothing but ill. May God do that for her which she has so benevolently implored for me, and remove from her brain the influence of educational narrowness. I would utter the same aspiration for the divine whom she has brought in as her advocate, who I hope as _sincerely_ believes what he alleges, as I believe in the communications of my guardian spirits.

1174. But this superior intellect, it will be shown, falls into one of the most inexcusable errors, into which a tyro in reasoning can fall, that of founding his arguments on premises which are emphatically denied by the other party—a gross begging of the question, that the Bible is the word of God, and paramount to human reason.

1175. In a subsequent part of this letter, Hume’s excellent rule is set aside: that we must weigh the probability of the evidence against the improbability of the miracle. Rochefoucault alleges, ‘Tis better to tell a probable lie, than an extremely improbable truth. By what evidence can any record be proved true, when it is vastly more probable it should be false, than the facts recorded by it should be true.

1176. Manifestly, there are but these two ways in which any record can command credence: either there must be external evidence sufficient to weigh against the improbability of the facts which it has recorded; or those facts must be of a nature to create belief from their probability, from what is called internal evidence. As to external evidence, clearly any amount of that, may be adduced without creating a belief in spiritual manifestations. Human evidence is wholly inadequate to prove any thing which sectarianism does not wish to admit. Considering the external evidence of Scripture as vastly inferior to that on which Spiritualism is founded, and the miracles recorded, and the doctrines taught, as carrying no evidence of their truth, but the contrary, I do not understand upon what reasonable ground they are to be identified with the word of God.

1177. This fascinating lady supposes that she gave ear to my exposition of my views; but I am under the impression that she is quite deaf to any thing that does not concur with her fanatical impressions, otherwise she would never have looked upon me as one to be converted from the opinions which I entertain by the reasoning of her clerical friend, beginning with a begging of the question: assuming that revelation is God’s word, in order to prove it to be God’s word.

1178. So the Bible is true because of the miracles which it records; and these are true because the Bible records them!

1179. If she can so confine her mind as to become master of the pyramid of facts which I have raised in favour of Spiritualism, she will perceive that all other evidence of immortality sinks into insignificance as compared with it. Now all this may be nominally abrogated by denying the truth of it. But if I do not rely on my own senses, is it likely I shall rely on those of other persons, in whom I have no more confidence than her clerical adviser and herself have in Mohammed and his disciples.

1180. I subjoin a portion of the letter of the clerical champion, whose reasoning this interesting devotee deems so conclusive. I have gone over the whole of it, and have ascertained that by substituting Allah for God, Mohammed for Christ, Prophet for Redeemer, Mediator for Saviour, it has a qualification which would be deemed a merit elsewhere, if not in Christendom: it would serve just as well to uphold the religion of Mohammed, as that of Christ.

1181. The letter is so long that it would occupy too many pages to give the whole; but I will give a portion, sufficient to show how the reasoning, on which many sectarians rely, may be just as good for any other creed, founded on an arrogation of premises, as that for which they contend.

1182. “Allah forbid that I should depreciate the value of reason in any of its offices. Reason is Allah’s gift to man, and must be used as Allah designs. But so is the Koran Allah’s gift to man, and must be used as Allah designs. Two gifts from the same perfect being cannot conflict with each other. The Koran in its teachings and revealings may go beyond or rise above the comprehension of our reason, because reason in man is a finite and imperfect gift, while the Koran from Allah opens the mind of an infinite and perfect being. But the Koran does not and cannot in any thing contradict reason, because Allah does not and cannot contradict himself. Unless, therefore, you are prepared to say that the Koran is _not_ Allah’s gift to man—if you are a believer in its true divine inspiration—you must see and admit that when the Koran, as Allah’s mouth, reveals any thing which _our_ reason cannot as yet comprehend, because beyond or above, though not against, that reason, then _Faith_ must submissively receive the revelation addressed to it, and _Reason_ stop her speculation and shut her mouth at the limit which Allah has set. Reason has to do with the _evidences_ which show the Koran _to be_ Allah’s gift; with the grammatical and intended _sense_ of what Allah taught and revealed in the Koran, and with the _use_ of what in the Koran is clear to the comprehension of man. But here Reason’s province ends. When the Koran goes beyond or rises above this point, _Reason must_ pause and adore, and Faith must go forward and receive. I do not hold, as you intimate, that the right exercise of reason ‘is impious,’ or that Reason is to be _discarded_ and Faith _substituted_, if by this be implied any thing _incompatible_ between the proper offices of Reason and Faith; but I mean that _our_ finite reason is to _stop_ at the limit assigned her by her _author_, and let _Faith_ as a _higher_ power go forward and receive what Allah teaches or reveals to her acceptance. Faith can now receive more than Reason can as yet comprehend. She _does_ so in the province of _nature_; she must do so in the province of _revelation_. This cannot be denied without taking at once the ground of the infidel—a ground from which, I doubt not, you would shrink back as from the border of an open pit of destruction.

1183. I am thus brought to your remark, that ‘The Mohammedan system, as generally received, is not difficult to understand.’ If this be strictly true, it must be because that system, ‘as generally received,’ is not the _true_ system; for, in this sense, or as _truly_ and _rightly_ received, the Mohammedan system contains various things which it is difficult to understand, if by understanding be meant _comprehending_. We may, indeed, _understand_ that a fact or a truth _exists_ or is _revealed_, while that fact or that truth _itself_ is, for the present, utterly beyond or above our _comprehension_. And this is precisely the case with the Mohammedan system _rightly_ viewed. It contains various facts and truths which _our_ reason cannot yet fathom. Natural reason loves to _separate_ and set aside these great and high things from the Koran as _non-essentials_, and then to busy itself with those parts of the Koran which are level with its own height; pleased with the dream that it has grasped _enough_, has grasped _all_ that can be of any real value. Believe me when reason does this, for one who has the Koran in his hands, she plays at a perilous game.

1184. The main position which I have thus far taken is, however, virtually conceded in another part of your letter. Alluding to what I had urged as to the importance of acknowledging Mohammed as your mediator, and relying on his mediation only for justification as all-sufficient, reconciling all difficulties, and removing all embarrassment from the consideration of the union of justice and mercy in the deity, you say: ‘But _does_ it remove all embarrassment? Is not Allah himself the author of the plan of salvation? Was not Mohammed himself Allah, and also his vicegerent?’ The _impossibility_ of answering these questions satisfactorily to the plainest reason, teaches me to recoil from the impiety of inquiring _how_ my Maker will save me or reconcile his own attributes? I know full well that the great mass of human minds are totally incapable of considering such a subject with any approximation to a solution of it, and therefore do I feel that the eternal salvation or condemnation of mankind does not depend on such theological questions. Here you directly admit the inability of reason in most minds satisfactorily to comprehend some of the great and high points of the Mohammedan system, and the consequent impiety of her _attempting_ such a comprehension. You might as well explicitly admit her inability for this comprehension in _all_ minds; for _no_ mind in its present state can by _reason alone_ grasp all that Allah has revealed in the Koran. These great and high things are not proposed to reason _alone_, but to reason so far as their _evidence_ is concerned, and to _faith_ so far as their substance is to be received. Reason may satisfy herself that they _are_ revealed. _Faith alone_ can take in the substance which they contain. When they _are_ proposed to it, faith _must_ receive them, or salvation cannot come, whether the reason of the individual addressed be the ‘plainest’ or otherwise.

1185. Your _argument_ in the above extract does not satisfy me so well as your _admission_. From the inability of the great mass of minds satisfactorily to comprehend the high mysteries of the Koran, you infer that the ‘eternal salvation or condemnation of mankind does not depend on such theological questions.’ Certainly, the salvation of mankind in the mass does not depend on these or any other theological questions; if by this be meant depending on the ability to _comprehend_ such questions, because the points involved in these questions, so far as they are mysteries, are proposed not to _reason_ as _comprehending_, but to _faith_ as _receiving_. But do you mean to be understood as saying, that when the Koran is put into any man’s hand, and when Allah through the Koran opens to that man his _revealed_ way of salvation, the individual thus approached may accept what is level with his _reason_, but reject what is proposed to his _faith_ and _above_ his reason, and that yet notwithstanding such rejection he may reasonably hope to be saved? If so, I ask you by what right you argue thus? Who is Allah, and what is man? When he tells you the way in which he will save you, not the mass of mankind or the heathen to whom the Koran has never come, but _you yourself_, what right have you to say that _your_ salvation does not depend on your faith’s reception of those very things which are above your reason’s comprehension? How do you know but that the whole efficacy of the plan _proposed to you_, depends on your receiving the great facts and truths propounded to your _faith_? ‘Faith _itself_, I admit,’ you may contend, ‘does not save any man; it is the Mediator that saves.’ But you have no right to say, or think, or hope that he will or can save _you_ with the Koran in your hand, in any other way than that which in the Koran he proposes to your _faith_. And if when he demands your _faith_ in what surpasses your reason, you withhold that faith, and plead the sufficiency of what he has incidentally made level with your _reason_, do you not thereby show that you have not the spirit which he requires, and that you are yet none of his? In the Koran he has not only revealed to you his mission and sanctification, but also proposed to you his mediation as a propitiation for your sin; and he has told you that ‘you must be _born again_,’ not only of water, but also ‘of the spirit;’ that except you be converted and become as a ‘little child, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven;’ and that ‘he that _believeth_ and is baptized shall be saved, but he that _believeth not_ shall be _damned_:’ ‘_believeth_’ not a _part_ only, but the _whole_ of the Koran then intrusted to its Ulemas. Here he explicitly demands your faith in the whole Koran. But suppose it had been otherwise, suppose he had simply opened to you _a_ way by which he could _certainly_ save _you_, without saying any thing about _faith_, as the one great and necessary receiver of the facts and truths involved in that way; I ask, would not a rejection of a _part_ of those involved facts and truths be equivalent to a rejection of the whole? Would it not display the same spirit as a rejection of the whole? Would it not show that you were not walking in _his_ way, but in some _other_ which you supposed _might possibly_ be found? Nay, would it not show that in your heart you had no confidence in him as a mediator; that you even rebelled against his right to prescribe to you the terms on which he would save you?”

1186. To conclude, with respect to this guardian angel of my soul, to whom this digression owes its existence; it may comfort her to know that I conceive myself so securely protected and guided already, and so sure of the result of that guidance and protection, that I would advise her, in my turn, to consider well whether she ought not to pray to God to give her a little more light respecting her own destiny, than is afforded by the book which is vaunted as being above reason, and as being the word of God. Does she conceive the subterranean cave with the “_lake of unquenchable fire_,” in which Dives is roasting in sight of the blessed, to be so satisfactory as to be unwilling to hear of a preferable abode in the azure sky? Does she aspire to some official position commensurate with that of the judgships which Christ promised his disciples? If it is to procure me a place in the heaven described in Scripture, I beg leave to decline, being pre-engaged; and therefore give her an invitation to meet me hereafter in the glorious abode to which I confidently aspire, and where I shall feel myself especially called upon to render her my assistance to rise from the inferior though happy sphere to which, with her present opinions, she is destined.

1187. I would recommend to her, and to others in the same predicament, the perusal of the influence of the conversion to Spiritualism on my friends, as presented in this volume. I would also recommend her to study the comparison made between the heaven and hell of Scripture and that of Spiritualism, as herein presented.

1188. I hope my would-be mundane guide to salvation will find in the verse and prose addressed to me by one more nearly allied (215, 250, 538) a sufficient apology for declining her kindly-tendered guidance, especially as the path through which she would lead me is known to this excellent relative, who has frequently passed and repassed it during her residence of more than two years in the spirit world, while to my mundane friend it is as yet unknown, and, as I believe, misapprehended. But although my mind has not been converted to her view of the service tendered, my heart will never cease to be gratefully inclined toward one who, while actually in want of guidance herself, thought so much of the supposed deficiency from which it is imagined I suffer.

_Improper use of the epithet Infidel, as used in the parodied quotation
from the Clergyman’s Letter._

1189. If a man cannot be guilty of infidelity to another man’s wife, how can he be guilty of infidelity to another man’s religion? The Mohammedan wrongfully calls the Christian “infidel,” because he does not believe in Mohammed; and as wrongfully is the epithet retorted, because the Mohammedan does not believe in Christ. The epithet can only be truly applicable to those who, while professing a religion, do not act up to their professions. In this sense, Christendom, so called, teems with infidels to Christianity.

_On Atonement._

1190. Since my spirit sister’s translation to the spheres, she has risen from the fifth to the sixth sphere. It has been alleged by her that her ascent was retarded by her belief in the atonement. I subjoin some reasoning on that subject:

1191. As respects free-will, Dr. Johnson shrewdly said that all practice is in its favour, all theory against it; but whatever view may be taken on this subject, no one can deny that _so far as it is possible for sin to be avoided_, it must be within the power of God to make men virtuous. The fact that they are not sinless, must arise either from his not wishing to make them more virtuous, or from his inability to make them so. That he does not make them free from sin implies either a want of will or a want of power.

1192. But whatever may in this respect be true, his omniscience must have enabled him to perceive the result beforehand, and of course it is inconceivable that he would, consistently with his goodness, have created them, foreknowing that they would be so wicked as to deserve eternal punishment.

1193. All this it was in his power to obviate by not creating men, or by making their temptations less, or their power of resistance greater. But foreseeing their wickedness, and imposing fetters on his omnipotent power, so as to render _a certain amount of suffering inevitable_, he is said to have determined that a portion of the godhead should expiate in the flesh, by the pains of crucifixion, the punishment due to the sinful creatures which he has been supposed to have wilfully created, foreseeing this result.

1194. But in order to make men better, instead of using that almighty power with which he is said to have hardened the heart of Pharaoh, to soften the human heart and enlighten the human mind universally, he is made to resort to a method which, however cruel and manifestly unjust in making an innocent being suffer for the guilty, has proved utterly inefficient, since only a small minority of mankind profess Christianity, and of that minority only an imperceptible portion, if any, comply with its requisitions, as before observed; hence the greater part are liable “_to be beaten with many stripes_,” while those to whom the mission of Christ has been unknown are to “_be beaten with but few stripes_.”

1195. Human lawgivers may enact constitutions which result in practical failure, because they do not foresee the issue. Such failures are ascribed to their deficiency in practical wisdom. But the failure of measures for the production of any result proving it unwise, must demonstrate that it did not originate with an all-wise author; in other words, with the Almighty.

1196. It is manifestly absurd to ascribe to that Being any measures which have failed to effect the ends for which they have been specially devised. Knowing that Mohammed would have more followers than Christ, that the largest portion of mankind would remain pagans, that even in Christendom the Christian religion would be a source of bloody contention and theological hatred, making scarcely any real Christians,—how could it originate with a wise and prescient Deity?

1197. “By their fruits ye shall know them?” It being premised that God is omniscient, all-wise, and omnipotent, can any fruit proceed from that high source which has not proved to answer well the purpose for which it was intended?

1198. The actual morality of Christendom being the inverse of that excessive and impracticable restraint, which Christ enjoined as the object of his mission, must prove that his doctrine could not have originated with a being by whom its failure must have been foreseen.

1199. Arguments such as I have used are met often by referring to the evils, to which all animated nature is subjected, in the way of misery, mutilation, disease, or death. But when the government of the universe is attributed to general laws, it may be inferred that evil results from a want of power to render those laws free from bad consequences. Nothing but such limitation of power, or an indisposition to prevent those evils, can account for their occurrence. But this is widely different from assuming, in the first place, with self-called orthodoxy, that God is omnipotent, omniscient, all-wise, and all-good, and then representing him as resorting to measures for the accomplishment of his ends which are utterly inefficacious. This is accusing the Almighty of acting like an idiot. Can any thing be more preposterous, than that an all-wise, all-good, all-powerful, and all-foreseeing Deity should require the services of human missionaries to carry out his will? Would he not at least require that such messengers of his word should first agree as to what that word ought to be? A pagan might remain during his whole life a pagan, should he, before adopting any creed, require that professed Christians, in general, should agree as to the tenets which he should espouse.

1200. Agreeably to the attributes assigned to the Deity by orthodoxy, the state of things which exists in the universe cannot be otherwise than as God wishes it to be, to the falling of a sparrow; so that any change sought by man, beyond the immediate sphere of his necessities, must be an officious interference with God’s providence.

1201. Yet if a man be considered as an instrument in attaining certain beneficent ends, without which those ends could not be accomplished, then human exertion is reasonable, in whatever way it can be productive of good.

1202. How can any being who contemplates the wonderful power displayed in the creation, hesitate to perceive that if the divine Architect desired that all men should coincide in their modes of worship, he would have furnished them sufficient evidence of his will, and disposed their minds to receive the desired impression?

1203. Nevertheless, his measures are represented as the inverse of these. It is represented that a creed which he wished all men to embrace was promulgated in an obscure part of an obscure country, under the yoke of heathen despotism, in a language unknown to any other people. It was so promulgated that the great majority of mankind were entirely out of the reach of its influence, and have remained so for nearly two thousand years. Moreover, those who have been made acquainted with Christianity are unable to agree in what it consists.

1204. As I have already urged, if we were to judge of the extention of Christianity by the number of Christians who do not in practice violate the precepts of Christ, it might be a question whether the name of Christendom is applicable to any part of the world.

_On the massacre at Sinope, as a probable consequence of Religious
Fanaticism and Intolerance._

1205. As in consideration of the idolatry of the Amalekites the Israelites were, according to the Bible, authorized to extirpate that nation, for a wrong done to Israel some hundred years before, may not the Russians imagine themselves justified for the massacre of Sinope? (1 Sam. xv.)

1206. The Turks have done vastly more harm to the Greek Christians, when, with fire and sword, they subdued the Greek empire, and obliged each man to pay annually for wearing his head, than the tribe of Amalek did to the Hebrews. In the one case there does not appear to have been for centuries any repetition of the wrong; but in the other the wrongs were reiterated, and of an enduring nature. It is true that the Mohammedan sovereigns were in Turkey more tolerant of their Christian subjects than Christian sovereigns were of Mohammedans; or even of the Albigenses, Lollards, Wicliffites, Lutherans, or Calvinists. The Turks never introduced an inquisitorial tribunal to burn or torture unbelievers. On this account they may think themselves less open to the charge of cruel intolerance than some of the self-called disciples of Christ; and no doubt the discordancy between the conduct of those disciples and the precepts of their teacher, may have contributed to their contemptuous opinions of those whom they improperly call infidels to Mohammed, not perceiving that people who have not professed a religion, can no more be infidels thereto than one man can be guilty of infidelity to another man’s wife. This argument, however, would be answered by the fact that Christians call Mohammedans infidels, not in consequence of any violation of _their_ faith in Mohammed, but because they have never had any faith in Christ.

1207. Such skeptical Mohammedans as Lady Mary Wortley Montague made mention of in her letters from Constantinople, will no doubt consider the term infidel applicable only to such as break their professed faith, whatever it may be.

1208. Agreeably to this definition, every fighting or wealth-seeking Christian is an infidel to the religion which he professes; every Mohammedan who indulges in wine is an infidel.

1209. The religion taught by Mohammed, like that of Moses, authorized the most cruel wars, the extermination of nations for erroneous belief, while the religion of Christ directs us to love our neighbours as ourselves; to return good for evil; to give our coat when our cloak is taken; to submit passively to blows, and that the possession of wealth interferes with access to heaven. Christianity is, moreover, unfavourable to polygamy or concubinage.

1210. It follows that the precepts of Jesus call for restraint upon the predominant passions of human nature, while those of Mohammed, in justifying warfare, excessive indulgence in women, and in the spoliation and massacre of unbelievers, coincide with the most predominating propensities of human nature. It is, therefore, far easier to be faithful to the precepts of Mohammed than those of Christ.

1211. Nevertheless, as both Christ and Mohammed treated the Old Testament as authentic, it is to be feared that the Turks and Russians may look to it for justification of their intolerant cruelty.

1212. None of the ancient Pagans were as hostile to the Hebrews, as the disciples of Mohammed have been to the Greek Christians. But not even the Mohammedans have been so intolerant to those whom they call infidels, as Christian sectarians have been, to such persons as they have dogmatically adjudged to be heretics.

1213. It should be well considered whether any authority dependent on human records can justify the inference that God, anywhere, or in any age, ever authorized such cruelty as that exhibited at Sinope.

1214. Whenever men adopt the idea entertained by the Jews and Mohammedans, and certain sects of Christians, that a peculiar creed is necessary to salvation, it is deemed humane to inflict any temporal evil in order to eradicate any other belief which will subject souls to eternal punishment. When to the Catholics in the reign of Queen Mary it was urged that burning heretics alive would not change their creed, the reply was, that although the victims should not be converted, the souls of their progeny would be saved from damnation by the extirpation of the heresy with the heretics. Admitting the premises, the conclusion was correct, and the auto-da-fé and the tortures of the inquisition were even more excusable than a painful chirurgical operation, when it preserves the temporal life of the patient.

1215. If the Czar is of opinion, that for every Christian who may replace a Turk, a soul will be saved from damnation, he may conceive himself as well authorized to extirpate the Turks, as were Moses and Joshua to extirpate any heathen nation.

1216. Moreover, by some Christians, Jesus is considered as having sanctioned the retention of that characteristic of the Hebrew portraiture of Jehovah, which makes it right to exterminate unbelievers in the orthodox creed. This must be a source of discord wherever it is recognised, as it induces persecution from conscientious regard to the salvation of the victims upon whom it acts, while in them it naturally creates bitter resentment instead of gratitude.

1217. Having submitted the representations of Jehovah, given in the Old Testament, I will subjoin those of the great modern philosopher Newton, and those of Seneca, one of the most distinguished sages of antiquity. The reader may, from these data, judge how far piety or morality would suffer, were that ancient record to give way to the direct evidence of Spiritualism.

_Opinions of God held by Sir Isaac Newton.—Enfield’s Philosophy, Page
638._

1218. “God has no need of organs; he being everywhere present to the things themselves.

1219. “It appears from phenomena, that there is a being incorporeal, living, intelligent, omnipresent, who, in infinite space, as it were in his sensory, sees the things themselves, intimately and thoroughly perceives them, and comprehends them wholly by their immediate presence to himself.

1220. “This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets could only arise from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful being; and if the fixed stars be centres of similar systems, these, being all formed by like wisdom, must be subject to the dominion of one; especially since the light of the fixed stars is of the same nature with the light of the sun; and all systems mutually give and receive light.

1221. “God governs all things, not as the soul of the world, but as the Lord of the universe. The Supreme Deity is an eternal, infinite, and absolutely perfect being, omnipotent and omniscient; that is, his duration extends from eternity to eternity, and his presence from infinity to infinity; he governs all things, and knows all things which exist, or can be known. He is not eternity or infinity; but eternal and infinite; he is not duration or space; but he endures and is present; he endures forever and is present everywhere. Since every portion of space is always, and every indivisible moment of duration is everywhere, certainly the Maker and Lord of all things cannot be _never_ or _nowhere_. God is omnipresent, not virtually only, but substantially; for power cannot subsist without substance. In him all things are contained and move, but without reciprocal affection. God is not affected by the motion of bodies, nor do bodies suffer resistance from the omnipresence of God.

1222. “It is universally allowed that God exists necessarily; and by the same necessity he exists always and everywhere. Whence he is throughout similar, all eye, all ear, all brain, all arm, all power of perceiving, understanding, and acting; but in a manner not at all human, not at all corporeal; in a manner to us altogether unknown. As a blind man has no idea of colours, so we have no idea of the manner in which the most wise God perceives and understands all things. He is entirely without body, and bodily form, and therefore can neither be seen, nor heard, nor touched; nor ought he to be worshipped under any corporeal representation. We have ideas of his attributes, but what the _substance_ of _any_ thing is, we are wholly ignorant. We see only the figures and colours of bodies; we hear only sounds; we touch only external superficies; we smell only odours; we taste only savours; of their internal substance we have no knowledge by any sense, or by any reflex act of the mind; much less have we any idea of the substance of God. We know him only by his properties and attributes, by the most wise and excellent structure of things, and by final causes; and we reverence and worship him on account of his dominion. A God without dominion, providence, and design, is nothing else but fate and nature.”

1223. The language above quoted does not involve the idea that Newton owed his idea of God to the Bible, or that he considered him as having any person, much less that he consisted of three persons. He makes no allusion to Christ or to the Scriptures. His opinions are quite reconcilable with Theism, but incompatible with the existence of the Trinity.

_On God and his Attributes, by Seneca._

1224. “Great respect is due to universal opinion. We consider common assent an evidence of truth. That there are Gods, we are convinced, among other proofs, from the fact that the belief in their existence is natural to man. No nation has been found so brutal as to be entirely without religion.

1225. “We begin to know God from his works. What is God? All that you see, and all that you do not see. In what does the nature of God and man differ? The best part of man is his mind; in God there is nothing but mind. He is pure spirit. Many names are applicable to him. Do you call him Fate? You do not err. He it is upon whom every thing depends. The cause of causes. Do you call him Providence? You are right. It is by his appointment that this world is so arranged that it performs without confusion the part assigned to it. Do you call him Nature? You do not sin. It is he from whom all things are produced.

1226. “You may properly apply to God any name expressive of celestial power. All his benefits may give rise to distinctive appellations. Thus he is called Father, Hercules, Mercury, &c. Father, because he is truly the Father of all; Hercules, because he is omnipotent; Mercury, because he is pure Reason, the principle of science, of order, and of harmony.

1227. “Justice, Prudence, Fortitude, Temperance, are all names of _one_ God, expressive of his various attributes, and are qualities of the one mind; _whichever of them you love, you love God_. Known unto God are all his works.

1228. “Whatever is to happen is present with him. What to us is sudden and unexpected, has by him been foreseen and _provided_ for.

1229. “A wise man does not change his opinion, how much less God! As a river does not flow back, or stop in its course, _so the order of nature is governed by fixed laws, which are nothing less than divine decrees_.

1230. “Who is so wretched, so neglected, who born to so cruel a destiny, as not to have received any benefits from the gods? Look at those who complain of their lot, you will find that they are not deprived of all comforts. Is the gift of life nothing? Are there no objects pleasant to the eye, to the ear, or to the mind? God’s kindness does not only supply us with what is necessary to existence, he provides also for our pleasure. Witness the variety of fruits, differing in flavour; the many healthful vegetables, so great a variety of food for different seasons of the year, some produced from the earth without culture, _even for the idle_; animals of all kinds abounding in the earth, the sea, and the air, as if all things in nature were tributary to our enjoyment. Consider the rivers flowing gracefully through the fields which they fertilize; others, whose deep beds in their vast and navigable courses, afford the means of a profitable commerce, or by overflowing their banks during the drought and heat of summer, water the parched earth and cause it to bring forth abundantly. You deny that you have received any favours, and yet are unwilling to part with what you possess. There are some philosophers who do not appreciate the divine gifts. They complain that we are not endowed with perfect health, incorruptible virtue, and foreknowledge. They scarcely refrain from impudently despising nature, that she has made us less than gods. How much better would it be to return thanks to the gods for the many benefits we have received, and for placing us in this beautiful world, and subjecting it to our rule, as their vicegerents.

1231. “The Deity has thought of us from the beginning; and this world has been so arranged as to make his care of us manifest. We admit our obligation to love our parents, as those from whom we derive our existence. They were, however, certainly not the authors of our existence, but were utterly ignorant of the mysteries of nature.

1232. “That we are indebted for our existence to an _intelligent cause_, is evident from the provisions made for our support long before our birth.

1233. “The strong instinct of a mother, making her willing to endure any privation for the helpless stranger; the sacred fountain which, at the moment it is wanted, flows from the mother’s breast; the air adapted to the lungs, the light to the eye: what more shall I say?—_a present God is revealed!_