322 On the Schemes of the Divine Government. furnish stronger evidence than any that had preceded? 7. Can the supposition that some of the Jews had sinned beyond the possibility of forgiveness during our Lord's personal ministry, be reconciled with the accounts at large? Did not Jesus after his resurrection direct that forgiveness should be preached to them indiscriminately; and was their condemnation finally sealed before they rejected the gospel, contradicting and blaspheming, when preached by the Apostles with the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven? SIR, A SCRIPTURIST. May 6, 1816. IN Repository for February, (p. 74) two schemes of the Divine government are offered to consideration as alone consistent in themselves, or as having any pretensions to reason or the common apprehensions of mankind. The first holds forth that all things are subjected to fixed laws;-that all is an universal settled scheme of Providence; every thing was foreseen and determined, and happens as the Author of all appointed that it should. Now I do suppose that all events, all effects of power, are not subjects of intellectual determination, or objects of appointment; but on the contrary, that there are many natural results of force, which are not parts of any scheine, or any matters of device or ordination whatever. Indeed all things are necessarily what and as they are: but we need distinct evidence of appointment-that all events are, or ever were, objects of divine contemplation, or devised, determined parts of provident plan. No doubt, Deity is source of all order, all systematic work, all manage ment. But is God actually the designing cause of all movement and result? Is all movement and consequence, issue of intellect, pure offspring of wisdom and good-will? True, the natural standing order of the world indisputably betokens wise and good design; and all men must be agreeably affect ed thereby by the beauty and benefit of the provident succession of things; the orderly, eligible course which actually prevails throughout the system of nature, Every man must be more or less impressed with those characters of design and contrivance with which he is constantly surrounded and upheld. But sure every successive fact that we witness, cannot be justly considered a necessary component, or requisite mean, to any purposed end whatever. Can we reasonably think that all movement is judicious change; and all operation intentional effect? If this is" Inquirer's" view of Providence, I must say that all men do not decidedly think with him. Under this notion I cannot believe it possible to form a consistent character of Deity. The laws of nature indeed, are divine emanation, and of course perfectly characteristic of Deity, and terminate on universal good; on the accomodation and final welfare of his sentient creatures. But fully admitting this providential order of things, I apprehend not that it amounts to destiny, or positive assignment of every separate atom in respect of every other in the universe, all possible relation and state of being: but rather suppose that it does not necessarily follow, from hence, that all states and relations of being and every consequent result are subjects of divine device, or any mental concern whatever. It seems to me, and it is my present opinion, that though every phenomenon in nature is (essentially natural) necessary issue of eternal principle, nevertheless all bearing of objects, every event, every movement and consequence, is not a part of divine scheme; not a link, or distinct subject of direct will, device, purpose" and ordination. And that man's personal character and end, is not (it may be) absolutely prescribed and preordained. I suppose that it is by divine pleasure and purpose that I am constituted capable of a certain measure of action: but must or may I thence infer and affirm, that I cannot do more or less than was the pleasure and purpose of God in my make?* This seems to me tantamount to saying that all efficiency is strictly divine will-deed;, that every instant motion and operation is personal act of Deity, to all intents and purposes. However, I do suppose, think and believe that we are not justly authorized to affirm that the supreme legislator of the universe actually appointed every temporary fact-all events whatever, Inconsistencies of Writers on Future Punishment. that take place through the action of man or other (provident ordination, or) creature energy. Finally, I will repeat, that I cannot think that every natural effect is subject or object of pur pose and appointment. This said scheme of divine determination and ordination, now lies before us simple say-so. But as it is seriously thought that facts do not altogether answer to the tale, the matter demands some elucidation. And it is hoped, Sir, that this ingenious theoretic correspondent will engage himself herein to our common interest, and he will oblige an OLD INQUIRER. Whether natural evil be the cause of moral evil. January, 1816. T is commonly said that if moral 323 degree. Take away the natural evil and it would cease to exist at all. Will this reasoning apply to the Deity? If we conceive that the Deity is really the Creator of all things, which all men now allow; that he must be perfectly happy, possessing all things, and having nothing to counteract his views, seems to be an undeniable inference, the contrary of which cannot be conceived, but seems to involve a contradiction. If the Deity then be a perfectly happy being, it will follow that he can have no desire, contrary to the happiness of any Being. It will now be asked, why then has this happy being pro duced natural evil, and that moral, in a word, why has he made any suffering and unhappy beings? I cannot answer this question. The usual solution of thinking men is, I injure that all beings which or produce misery, it would be no evil at all, and I see no reason to dispute this position. There is another question, however, connected with this subject, and that is, if the previous existence of natural evil be not the cause of the subsequent existence of moral evil, or whether if there were no natural evil moral evil could be possible in man? Now, all natural evil, is to sensible beings, unhappiness; so the question will be, if men were all perfectly happy, could an immoral volition or act take place? I think not. Every immoral act appears to be produced by the imperfection of the agent's happiness. He is stimulated by some apprehended good which he has not and which he desires, and if he were perfectly happy he could have no desires, and there fore could have nothing to draw forth an immoral wish. If the will be determined by desire, take away that desire, and no volition will be exert ed. A human being perfectly happy. can do no immoral act, because he can have no desire to change his condition. Take away from man in his present state, uneasy passions, bodily and mental, and all wants, and the dread of want, and all moral evil must cease. The first pair are represented as not perfectly happy, they had uneasy desires, and criminal volition followed. Moral evil, therefore, is caused by natural evil, and indeed in proportion to the extent of natural evil; moral evil exists in a very limited or will be happy, and I confess that if this be not true, the difficulty admits of no solution whatever. Without this, all is a riddle, an inexplicable mystery, all reasoning on the divine character and conduct, vain. This is universally, or nearly so, the doctrine held by Unitarians, and no other has the appearance of common sense, connected with the present condition of man and the belief of a perfectly happy Creator. SEARCH. P. S. May I be permitted to ask your correspondent, Mr. Belsham, who is one of the most diligent students in the scriptures now living, if he have found any prophecy in the Old Testament, which speaks of the Messiah's dying and rising again the third day, which seems to be clearly designated by Jesus after his resur recãon, as recorded in Luke. SIR, March 28, 1816. Tereight, that the Author of THE suggestion in a late number, if "Armageddon," [M. Repos. X. 649] probably intended in that poem, indirectly to oppose the common notion of future punishment, hath induced me to send you a few scattered thoughts drawn up under a similar idea, somewhat amplified, a few years ago an idea, with which I was forcibly impressed, on perusing Dr. Young's Poem "On the Last Day." They are part of others on the subject in general, much too long on the 324 Inconsistencies of Writers on Future Punishment. whole, for a periodical work. If the present fragment be not out of time or unacceptable, it is at your service. AN OCCASIONAL READER. Apparent Inconsistencies of great Minds, exemplified in a series of Extracts on Future Punishment. There yet remains one collateral argument, of great weight and importance in the writer's opinion, against both the schemes already treated of, namely, the indiscriminate notion of future punishment, as represented by some, or the doctrine of absolute, eternal and unremitting torments; and secondly, that of punishment limited in degree, but strictly everlast ing in duration-an argument, distinct in itself, and not much adverted to in books; and that is the indeterminate and equivocal language em ployed by the advocates of eternal punishment, either in explaining their ideas of the doctrine itself, or of circumstances connected with it. If a writer lays down a specific opinion, and presently shuns the investigation of it, and elsewhere, perhaps in the next page, expresses a sentiment diametrically opposite, or utterly inconsistent with the former one; we may fairly conclude, either that he hath not formed any precise ideas upon the subject; or that he means to compound with different parties; or wishes to retract in some measure what he had before advanced. Nothing can be a surer proof of a weak argument, than a man's authority against himself. A prodigious mass of evidence might be furnished of this kind; at present we shall produce only a few instances, without regard to chronology. Calvin, in his Institutions, B. III. Ch. 25, Section 5, having slightly mentioned some of the common arguments for eternal punishment; as to the contrary opinions, only says, "Let us leave these trifles, lest we should seem to consider such dotages as worthy of confutation." No doubt many a zealous Romanist has said the same, respecting any sentiments contrary to the peculiar dogmas of his community: nevertheless, of the greater part of these, this pious reformer justly thought it necessary to enter into the most minute and laborious investigation. The Rev. W. Wisheart, a profound divine of the church of Scotland, in his "Theologia," 1716, a work, which, allowing for some parts of the author's creed, contains an inexhaustable fund of theological matter, treating of the divine patience, says: "Of all the other perfections of the divine nature, this of patience hath the shortest time to act its part, having no other stage but this world to act in: after the end of which, it will remain, shut up in the Deity, without any further operation. The time of this life is the only time of long suffering." Yet, he afterwards tells us, that the consideration of the divine patience is to be used as an argument, to manifest the gracious, merciful, and reconcileable nature of the Deity, and to clear and justify the divine judgments in a future world;-an abundant patience, called the riches of forbearance and long suffering, far beyond the patience of good men, of glorified saints, or angels." Not to advert here to the singular freedom of speech in the former part of this quotation, it may be observed, than which nothing can be plainer, that the divine patience and long suffering, are often very limited in their exercise in the present life. The Deity doth not often interpose, that we know of, by miracles, or by remarkable deviations from the common course of nature and Providence, to prevent the usual, or the accidental effects as they are called, of transgression. The pious author himself observes, "How many candles have we seen put out, before they were half burnt!" War and pestilence, famine and intempe rance, destroy their thousands and ten thousands in the first acts of sin, and many of them perhaps in the possession of a previously moral, if not reli gious character: now, to propose that, as a general argument, which ar present applies only to particular cases, is a false and absurd method of reasoning. Again, under the head of divine justice, he tells us, "The justice of God, in a future state, is inexorable:" but afterwards, that "This vindictive justice, though essential to the nature of God, is not natural to him, as heat is to the fire, though it be necessary that he should punish sin, because of his righteous nature; yet, not by a natural, or physical necessity, as the fire burns, but by a moral, or rational necessity." Inconsistencies of Writers on Future Punishment. The fire burns, without any influence of a free and rational principle, but the Deity is a free agent, and therefore determines the mode, seasons, degree, and other circumstances of punishment by his sovereign will and pleasure. Further, when we say that God cannot let sin go unpunished, we do not thereby limit the power of God, but it is the justice and righteousness of his own nature that bounds him. As he cannot lie or deny himself, so he cannot do any thing unjust, and it would be unjust to let sin go unpunished." These sentiments are strictly just, but utterly inconsistent with the foregoing assertion: for if we are to argue upon the grounds of "a moral or rational necessity," as to the proceedings of the Supreme Being as sovereign judge in a future world; how does it thence appear, that his primitive justice will be "inexorable?" Or where is it said in scripture that it will be so? Rather, as his patience and longsuffering are only, so to speak, branches of his infinite goodness, which is essential to his nature, is it not far more probable, that these will continue as long as that?—that is, be coeval with his being? For, as our author well observes on the Divine Eternity, "God always is what he was, and always will be what he is!" Sir Thomas Brown, in his " Religio Medici," treating of future punishment according to the high orthodox system of his day, among some exquisite passages,* introduces others which, separately considered, might lead a hasty reader to conclude that the au "I thank God, that, with joy I mention it, I was never afraid of hell, nor ever grew pale at its description: I have so fixed my contemplation on heaven, that I have almost forgot the idea of its contrary, and am afraid rather to lose the joys of the one, than endure the sufferings of the other! To be deprived of them, is a perfect hell, and needs, methinks, no ad-, dition to complete our affliction! That terrible term hath never detained me from sin, nor do I owe any good action to the name thereof: I fear God, yet am ashamed of my sins, before his judgments 2 U 325 thor had possessed neither grace, reason nor humanity: he closes his remarks thus: "the one," the eternity of happiness, "being so far beyond our deserts; the other," the eternity of suffering, "being so infinitely below our demerits!" What did this good man require further, or what could he expect, more than all? Sir Kenelm Digby, his annotator, expresses upon this occasion a little alleviation of sentiment: he tells us, that the victim of divine anger, deprived of former criminal enjoyments, restless and insatiable," will neglect all other contentments he might have, for want of a due taste and relish; hating whatsoever good is in his power, and thus pining away a long eternity:" hereby plainly supposing, that there is some real good to be obtained in that state, if the proper means could be discovered and adopted. The luminous author of "A Gentleman's Religion" dismisses this subject in a very summary way. "Eternal damnation, of which we have fair warning given us, and may therefore avoid if we please, is as little as can be threatened, and often is but too little to keep us back from all manner of sin and wickedness." Thus taking for granted the question proposed, and confounding a supposed divine threatening with its execution; though, to do the author justice, he clearly holds out the difference of degrees. Richard Baxter, in his Treatise of Universal Redemption, or the Sufficiency of the Gospel in itself to save all Mankind, has the following passage:"All divines that I know, say that God loveth those in hell, as his creatures and as men. Aquinas and the schoolmen have it frequently; and many Protestant divines say, that he punisheth those in hell short of their deserving, and so sheweth some mercy there. That I will_not_meddle with." There might be some reason for this: the pious and laborious minister was branded as a heretic by many of his brethren; and would probably have been still farther advanced on the black catalogue had he hinted at the possibility of universal restoration. But let us attend to his sentiments in another part of this work, which should be deeply impressed upon our minds. If any say that God followeth not the rules of human laws; I answer, He is the 326 Inconsistencies of Writers on Future Punishment. fountain of all right laws and reason and justice. 'Tis an ill pretence for men to judge their Maker by, when they will not allow him that reasonable apology, nor make that construction of his ways, according to coinmon undeniable equity, as they will do of the ways of inen. Bight reason and the laws made thereby, are a beam of God's perfect wisdom and justice. Jeremy Taylor, that truly Christian bishop, or overseer of souls, "himself an host, the Homer among preachers," though he appears in general to adopt the common notions on this subject, (especially in his Treatise "On Man,' probably the only weak book he ever wrote, and some of the sentiments of which, if true, would almost justify the scheme of Anthropomorphitism,) yet, has many passages quite inconsistent with them. In his "Life of Christ," treating of temporal judgments, he observes of Ananias and Sapphira, Uzzah the prophet slain by the lion, and other cases of sudden sur prisals in the commission of sinful acts, where the sufferers were in the main upright characters, that "We must not conclade such persons perishing and miserable to all eternity; it were a sad sentence to think God would not impute the untimely death for a punishment great enough to that deflexion from duty, and judge the man according to the constant tenor of his former life; unless the act were of malice enough to outweigh the former habits, and interrupt the whole state of acceptation and grace. For as God takes off our sins and punish ments by parts, remitting to some the sentence of death, and inflicting only the fine of a temporal loss, or the gentle scourge of a lesser sickness; so also, he lays it on by parts and suitable proportions; and every transgression and lesser deviation from duty does not drag the soul to death eternal; but he suffers our repentance, though imperfeet, to have an imperfect effect, knocking off the fetters by degrees, leading ns in some cases to the council, in some to judgment, and in some to hell-fire; but it is not always certain, that he who is led to the prison doors shall there lie entombed, and a man may by jugment be brought to the gates of hell, and yet those gates shall not prevail against him." This passage is not cited as any indirect argument against eternal putnishment, but only as proving by the way, that this great divine did not interpret too strictly those texts in Ezekiel, where it is said that the righteous shall perish in his present sin, not→ withstanding his former attainments; and as proving, most unequivocally, that, like the favoured disciple, his soul was so wrapt and absorbed in the contemplation of the divine character, as the God of love, and probably, at the same time, so shocked, or at least dismayed, by the common notion of future punishment, that he could not allow himself to believe, that any would prove the victims of this dire, ineffable doom, but the most flagrant, enormous and incorrigible transgressors. This is further evident from another passage in the same work, where he tells us that there is" but one" individual of the human race, Judas Iscariot, of whom we may af firm, without breach of Christian charity, that he is "certainly damned :" nay, he goes farther yet, and says, even of this delinquent, "his sin stuck close, and it is thought to a sad eternity." But we do not insist upon this latter passage; the good bishop often indulges in a laxity of phrase common in his day, but which the literary taste of the present times, superior in this respect, will not admit of. The foregoing sentiment, however, is delivered in plain and decided terms: let us attend, for a moment, to the singular idea, and to the instruction which it may afford us. If Christian charity will not allow us to affirm that any man but Judas Iscariot is " certainly damned," it most assuredly will not require us to believe, on the other hand, that every man besides him is certainly saved: taking salvation in the common sense of the word, for the state of happiness immediately succeeding the general judg ment. This would be enthusiasm, and not charity, or charity carried to a degree of enthusiasm. We cannot doubt, froin the history of the world and our own experience,-happy if we have no reason to fear it respecting ourselves!-that many go out of life utterly unfit, as far as appears, without considerable degree of purification, for the Christian heaven; judging, not "Enthusiastic doctrines---good things strained out of their wits." Ihichcate. 1 |