unmerciful and horrid manner, as this great divine describes they are, and as all the nonelect will be forever tormented. And did this preacher call this preaching the gospel? which is called good news to all: what more dismal news could he have told? Let us hear him a little further.] "He has their souls in his possession, and under his dominion. The scriptures represent them as his goods." [This is another ***] "Natural men are held in the hand of God over the pit of hell;" [Where then are unnatural men held?] "they have deserved the fiery pit, and are already sentenced to it." [Yes, long before they were born, or had done any thing to deserve it.] "And God is dreadfully provoked." [This represents him as a dreadful Being.] "His anger is as great towards them, as to those who are actually suffering the execution of the fierceness of his wrath in hell." [Why don't you say he is just as full of wrath as the devil, both alike? But it will be said, that the wrath of one is holy; but it makes no difference to the sufferers; they suffer as much by holy wrath, as unholy; there is no more mercy in one than the other.] "There is nothing that keeps wicked men at any one moment out of hell, but the mere pleasure of God; I mean His sovereign pleasure, His arbitrary will!!!" [i. e. Despotic will; why don't you call him a tyrant at once? You have represented him worse, already, than any tyrant that ever lived.] The following are some observations that have been made on this sermon, by a writer who has noticed it; and I think that his whole congrega tion might have made similar observations on it, and ever remembered it with the utmost detestation; for certainly it is more like the ravings of a madman than any thing else. He says, "Reader, is not this wonderful, that God's sovereign will and pleasure should keep men out of hell, and at the same time be more angy at those that are out, than those that are in hell? According to this, God's anger abates, when, yea, at the time He is tormenting them with inconceivable misery! What kind of a being is this? When he is most enraged, he lets his enemies, or those with whom he is so terribly provoked, go clear! But the moment his anger abates, he torments them!!!" And if God is not represented more passionate, wrathful and cruel than a Nero or a devil, I don't understand the meaning of words. And what consummate folly to talk about God's anger increasing and decreasing, and being dreadfully provoked! Just like some men, sometimes pleased and sometimes mad; for every man is mad when in a passion, or angry, according to his height of anger; more or less, so is that of madness, or as a medical writer calls it, "a species of insanity."* "In this sermon the word hell occurs 49 times! And besides, in addition to the frequent use of the words "hell, devil, devils, damned, and damnation," he has got "furnaces, flames, flashes, fire and sword, hungry lions seeking for prey, fire and brimstone, fiery ovens, fiery pit, lake of burning brimstone, dreadful pit, glowing flames, red hot world of misery, bottomless gulf, black *Arnold on Insanity, an excellent work, 2 vols. 8vo. clouds of wrath, dreadful storms, thunder, rough winds, whirlwinds, floods of vengeance, fiery floods," [boiling hot water, I suppose, as Mahomet has in his hell, with melted lead, which the damned are obliged to drink, the devil holding them and pouring it down their throats,] "arrows drunk with blood, furnace of wrath, bottomless pit, fire of wrath, dolorous cries and shrieks, awful vengeance and horrid misery, with pitchforks, devils and devils' imps"-a tremendous catalogue of fire and furies; enough, we think, to curdle the blood of the most brutal executioner of a Roman inquisition. But not one word is said in this sermon, (if it can be called a sermon,) of the gospel of Christ; no, not one word! It is one of those cold-blooded and tremendous productions, that sometimes flit across the mental heavens, eclipsing humanity and common sense." And I would add, if the devil himself was to assume a human body, (instead of a snake,) and preach a sermon, and tell about his place of residence, what could he say more? You may be sure he would not say any thing about love, or mention the gospel any more than the preacher of this sermon does. As Edwards was of this country, and is considered a great divine, (I don't know of any one of late more so,) and as his writings (amounting to 6 or 8 volumes) have been much read and approved, I will make a few more extracts from his works, by which it may be more fully seen, how our first orthodox divines have represented God and his dealings towards his intelligent creatures: and they still continue to represent him in the same manner; though they begin to be rather more merciful, and do not preach hell and damnation quite so hard; for as it is said, particularly by the methodists, that if the Calvinists were to preach their reprobation doctrine plainly, according to their faith, as they used to do about 100 years ago, they would open people's eyes to see the absurdity of it.* Just so it now begins to be, respecting preaching eternal damnation and punishment. We don't hear it thundered from pulpits as it was formerly, or even as it has been since my remembrance. To preach it as Edwards and others did, would open people's eyes to see the absurdity of it at once; and such preachers would lose their hearers. Errors must die gradually; and I predict that the day is not far distant, when the endless wrath of God and eternal punishment, will no more be heard. As says a late writer, • Haggard er 66 * Such absurdities as the following: Calvin says, in his Institutes, that "We refer the cause of hardening us (or our heart being hardened) to God. The first and remote cause of hardening is the will of God. It followeth that the hidden counsel of God is the cause of hardening." And says Beza, another calvinistic divine, "God hath predestinated, not only our damnation, but also unto the causes of it, whomsoever he saw meet." And says Zanchius, another predestinarian preacher, "God is the first eause of obduration. Reprobates are held so fast under God's almighty decree, that they cannot but sin and perish." And says Paraues, "It is the opinion of our doctors of divinity, that God did inevitably decree the temptation and fall of man. The creature sinned indeed necessarily, by the just judgment of God." And saith Martyr, (another preacher of the same faith,) “God doth incline and force the will of wicked men into great sins." And saith another, (Zuinglius,) "God moveth the robber to kill; he Billeth, God forcing him thereunto. But thou wilt say, he is forced to sin. I permit truly that he is forced." "Reprobate persons," says Pitcater, "are absolutely ordained to this two-fold end; to undergo everlasting punishment and necessity to sin; and therefore to sins that may be justly punished." Now, though greater nonsense, it does not lay in the power of man to write, yet these preachers were probably honest, and preached just what they believed; the patural effect of their contracted views of the benevolence of God, ror is receding before the refulgence of truth, armed with the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. Our souls anticipate the day, When the loud thunders of the law Shall cease their dreadful roar, And heaven-born truth spread far and wide, It will not be preached in the millennium surely! Nay, and if that day ever takes place, the millinarians will look back with astonishment, to behold the absurdities of most of the doctrines which has long been called orthodox, particularly concerning infinite wrath, anger, hatred and vengeance of God, and eternal damnation. For then all will be love; none can then bear even the thoughts of any creature being tormented forever; and this will lead them to form correct ideas of the divine character. We read that all shall know the Lord; which must be by having a correct knowledge of his character.If I was asked if I knew a certain person, though I had no personal knowledge of him, I might answer in the affirmative, if I had had a correct representation given me of his character; but if false, or just so far as false, I should err in my ideas respecting him, or my knowledge of him. Many people, and even many celebrated divines, appear to have much more correct ideas or knowledge of the devil and hell, (supposing there is such a being and such a place,) than they have of God and heaven. I now return to that which I proposed to quote |