Olar to the ideas they have formed of God.by Those who believe that he possesses infinite wrath anger and hatred, can then believe he will punish as above described, those of his creatures who displease him. It is observed by a judicious writer, that "men believe and act in a great measure, like the being they worship, or assimilate to the character which they ascribe to their object of worship."

And it is very evident, that mankind in general, particularly those of Christendom, have acted according to their ideas of their God; they have been faithful in imitating him; as they have believed of him, so they have done; they have poured their wrath, and vengeance on one another with a witness; and many do the same yet as far as they dare-it is now on Universalist.However much all sects may differ in other respects, they almost all unite in opposing Universalism, and in advocating and in upholding the kingdom of Satan. The spirit of persecution is far from being dead; it only wants the power, and it never will die, as long as people, particularly the clergy, (for they have always been at the head of all persecution,) entertain the same erroneous and horrid ideas of Deity. We believe in a God altogether the reverse to what is believed by most sects of professed Christians.

We believe that his love is towards all his creatures, that he is a lover of all souls; that his love is unlimited, boundless, ceaseless, immutable and eternal. That which he loves, he never ceases to love. Most others believe in a God who is changeable, hating the very creatures he once loved. Or that he hates and is angry with

his creatures at one time, and loves them at another. Yes, they believe in a God that is not only changeable, but partial, wrathful, passionate and unjust: which I shall soon clearly prove to be a correct statement of their faith.

I will now briefly state the manner in which God has been represented, and his dealings towards mankind, by those who have been considered orthodox divines.

After our first parents had eaten of the forbidden fruit, (by the persuasions of a serpent, which was, as is generally believed, influenced by the Devil,*) their Creator became very an

* Dr. Adam Clark, in his Commentaries, thinks it was a monkey, by which the Devil spake, and persuaded our mother Eve. But many believe there was no literal garden, fruit, nor serpent; but that the whole account is altogether allegorical, or figurative, or should be understood as an allegory. It appears to me a very unlikely story, about the Devil raising a war in Heaven, and a great number of other angels joining him and fighting, until they became conquered and cast out. How long this war continued, the learned theologicians have never told us; and how they fought, or how spirits fight, they appear to be utterly ignorant. Can it be possible that war, the great est evil, scourge and curse, that ever afflicted our world, should first have originated in heaven!!? If this be so, why so much inquiry and dispute from whence evil originated? when it is so plain that it originated in Heaven. For we know of no greater evil than war. Beelzebub is said to be head of all the fallen angels, or devils; so war may be said to be the head of all evil; and this originated in heaven. This of all things is the most astonishing!!!! And that he and his host should be cast out of heaven, and allowed to come down upon our world, to torment us poor creatures. How came it that he did not light upon some other planet? There are many worlds much larger than this, on which he with his compeers might have had a lar ger range; or is this planet nighest to heaven? Or is he omnipresent, as God is, throughout the immensity of creation? injuring and tormenting the inhabitants of all other planets as well as this. But the doctrine of Devils is not my subject. If the reader should wish to see the Devil treated just as he deserves, I would refer him to a work entitled "A Treatise on the Atonement, By Hosea Ballou." The origin of sin and doctrine of Devils begins at page 26.

I would just a little further observe, that the Devil and his Legion, since they were cast out, have gone about seeking revenge of God, on his poor creature man, and first began in tempting our innocent mother Eve, by means of a serpent or a monkey. (Satan performed a great miracle to make either speak.) On this I want to ask one question, why he did not tempt her as he has tempted all women and men ever since? No doubt, it was identically the hame that tempted our first parents, that has tempted all men and women to evil from that time to this, all who are, as they were, i. e. of the earth, earthy

gry and his wrath was kindled; and we have been told from the pulpit and the press, that if the second Person in the Trinity, had not stepped in between God and fallen man, Adam and Eve and their whole posterity, all of us to the present day, and to the end of time, would have been doomed to everlasting misery. But the Son of God, the only begotten and unbegotten, coequal and co-eternal with the Father, interceded in behalf of man, and promised the Father, that in his appointed time, he would go down up

on the earth, and do whatsoever the Father pleased should be done to appease his wrath, and save fallen man from an eternal hell.And nothing would suffice short of the obedience, suffering and death of his Son, thereby to make an atonement for the sin of his finite fallible creatures. According to our celebrated Dr. Watts

'Twas mercy filled the throne
And wrath stood silent by,

When Christ was sent with pardon down,
To rebels doomed to die.

This Son, who they say was God, became man, by taking upon him a human body, born of the Virgin Mary, "true God and true man." In this body his creatures persecuted him, and finally, through ignorance, crucified him, (a much greater sin than the first.) God now becomes reconciled, having poured out all his wrath upon his Son, and satisfied the demands of divine justice, in suffering the punishment due to his sinful creatures. And though he has become reconciled, (who was never irreconciled,) and Christ has made satisfction for sin, and the wrath and anger of the Father is appeased, yo'

his Son has to stand at the right hand of the Father, to prevent Him from destroying us. And it has been declared by those called orthodox, that if the Son was to stop making intercession, the wrath of the Father would immediately pour out upon the whole human race. And

not only Christ must make intercession for us, but we must fast and continually pray, that our Creator may have mercy on us, and that his wrath may be turned away from us! And the Papists call upon all their reputed dead saints, to pray for them, "and all the angels in heaven, prophets, apostles, and mother of God, to pray for them:" For fear that their angry God, their God of wrath and vengeance, will at last damn, and punish them forever. Neither they, nor Protestants, are satisfied with representing him as a wrathful, angry Being, in the beginning, or when Adam and Eve eat of the forbidden fruit, and before he assumed human nature, in order as they say to appease his wrath, and reconcile himself to his poor creatures for their sin, (when they could not help it, being predestinated, or foreordained thereto,) but they will have him to be an angry illnatured Being yet; (no doubt they judge of him by themselves;) they preach, talk, and write, as much as ever about their God, as a being of wrath, provoked and angry; [These are not very agreeable dispositions, if we may judge from our own feelings of them. If so, their God must be a very unhappy being: but, as says a well known writer, "many entertain very gross ideas of God and his character."] He is displeased, he is grieved, and though he desires the happiness of all his children, and has suffered and

died to save them, that they might be happy, and though he is all powerful, millions of millions will be lost! And by and by, when Christ gives up his meditorial office, he will intercede no longer; and then, instead of God being all and in all, and all things being subdued unto him, he will become more wrathful than ever, and will cast off millions and billions of the creatures of his own creating, from his mercy and favour, and consign them over to the devil to be tormented by him forever!! And he will unite with the devil in tormenting them, by pouring, and some say, by raining down his wrath, with vengeance upon them forever and ever!! Thus far is an exact representation of the orthodox faith.

And we will soon see how several of our first divines, (so called,) have represented the character of God, by what they have said, of his wrath, anger, hatred, his fury, and fiery vengeance, against his poor weak creature man.

But from what has been stated of the manner in which God has been represented, He is a Being whose very essence is wrath-He is nothing but wrath, just like a wrathful illnatured king, who has no love or regard for any being but his eldest son. This son is directly the reverse of his father-benevolent, merciful, and kind to all: he has to be continually with his father, to intercede in behalf of his subjects, and his other children, to prevent him from pouring his wrath and vengeance upon them, in ordering his guards to destroy and torment great numbers of them.*

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*Like as did several of the Roman Emperors. Nero and Caligula ordergreat numbers to be tormented, and put to death. Sylla, merely for the gratification of his wrathful and hellish disposition, caused 7,000 citizens of Rome to be slaughtered.