Part 10

The mere circumstance of a man being punished for his sins in this life, has nothing in it to purify his soul, purge his conscience, or prepare him for the enjoyment of God. The Egyptians, the Antediluvians, the Sodomites, and the Jews, had a just recompense of reward sent upon them in this world, but this only sent them down to _tartareous_, to be reserved, with the angels that sinned, to the judgment of the great day, where, we are assured, Sodom and Gomorrah shall appear. Some men appear to think, that if men are punished, to use their own style, as much as their sins deserve, they must necessarily be happy then. But men can not be happy—can not enjoy God, without justification, purification of heart and conscience; and, unless thus prepared for the enjoyment of God, they can not enjoy the world to come. This is a work that punishment can not do. The hurling of angels, that sinned, down to hell, the drowning of antediluvians and Egyptians, the burning of Sodomites, and slaying of Jews, did not purify one of them. If men live in unbelief, commit some capital offence, and are executed for it, though this may be a just recompense of reward, it will not purify their souls and prepare them to enjoy God. When men pass the boundary line of life, they pass all the means, in the economy of God, for preparing them for heaven, and no punishment will ever do what the grace of God could not do.

THE MISSION OF INFIDELS.

The mission of infidels is not to build up anything but to pull down churches, civil laws, governments, morals, the characters of men and women, peace, happiness, protection of home, property and life. They come with a mission of denials of the truths contained in the Bible—a mission of war upon the Bible, religion, and the friends of purity and mercy. They come not with a mission of peace and good will to man, but a mission of hatred towards the Bible and all it enjoins—a mission to pull down and destroy—to spread desolation among other men’s labors and lay their work in ruins, leaving nothing but wrecks and devastation. They come to neutralize, paralize and dishearten all efforts for the amelioration of man’s condition—to discourage, enfeeble and ignore all efforts to rise. They come not into our midst with a warm, kind and affectionate appeal to the attentive, thinking and reflective portion,—the more spiritually minded; but appeal to the lukewarm, back-sliding, or the apostate, who is beginning to stand at a distance, who already is descending upon the retrograde plane—not to rescue him, or to prevent his retrograde movement, but to accelerate it. The appeal to him is not to give him confidence, but to destroy his confidence in his Bible, his religion, his brethren, and fill him with doubts and distrusts. It is not to embolden him, but to intimidate him and fill him with fears, and discourage him from all good forever.

The mission of infidels is not to enlighten, civilize and ennoble the nations. They have never enlightened, civilized or elevated a nation or a people since the world was made. They have never organized society, established peace and order in any place on this earth. They have established no civil institutions, no system of morals, no code of laws, no system of education, and no institutions of learning that deserve the name. Even the literature of the country has almost entirely been left to the believers in the Bible. It is an easy work to pull down civil government, subvert the foundation of organization, condemn the means of enlightenment, and object to them. It is an easy matter to deny everything and prove nothing; to doubt, vacillate and fear. It is an easy matter to distrust, fill others with distrust, destroy confidence, throw everything into confusion and uncertainty. Some men have fallen so fully into this state, that they hardly will venture to say they believe anything, have confidence in anything, or know anything. One man, under the blinding, benumbing and stupifying influence of unbelief, when asked whether he knew that he existed, hesitated to say he did.

What ability, knowledge or learning does it require, to deny everything? The most ignorant, illiterate and stupid, can deny as stoutly, as the most learned, enlightened, and talented. It requires no strength of mind to stand and deny—to declare in the most pertinacious manner, disbelief, want of confidence, doubts, distrusts and uncertainties in everything. A man who never read the Bible once through in his life, nor ten other books, who has the most corrupt character, can talk of inconsistencies, incongruities, contradictions and absurdities, in the Bible, as stoutly as anybody. Any blockhead could leap over the Falls of Niagara, or from the Suspension Bridge below. In the same way, any man with or without much mind, learning or talent, can leap into the dark abyss of unbelief, rejecting, contemning and despising all evidence; but, would it not be the part of prudence, of wisdom and discretion in such, to look before they leap? It is a fearful experiment they are making. If the step is a mistaken one, it can never be retraced beyond this life. He who makes the experiment, obtains nothing now, only the unbridled privilege of declaring the Bible false—religion priest-craft—that man will never be called to account, hence all men can do as they list.

The mission of infidels is to risk, and induce all men to risk the loss of everything, without the possibility of gaining anything in this world, or the world to come. They have no worthy object—they can have no worthy object in opposing the Bible. They have no reason for opposing it, for they do not propose to make the world any better. They have no proposition to make the world more true, kind, affectionate or happy. Indeed, the very fact of their malignity towards the Bible, shows that it is no fable. The land abounds with acknowledged fables; why are they not enraged at these? They are read by the million; but, sceptics are no more enraged at them than other men. If they are satisfied the Bible is all fiction, false or human, why trouble us about it? Why not let it pass? We hear thousands contending about the “signs in the moon,” but we care nothing about them, and do not even trouble those who believe in them; the reason is, we are well and fully satisfied, that there is nothing in them. Why do they not let the believers in the Bible pass in the same way? The reason is obvious; they are in doubt, not fully satisfied, and feel that there is uncertainty in their position. They see and are constantly impressed with the fact, that if the Christian could be mistaken that his mistake amounts to nothing—that he is as happy now, and has as high assurance in regard to all beyond this life, to say the least of it, as they; and that if the sceptic should prove mistaken, his mistake will be an irreparable one. They see that a mistake on the part of a Christian involves no danger, no serious consequences in this world or the world to come; while a mistake on their part involves eternal consequences. They are not constantly impressed, too, with the fact, that they are relying upon that which amounts to anything like certainty; for a large proportion who have occupied their position, before death have repudiated and renounced it,—many of them in the immediate expectation of death,—and warned all their friends against it. They find on the other hand, that all who believed the Bible when in health, also believed it when approaching death, and that no man who has contended for its truth till he was in the immediate expectation of death, has then denied it. They must, then, see that their mission is simply to fill the world with doubts and distrusts, involving all in darkness and uncertainty.

IS IT POSSIBLE TO AROUSE THE PEOPLE?

Is it not possible to rescue the people from the pernicious and blinding influences of speculative theories and theorists, and induce them to receive the simple faith of Christ, become his disciples, love him and serve him? Have the leaders of the people, in these times, as they did in the days of the Lord’s pilgrimage on earth, stolen away the key of knowledge, and fastened them down with such an impenetrable spell of thick darkness that they are unwilling to be rescued from this servile slavery to human speculation to the rejection of the sun of righteousness? Or is the world so lost, the mind of the people so bewitched, the delusions around us so enchanting, that it is impossible to attract the attention of the people, arrest their affections or impress their hearts, by the love of God to man, by the sufferings of Christ, by all the divine sanctions of the blood of the everlasting covenant, by the glories of heaven, or the terrors of hell, to turn to the Lord and follow him who loved us and gave himself for us? Is the public mind so distracted, and are the people so confused and lost to all that God has said and done, that they can not be induced to love Christ better than all human theories, regard him and feel the force of all his love to our lost and ruined world? Are the people so set upon gnawing the bone of contention, keeping up sectarian feuds; disputing upon the lifeless, soulless and profitless controversies thrust upon them, that they will neither hear the Lord nor be interested in the word of his grace? Must the public mind be wholly occupied with the useless distinctions between the views of men, the useless comparisons of doctrines and commandments of men, the comparative merits of different human systems, and an eternal train of customs unknown to the primitive church, thus bewildering the people and blinding their minds that they may neither see the Lord nor regard his authority? Is it impossible to bring the authority of the Almighty again to bear upon the world, to lift up the Lord before the people, that he may draw all men unto him, convert them to the Lord and place them under him? Is it impossible to rescue the people from the blinding influences of these times—from being merely followers of men, and believing human theories, which have no power to save, in the place of believing the great truth, that Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures—that he was buried, and that he rose from the dead? Is it impossible to interest the public mind with the things of God—with the revelation from God to man, with the religion of Christ itself? Is the love of God gone from the world? Has the Holy Spirit of God abandoned the church? Is the human race mad, insane and ruined, so that all pleadings and entreaties to turn to God must fail? Must the holy religion of Christ be set aside for the silly disputes of these times? Shall that holy religion that saved such vast multitudes in the days of the apostles, fired the hearts of the missionaries of the cross and supported the holy martyrs in passing through all the cruel scourgings, tortures and privations for the name of the Lord, be contemned, despised and rejected by the people of our day? O, that God would enable us to _arouse_ the people of this generation from the awful stupor and deep slumbers of carnal security to prepare to meet God!

A MOTHER’S GRAVE.

Earth has some sacred spots where we feel like looseing the shoes from our feet, and treading with holy reverence; where common words of social converse seem rude, and the smile of pleasure unfitting; places where friendship’s hands have lingered in each other’s; where vows have been plighted, prayers offered, and tears of parting shed. Oh, how the thoughts hover around such places, and travel back through unmeasured space to visit them. But, of all the spots on this green earth, none is so sacred as that where rest, waiting the resurrection, those we once cherished and loved—our brothers, our sisters, or our children. Hence, in all ages, the better part of mankind have chosen and loved spots for the burial of their dead; and on these spots they have loved to wander at eventide, to meditate and weep. But, of all places, even among the charnel-houses of the dead, none is so sacred as a mother’s grave.

There sleeps the nurse of our infancy—the guide of our youth—the counselor of our riper years—our friend, when others deserted us—she, whose heart was a stranger to every other feeling but love, and who could always find excuses for us when we could find none for ourselves. There she sleeps, and we love the very earth for her sake. With sentiments like these, I turned aside from the gayeties of life, to the narrow habitations of the dead. I wandered among those who had commenced life with me in hope. Here distinctions were forgotten; at least, by the quiet slumberers around me. I saw the rich and the great, who scorned the poor, and shunned them as infected with the plague, quietly sleeping by their side.

TENDENCY OF UNIVERSALISM.

That the obvious tendency of Universalism is irreligious; that it is opposed to holiness, to reformation of life; that it is in eternal hostility to all efforts to make the world better; that it paralyzes and neutralizes the efforts of men to serve God—is one of the most manifest impressions upon the mind, both from the theory itself, and from the history of its practical workings among men. No pretended system in our time has been characterized by such daring and unblushing effrontery. It comes forward under a pretense of faith, but ridicules the most awful and fearful things which that faith reveals. It discards the eternal discriminations which the faith of the Lord Jesus maintains between the righteous and the wicked—between those who serve God and those who serve him not—between the vice and virtue—except the reward of one and the punishment of the other, received in this life. It proposes to believe the Bible, and would have men believe that it teaches that he who was an atheist, a deist, and a scoffer at all that God has said, and a blasphemer of the name of God till he breathed the last breath, shall be received up into glory, and seated down with the holy martyrs of Jesus, and enjoy God forever! No other system has so far imposed upon the credulity of mankind, as to face the world, as well as the heavens, and declare that the lake of fire prepared for the devil and his angels, where the beast and the false prophet shall be tormented day and night, forever and ever—the _gehena_ of fire, where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched—is in this world, and that the wicked we see are actually enduring its punishments!

No infidel desires any better opposition to religion than this. No man who hates the Bible, and wishes its influence upon the world counteracted, desires any more effectual method of doing it than this, so far as men will receive it. Those who fall under its influence will neither worship God nor keep his commandments. Atheism itself has all the incentives to a righteous life found in this system, and may be trusted just as far. Its influence is to harden the heart, and fill the world with impenitence and indifference.

VALUE OF LEARNING.

If a man’s learning is combined with piety, devotion, and consecration to Jesus Christ, and he is possessed with the humility and meekness inculcated in Christianity, and his learning enables him to unfold the unsearchable riches of Christ, with the simplicity, sincerity and devotion necessary to commend it to the hearts and consciences of men, it is of great value. If the Lord dwells in a man, if the great matters of the kingdom of God fill his soul, and if his learning is used in presenting the simple gospel of Christ in meekness, it may be of great service to him; but, it requires much care to keep the Lord in front of it, so that the hearers will see nothing but him. The more gifted the man, the more learned and powerful, the better, if all his powers are engaged in setting forth and honoring the Lord, sanctifying _Him_ in the eyes of the people. At the same time, he should rely upon not learning only, or talent, or power that he possesses, but upon the Lord, upon his gospel—the power of God unto salvation, to every one who believes. He must look to heaven for the means to move men to repent; he must appeal to God, keep God and his works before his audience, and in this way show that his confidence is in Christianity itself, and the author of it, and not in himself, not in man. Whether men have what the world calls learning or not, they must know God, and have the love of God in their hearts, if they would induce others to love him and turn to him.

THE BIBLE INFALLIBLY SAFE.

Can men lead the people astray by insisting upon their adhering strictly to the law of God, uniting upon it, living in peace and love? Let the Lord reign. Let his law be the supreme authority. The Bible is right if anything is right. All led by it are led rightly; all under its influence are under proper influence; all opposed to it are wrong—all the way wrong.

There is not one ray of light from heaven that has ever reached the abodes of men in any creed, any book, or any man that is not in the Bible.

If the man who honestly reads the Bible to know his duty or the will of God, and does it to the best of his ability, praying daily for the divine aid, both in understanding and doing, is not safe, infallibly safe and right; no man in this world is safe.

EXCUSE FOR CREEDS.

One of the most common excuses offered for human creeds is, that “We want something to keep us together—something to bind us in union.” This apology is based virtually upon the same two preposterous assumptions we have before mentioned. It assumes, with great apparent innocence, that the Bible can not keep us together, that it cannot bind us in union. Then it assumes, with much modesty, that a human creed _can_ keep us together—bind us in union—_can do_ what the Bible _can not do_. This, it appears to us, should startle any good man at once. These assumptions are arrogant in the extreme, and not only arrogant, but made without any regard to facts. Do human creeds keep churches together? We assert, fearless of successful contradiction, that the whole history of human creeds proves that they do not keep churches together. Let us take one look at three of the most popular creeds in this country, and see what they have done in keeping churches together. How has the Baptist creed succeeded? Has it kept the Baptists together? By no means. From the one original Baptist stock we have now not less than nine or ten parties of Baptists. How has the Presbyterian creed succeeded in keeping its adherents together? It is thought to be a very wise and powerful document. Has it kept Presbyterians together? It has succeeded no better than the Baptist creed. With all its adhesive power, Presbyterians, within the last century have sundered into some eight parties. This needs no commentary. How has the Methodist Discipline succeeded? It is itself nothing but an offshoot of the Episcopalian creed, which did not prevent the Methodists from stranding off from the established church. The Discipline has not been in operation more than one hundred and twenty years. How has it succeeded in keeping Methodists together during that period? During that time Methodism has stranded into some eight or ten fragments. What comment this furnishes upon the efficacy of human creeds to cement together. Other creeds have done no better; and yet, in the face of all this, men want human creeds to _keep them together_!

All history shows, beyond all dispute, that wherever human creeds have prevailed, divisions have abounded, partyism has increased, and unity has been diminished. But where the people had confidence in the Bible, the law of God, the “perfect law of liberty,” union has more widely extended, and peace has more generally prevailed. Why then, in the name of reason, hold on to human creeds to keep churches together, when they have so universally failed, and refuse the Bible, which has never failed?

Faith in a creed can not convert persons, or bring them to God. If they are Christians at all, faith in God, the Redeemer and Savior of men, in the Word of God, in the Gospel of Christ, has made them such, and to God and the word of his grace they should commit themselves, their everlasting trust, and not allow themselves to be divided by human creeds.

OVER AND THROUGH THE MOUNTAINS.

This day was presented us some of the grandest objects of admiration, both of nature and art, we ever beheld. We saw some of the grandest, most stupendous and wonderful achievements of human enlightenment, combined with industry, we had ever seen. At one moment we found ourselves hundreds of feet above the tall pine trees, away in the valley below, where, if we had been thrown off the track, we must have been precipitated hundreds of feet down among the craggy rocks. In another moment, we passed from the skirts of tree-tops, plunging into the dark and dreary tunnel, cut through solid rock, hundreds of feet under ground, where we could no more see than if we had never had eyes. Truly is this a mighty and wonderful achievement for mortals—poor, weak and dying mortals? It is overwhelming that _men_ should ever have projected, prosecuted, and completed such a conveyance as this, such a vast distance through this expanded and rugged region of country!

But, vast as this achievement may appear, when we are looking at it as a _work of man_, it diminishes, dwindles and sinks into utter insignificance and nothingness, when we lift our eyes above it, to “the everlasting hills,” the workmanship of Him who “weighs the hills in a balance, and handles the isles as a very little thing.” Also, how our hearts are filled with reverence and our spirits impressed with awe, when we lift our eyes above the hills, to the vast mountains, and think of the thousands of miles over which this mighty range extends, as well as others on our great _universe_! We are, at the same time, filled with awe and gratitude, that we have the blessed assurance that we are not overlooked, forgotten, and lost in the immensity of the innumerable works of the Creator! But, blessed be his glorious name, vast and innumerable as are his marvellous works, he has the time, the goodness and compassion to provide for the fowls of heaven, and the fish of the sea, as well as the beasts of the forests. Among all the variegated multitudes of the feathered tribes, not even a sparrow falls to the ground unobserved by Him; and, by the same Omniscient One, we are assured, by our adorable Redeemer, the hairs of our heads are all numbered. To the same amount, and for the same purpose, he says, “If an earthly parent knows how to give good things to children, how much more shall the Heavenly Father give his Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” How comforting to think that he has promised, saying, “I will never leave you nor forsake you, but will grant you grace and glory, and no good thing will I withhold from you?” How secure, too, we can feel, and how strengthening to reflect, when dashing through these fearful mountains, conscious that though in one moment an accident might occur by which our earthly career might be terminated, the everlasting arms are underneath; and though the earthly building may be destroyed, we have an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. To his Almighty hand we commit our all; in Him is our everlasting trust. To him be praises forever and ever.

REASON, PROVIDENCE, AND THE SPIRIT OF GOD, TEACH US TO OBEY GOD.