Part 2

I have now to attend on my tutor while he gives me his most instructive lectures in theology; and it will be a pity indeed if my unaccountable dulness should prevent me from profiting by the wondrous wisdom which he has displayed, and by those floods of eloquence which flow from his silver tongue. However, I will do the best I can, by using such powers as I possess; and if I am denied the gift of “superior influence,” the fault is no more mine than it would be a fault in him not to see the daylight, had he been denied the gift of eyesight. Yet, _mirabile dictum_, {12c} the first _sine qua non_, {12d} that my tutor requires in his pupil is, that I should lay aside the reason I have or what is the same thing, “not suffer my mind to be its own guide.” But were I to shut, or put out my eyes, in order to behold a beautiful object, would he not be tempted to call me a fool? Were I to discard reason in the common concerns of life, would he not call me irrational? And if I take his advice in respect to religion, shall I not act the part of one insane? Has he laid aside reason in writing his squib? How, then, can he expect reasonable men to read, or me to profit by the irrational ravings of a mere maniac; but a man is never against reason in religion, but when reason is against his religion—and here my tutor feels the shoe pinch his corns. Nothing, however, he says, is too irrational to be believed by those who will not (as he directs) become irrational in religion, but will make the mind its own guide. He is therefore for doing the business by the aid of “superior influence;” and not to say, that in his performance he has given mathematical demonstration, that pretensions to “superior influence” have produced the effect of the most irrational belief, let others of the same school prove the fact. “A christian,” says Lord Bacon, “believes three to be one, and one to be three: a Father, not to be older than the Son; a Son, to be equal with his Father; and one proceedings from both, to be equal with both. He believes three persons in one nature, and two natures in one person: a virgin to be the mother of a son, and that very son of hers to be her Maker. He believes him to have been shut up in a narrow room, whom heaven and earth could not contain; him to have been born in time, who was and is born from everlasting; him to be a weak child carried in arms, who is the Almighty; and him to have died, who only has life and immortality: and the more absurd and incredible any mystery is, the greater honour we do to God in believing it, and so much the more noble the victory of faith.” The same lesson Bishop Beveridge learnt in the same school: “The mysteries, (says he) which I am least able to conceive, I think myself the more obliged to believe. That God the Father should be one perfect God of himself; God the Son one perfect God of himself; and God the Holy Ghost one perfect God of himself: and yet that these three should be but one perfect God of himself, so that one should be perfectly three, and three perfectly one; three and yet but one, but one and yet three. O heart-amazing, thought-devouring, inconceivable mystery! Who cannot believe it to be true of the glorious Deity?” From the above confessions of the orthodox faith, and hundreds more that might be added, equally clear and decisive, let my tutor now say what system produces the most irrational belief—his which enables him to give a reason of the hope that is in him, or his which prevents him from giving any reason at all why he believes such monstrous absurdities. And who acts the most like a rational being—he who knows what and why he believes, or he who, laying aside reason, believes the wildest contradictions, under pretence of believing mysteries, which is a thing just as possible as believing in the existence of non-entities, or seeing invisibilities, or possessing non-existences. But if I had the superior light with which my tutor is blessed, I might learn from him that Socinianism is scepticism and infidelity; for he has made it include this triad of irreconcilables in the compass of three lines; and then he says, it is a virtual rejection of apostolic doctrine, requiring no more than what reason can apprehend. The apostolic doctrine requires us to give a reason of our hope, to prove all things, to judge of ourselves what is right; and when Paul reasoned with the Jews and required them to judge what he said, he surely did not wish them to lay aside reason and believe mysteries which neither preacher nor hearers could comprehend. But a Senator in parliament, he says, described Socinianism as a species of Mahometanism. Well, if senators turn preachers, and my tutor writes them into notice, woe be to his own craft. Such men as he will soon be easily spared; but if any one will turn to the newspaper which contains the senator’s orthodox sermon, they will see by the rejoinder there made, that the preaching senator made as good a figure among his brother senators as my tutor and his performance is destined to make among readers who use reason and common sense when they read.

On page 3, my tutor has summed up the articles of my disbelief, and he has done it honestly and accurately; and I am free to speak le _verite sans peur_, {14a} and to acknowledge _sans mauvaise honte_, {14b} that I do deny and disbelieve the whole catalogue of absurdities which he has enumerated _in toto_; and I assert, that it is out of my tutor’s power to prove, that in so doing I have denied one truth revealed in the Bible, or that I disbelieve one iota of the faith originally delivered to saints by Jesus and his inspired apostles; nor can he prove, that in denying every one of those points, which are essentials in his creed, I have done any more than what every christian ought to do—that is, deny the faith of heathen philosophers, and reject the vain traditions of ignorant fallible men. My tutor, however, allows that I am not destitute of all faith, although I reject his faith; for he says, I believe with the Grand Turk in one God and one prophet. This piece of wisdom he seems to have borrowed from the senator mentioned above; still I can shew my tutor, that my Mahomedan faith is more scriptural, rational, just, and pure, than either his or that of the orthodox senator. I believe in one God; and will my tutor say he believes in more Gods than one? No, although Bishop Beveridge has made three—each perfectly God of himself; and although my tutor’s faith is just the same, yet, of the two evils, rather than be thought to be a tritheist, a plain pagan, a believer in many Gods, he will come over to Socinians, and subscribe the faith of one God; he will not pretend to deny that this part of my faith is scriptural, since scripture compels him to confess it; and if my faith in one prophet, be not scriptural, let him say what the following scriptures can mean: Deut. xviii. 15, the Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren like unto me, unto him ye shall hearken. In verses 18, 19, the same title, a prophet, is given to the same person, and that this person here spoken of, and styled by Jehovah, his prophet, is Jesus Christ, let the New Testament determine; Acts, vii. 37, Stephen applies it to Jesus; Acts, iii. 22, Peter applies it to him; and in the following texts he is styled a prophet, Luke, vii. 16.—xx. 6.—Mark, xi. 32.—Luke, xxiv. 19.—John iv. 19.—ix. 17. and he styles himself a prophet Matt. xiii. 57.—Luke, iv. 24.—xiii. 33. And if I believe either in him, or in the scriptures, I must believe in one God, and in Jesus as his prophet. And whether this be a more scriptural faith than my tutor’s, who believes in Jesus as both God and his own prophet, I leave the reader to determine; and whether this faith in one God, and one prophet, be believing too little, I leave Christ to determine, who has said, “This is life eternal to know the Father the only true God, and Jesus to be the Christ the anointed prophet whom he has sent.” And Paul has reduced the articles of saving faith to a short compass, when he says, “If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shall believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.” Now, if this belief in one God and one prophet Jesus, be believing enough, that surely is believing too much, as my tutor does, when he embraces a creed made up of heathen reveries—not one sentence of which is taught in or required by the Bible. If to call my faith “christianity,” be a misnomer, what must it be to call his christianity?—not one article of which is taught in, but condemned _in toto_ by the christian scriptures. My tutor says, he did not think it worth while to attempt to disprove my doctrines; no, nor even attempt to establish his own, which he styles the articles of the christian faith. And he had two very cogent reasons for this: first, he knew that to assert was far more easy than either to disprove or establish; and then he had given previous notice on his title page; that he meant only to assert, not to prove any thing, and this pledge he has honourably redeemed through his whole performance. It is worth my while, however, to remark in passing, that my tutor has encroached upon the science of the wandering gypsy, and affects to turn fortune-teller; he predicts the good news, that I am on the way to preferment, and stand a fair chance of becoming caliph of Constantinople. I can tell him honestly I have no such ambition; and was there even a chance of a mitre in the church of England, _nolo episcopari_, {16a} upon the usual conditions of assenting and consenting to all that is contained in an English version of the Latin Mass-Book.

On the foot of his 3rd page, my tutor applies himself to his task in good earnest, (at least pretends to do so), and begins to refute and expose my theological blunders; but he quickly lugs in the _coup de main_, {16b} and lays down the _onus probandi_ {16c} after a very short and feeble display of his reasoning powers. He has attempted, it is true, on his 3, 4, 5, and 6th pages, to prove the infinite evil and demerit of sin. Had he succeeded in proving these, he must have established, also, that every sin, because committed against an infinite being, must be infinite in turpitude and demerit; then, where is the difference between his fifty and my five hundred pence debt? Between his ten and my ten thousand talents? Mine are infinite, and his, by his own confession, are no less. If every sin be infinite, how does the aggregate of infinites swell, when we calculate the almost infinite number of sinners, and the infinite number of sins committed by each? And if each of these infinite sins require an infinite atonement, where is such an one to be found? According to my tutor, page 4, it was found “in the vicarious sufferings of the Son of God:” but, when he has proved from the scriptures that the sufferings of Christ were such, which he neither has nor can do; and even one of his own school has confessed, “it is an unaccountable, irrational doctrine, destroying every natural idea we have of divine justice, and laying aside the evidence of scripture (which is none at all) it is so far from being true that it is ridiculous.” {16d} I have still to ask him, did the son of God suffer as God, in his supposed divine nature? If he be as flagrant as the poets are, to speak of a dying God, no man of sound mind will believe him. Should he admit, as truth will compel him to admit, that Christ suffered only as a man, then he has to explain the mystery how the sacrifice of a human victim could make, by finite sufferings, an infinite satisfaction. In describing what he judges proofs, that sin is an infinite evil, he musters together many things which without proof he assumes as points granted; and then, from the heat of this great burning, which his fiery temperament and frightened imagination has kindled, he infers, that finite men can perform those infinite acts which can subvert the order and council of heaven, annihilate all virtue and happiness in the universe, and shake the throne of the eternal:—thus he makes man and sin almighty, and the almighty God, weak, impotent, and subject to the caprice of his own creatures. Nay, more, he asserts, but does not prove it, that men and sin have changed the unchangeable deity; having “extinguished the paternal goodness of the creator,” and in his opinion converted the God of love into a merciless being like himself. God, he tells us, is the source of all excellence. This we know, and rejoice in the truth; but can fury, anger, indignation, wrath, and vindictive cruelty, such as he represents God manifesting towards his offspring, be reckoned among the moral excellencies of the divine character? Strange if they can! My tutor thinks these perfections belong to his God, the God of Calvinism; and so they may, but not to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. To overthrow what I said, that if sin be infinite in demerit, because committed against an infinite God, obedience must be infinite in merit, as obedience to the same infinite God. My tutor tells me, the case is just the reverse, and that as sin rises in turpitude, merit sinks in the same proportion. He who can reason with the same logical precision, may possibly arrive at the same conclusion, which is this: that the more virtuous a man is, the less is he entitled to the rewards of virtue; and, therefore, the more Paul pressed forward to the prize of his high calling, just in proportion was he further from the object of his pursuit. Well may the man that advocates such sentiments brand the opinions of others with immoral tendency! My tutor asks, page 6, whoever thought of good accruing to the chief magistrate of a country, or to the criminal himself, from the infliction of capital punishment? This is merely evading what I have said on the subject in my lectures; but I ask, what is the chief end aimed at in inflicting any punishments at all? Is it a vindictive disposition in the judge towards some, or is it not with a view to the good of the whole? And why are any capital punishments inflicted? Is it not because the ends of human justice cannot be attained without them? Had men the power to prevent the evil by any other means, would a wise and virtuous government make useless waste of human life, and take it wantonly away when it might be spared? And shall a God of infinite wisdom and almighty power, admit into the moral government of the universe an evil which he can never remedy; but which shall eternally cause his soul to burn with vindictive rage and fury against those puny ants which he called from nothing at first, and which in an instant he could crush to nothing as easily as a moth? Shall finite evil overcome infinite good? My tutor says, for any thing we know, the good of the universe may require the perpetuation of punishment, rather than the termination of sin. He does not know this: Why assert what he does not know? {18} But we know the contrary, and my tutor needs not remain in ignorance on this point if he will read his Bible—that will inform him, that God has exalted that same Jesus, who was crucified, to reign as his anointed king in Zion; and that he must reign till all rule, authority, and power is put down; till the last enemy death is destroyed and swallowed up in victory; till there shall be no more death, nor pain, nor sorrow, nor crying. But if death and sin must reign eternally and be perpetuated to an interminable duration, when will the end come for Christ to deliver up the kingdom to God, even the Father, and God be all in all? My tutor has been in too much haste to answer this, or any one of the many arguments which I have advanced on this head in my 6th lecture. With a view to expose the ignorance of those who, like my tutor, represent God as burning in an unquenchable fire, and roasting on eternal gridirons the bodies and souls of men, I have said in my lectures, the nature of man is incapable of eternal combustion; the body must quickly be consumed by fire; and material fire cannot act on the immaterial spirit, as they suppose the soul of man to be. To this last remark he has said nothing; to the former, he has pretended to reply, by asking me to inform him, how the nature of man can for an instant or for ages of ages endure future punishment? I tell him, that the future punishment of the wicked will be in nature suited to the nature of man; but God will have other means of punishing than roasting men in fire, as Calvin roasted Servetus. He says, Socinianism affords no answer to the question, how they can endure the fire that never shall be quenched for a single instant and not be consumed? It does not belong to Socinians to answer this, but to him who ignorantly thinks God will roast them in eternal fire. To say not only how they can endure it for an instant, but how they can burn eternally without being consumed; and if denying that they can, is denying future punishment, then by _argumentum ad ignorantiam_ {19} my tutor has denied it most positively; and if I am going on to perfection, as he says I am, his stationary creed seems to be following me in that way.

I have stated in my lectures, that eternal misery is irreconcileable with the character and perfections of God. At this my tutor nibbles in his usual way; and although he has denied in the last paragraph that men are capable of burning for ever, yet here he charges me with being mistaken in thinking sin does not call for the vengeance of eternal fire. When will he attain perfection whose faith thus reels to and fro and staggers like a drunken man? Because I cannot receive his vengeance-teeming system, and believe that God who is love will pour tempestuous indignation upon his own offspring, and swallow them up in his wrath, I am charged, page 8, with not knowing how to deal with the fact, that God has admitted both moral and physical evil to have place in the universe. But I tell my tutor, these things are admitted not for their own sakes, but because infinite wisdom, power, and goodness both can and will and always has overruled them for the promotion of the greater sum of good. Will my tutor pretend that the sufferings of those millions of innocent and virtuous people, (whom he has found among a race who he says are totally depraved without a single exception,) or the death of infants, are examples and proofs of God’s vindictive ire and fiery indignation against them; if not, why has he referred to them as such? And why “not wiser he, in his just scale of sense, weigh his opinions against providence,” and compare one part of his system with another, and observe how one part proclaims war against the other?

My tutor has admitted, that “God is love; that his various perfections are only modifications of his love; that he delights in diffusing happiness; that his tender mercies are over all his works; that he does not willingly afflict nor grieve the children of men; nor take pleasure in the death of a sinner.” Yet he has made it out, that the God of love pursues some with eternal hatred; that his love is modified into inexorable justice, his mercy into vindictive cruelty, his compassion into unrelenting severity; that he delights to diffuse happiness and to perpetuate eternal misery; that his tender mercies are over all his works, while he inflicts upon the great majority the unmitigated vengeance of eternal fire; that he does not afflict willingly, but takes pleasure in punishing eternally; that he does not take pleasure in the death of a sinner, yet makes the eternal ruin and interminable misery of such the ultimate end of his moral government—all this my tutor has proved in his pages. He asks, is God required to seek the good of his creatures irrespective of their characters and deserts? No: the Bible teaches, “he will render unto every man according to his deeds;” but my tutor teaches, that God might have made all men to be damned, and he might or might not have saved any; and, that those few who will be saved, will be saved irrespective of their own deserts, by the merits and sufferings of another. Yet such men who speak of God as neither wise nor good, except he be and act as they dictate, are not, he says, to be reasoned with, but reproved; and who is less capable of being reasoned with, and who more deserving of reproof than my tutor? For his God must be a cruel, vindictive, wrathful being, and with unrelenting fury pursue his creatures with devouring flames and eternal indignation, or my tutor cannot avouch him for his God.

I have now attended my theological instructor so far as his lucubrations are connected with my lectures. He has not dispatched business indeed so quickly as he by whom he has been appointed to act as _locum tenens_, {21a} but he has managed in 12 pages, to answer all I have said in 228 pages—at least he has offered this scrap for an answer, and I have no doubt but it will be received by many as full to the purpose. But before any one comes to such a conclusion, he ought to read what I have written in my lectures, and then he will perhaps have reason to conclude, that all that my tutor has said is merely _gratis dictum_; {21b} for having left nearly every argument of mine untouched, and those which he has touched still unanswered, and having in profound silence passed over the whole task I have set him in the close of my sixth lecture; not daring to offer a single word in reply to any one of the twenty-two points that he and every advocate of eternal torments ought to disprove if they would establish their system; he takes his leave of me and my lectures, and finishes his performance by bringing forward a few stale arguments which were reiterated over and over again by Andrew Fuller, until he was ashamed to push them upon the public any longer.