Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

contains the doctrine of eternal punishments, they would not rack their invention to find arguments to persuade themselves and others, that the Scriptures are a cunningly devised fable. Let this doctrine be erased from the Bible, and every Deist would become its votary, and exchange his Bolingbroke, Voltaire, or Chesterfield, for that sacred. volume. It is this doctrine alone that compels them to renounce a book, which bears so many signatures of divinity, and which they are constrained to acknowledge contains the most excellent institutions, instructions, and commands. But so weak is their infidelity, we presume they would rejoice to find the Bible on their side, to confirm their wavering hopes and feeble prospects of future happiness. And this is what the scheme of universal salvation promises. It flatters them that the Bible is their friend, and announces eternal felicity to them and to all mankind. Accordingly, it is well known, that numbers of a deistical turn have become converts to this agreeable doctrine, and many others are imminently exposed to fall into the fatal snare. But this is flying from the iron weapon, and rushing on the bow of steel. For if any discard the Bible because they know that it does contain the doctrine of future and eternal punishments, or embrace it because they imagine it does not contain that doctrine, they will infallibly meet with disappointment and ruin in the end.

The sons of pleasure, who indulge in every sinful gratification, find it extremely difficult, in their serious moments, to stifle their natural apprehensions of guilt and punishment; and therefore readily

catch hold of any thing, which promises them impunity in the paths of vice. The doctrine of salvation. for all men, without exception or distinction of characters, perfectly gratifies their hearts, and coincides with their reigning views and pursuits. Accordingly, when this doctrine is proposed to their belief, they will, if possible, yield their assent, and shake off their painful fears of wrath to come, through which, they have all their life time been subject to bondage. But let them beware of this slender shelter. It will infallibly deceive and disappoint them. The agreeableness of the doctrine is a strong indication of its repugnancy to the gospel of Christ, which was never relished by persons of an immoral, profligate character. When John preached, Herod was offended. When Christ preached, a whole congregation was filled with wrath. And when Paul preached upon righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, the loose and abandoned Felix trembled. And it is the genuine tendency of the pure doctrines of the gospel to convince profligate sinners that they are in the gall of bitterness and bonds of iniquity. They may therefore be assured, that the soothing doctrine of universal salvation is diametrically opposite to the truth as it is in Jesus. Let none, then listen to the pleasing delusion, and bless themselves, saying, we shall have peace, though we walk in the imagination of our hearts, to add drunkenness to thirst. For the Lord will not spare them, but his anger, and his jealousy shall smoke against them, and all the curses that are written in the book of God shall fall and lie upon them forever. joice, O young man, in thy youth, and let thy heart

[ocr errors]

Re

cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes : but know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment.”

Here it seems proper to subjoin several directions how to shun the baneful influence of such dangerous opinions as some are propagating with great apparent zeal, at the present day.

In the first place, let none be deceived by their pretensions to superior penetration and knowledge. Men of the strongest minds and most extensive literature have often committed the grossest blunders in their religious speculations, and then employed all their learning and ingenuity to maintain and propagate them. Some of their admirers seem to have been allured into their errors by an implicit faith in their great abilities. But this betrays weakness. Great men are not always wise. They are liable to err, and consequently their opinions are to be strictly examined, and admitted only upon the ground of real evidence.

Nor, in the second place, are we to be biassed in favour of the licentious principles of Errorists, on account of their amiable moral characters. Doctor Brown justly observes, that men of strict morality have disseminated very false and pernicious doctrines. It is well known, that Epicurus, the father of theoretical licentiousness, never lived up to his principles, but maintained a regular and exemplary life. Spinoza the Atheist was a man of sobriety and apparent devotion. And the Lord Herbert, who, if not the father, yet the principal advocate of Deism in England, appears to have had a serious mind, and

a conscientious regard to duty. It is readily conceded, that some of the advocates of universal salvation are men of amiable dispositions and fair moral characters. But none ought to entertain a more favorable regard for atheism, deism, or any other licentious doctrines, on that account. Those who teach and disseminate them are to be shunned as dangerous corrupters.

*

Nor, in the last place, are any to believe the propagators of error, though they make the most solemn asseverations of their sincerity, impartiality, and uncommon intercourse with the Deity. Though we scruple not their sincerity, yet we scruple the propriety of their throwing out the profession of it, which can have no tendency to enlighten, but only to prejudice the minds of the credulous. This, which may properly be called an artifice, is often employed by the advocates of universal salvation. Mr. White, in his Treatise on the universal restoration of all sinful creatures to the divine favour, makes the most solemn asseverations of his sincerity and sacred regard for the divine glory. His expressions are these: "And here I do in the fear of God most humbly prostrate myself before his divine majesty, and in the deepest sense of my own darkness and distance from him, do with all my might beg of that infinite goodness I am endeavouring to represent to others, that if something like this platform and prospect of things be not agreeable to that revealed and natural light he hath given to us, that my understanding may be interrupted and my design

* Page 6, 7.

[ocr errors]

fall, and that the Lord would pardon my attempt: and I know he will do so, for he hath given me to have no further concern for this matter, than as I apprehend it to be a most glorious truth, witnessed to, both by the scriptures of truth, and by the most essential principles of our own reason, and which will be found at the last opening of the everlasting gospel, to recover in that opening a degenerate world."

Mr. Relly holds out the same lure to his readers, to place an implicit confidence in the rectitude of his views and the divinity of his doctrines. In a Preface to one volume of his writings, he assures his readers, that his discourses were delivered extempore, without any previous study or forethought, and flowed from his lips as they were dictated by the divine Spirit. For, says he, I followed that divine direction given to the apostles, "Take no thought beforehand what ye shall speak, neither do ye premeditate for it is not ye that speak, but the Holy Ghost." How presumptuous is it for any man, at this day, to pretend to imitate the apostles in this respect! and especially for Mr. Relly, who in his writings every where ridicules all experimental religion, inward piety, holy affections, and Christian graces!

Errorists often employ such artifices as divine truth neither requires nor approves. They sometimes, however, succeed, and deceive the inattentive and unguarded. Those who use such artifices, therefore, are dangerous persons, and their seducing influnce is studiously to be avoided. Their doctrines fatal if imbibed; and even when they are not

are

« AnteriorContinuar »