Part 22 (1/2)

”Let his days be few; and let another take his office.

”Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.

”Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg; let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places.

”Let the extortioner catch all that he hated; and let the strangers spoil his labor.

”Let there be none to extend mercy unto him; neither let there be none to favor his fatherless children.

”Let his posterity be cut off; and in the generation following let their name be blotted out.

”But do thou for me, O G.o.d the Lord, for Thy name's sake; because Thy mercy is good, deliver thou me.... I will greatly praise the Lord with my mouth.”

Think of a G.o.d wicked and malicious enough to inspire this prayer.

Think of one infamous enough to answer it. Had this inspired Psalm been found in some temple erected for the wors.h.i.+p of snakes, or in the possession of some cannibal king, written with blood upon the dried skins of babes, there would have been a perfect harmony between its surroundings and its sentiments.

No wonder that the author of this inspired Psalm coldly received Socrates and Penelope, and reserved his sweetest smiles for Catharine the Second!

Ninth. With having said that the battles in which the Israelites engaged with the approval and command of Jehovah surpa.s.sed in cruelty those of Julius Caesar.

Was it Julius Caesar who said, ”And the Lord our G.o.d delivered him before us; and we smote him, and his sons, and all his people. And we took all his cities, and utterly destroyed the men, and the women and the little ones, of every city, we left none to remain?”

Did Julius Caesar send the following report to the Roman Senate? ”And we took all his cities at that time, there was not a city which we took not from them, three-score city, all the region of Argob, the kingdom of Og, in Bashan. All these cities were fenced with high walls, gates and bars; besides unwalled towns a great many. And we utterly destroyed them, as we did unto Sihon, king of Heshbon, utterly destroying the men, women, and children of every city.”

Did Caesar take the city of Jericho ”and utterly destroy all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old?” Did he smite ”all the country of the hills, and of the south, and of the vale, and of the springs, and all their kings, and leave none remaining that breathed, as the Lord G.o.d had commanded?”

Search the records of the whole world, find out the history of every barbarous tribe, and you can find no crime that touched a lower depth of infamy than those the bible's G.o.d commanded and approved. For such a G.o.d I have no words to express my loathing and contempt, and all the words in all the languages of man would scarcely be sufficient. Away with such a G.o.d! Give me Jupiter rather, with Io and Europa, or even Siva with his skulls and snakes, or give me none.

Tenth. With having repudiated the doctrines of total depravity.

What a precious doctrine is that of the total depravity of the human heart! How sweet it is to believe that the lives of all the good and great were continual sins and perpetual crimes; that the love a mother bears her child is, in the sight of G.o.d, a sin; that the grat.i.tude of the natural heart is simple meanness; that the tears of pity are impure; that for the unconverted to live and labor for others is an offense to heaven; that the n.o.blest aspirations of the soul are low and groveling in the sight of G.o.d; that man should fall upon his knees and ask forgiveness, simply for loving his wife and child, and that even the act of asking forgiveness is in fact a crime.

Surely it is a kind of bliss to feel that every woman and child in the wide world, with the exception of those who believe the five points, or some other equally cruel creed, and such children as have been baptized, ought at this very moment to be dashed down to the lowest glowing gulf of the h.e.l.l!

Take from the Christian the history of his own church; leave that entirely out of the question, and he has no argument left with which to substantiate the total depravity of man.

A minister once asked an old lady, a member of his church, what she thought of the doctrine of total depravity, and the dear old soul replied that she thought it a mighty good doctrine if the Lord would only give the people grace enough to live up to it?

Eleventh. With having doubted the ”perseverance of the saints.”

I suppose the real meaning of this doctrine is that Presbyterians are just as sure of going to heaven as all other folks are of going to h.e.l.l. The real idea being, that it all depends upon the will of G.o.d, and not upon the character of the person to be d.a.m.ned or saved; that G.o.d has the weakness to send Presbyterians to Paradise, and the justice to doom the rest of mankind to eternal fire.

It is admitted that no unconverted brain can see the least of sense in this doctrine; that it is abhorrent to all who have not been the recipients of a ”new heart;” that only the perfectly good can justify the perfectly infamous.

It is contended that the saints do not persevere of their own free will--that they are ent.i.tled to no credit for persevering; but that G.o.d forces them to persevere; while on the other hand, every crime is committed in accordance with the secret will of G.o.d, who does all things for His own glory. Compared with this doctrine, there is no other idea, that has ever been believed by man, that can properly be called absurd.

As to the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints, I wish with all my heart that it may prove to be a fact, I really hope that every saint, no matter how badly he may break on the first quarter, nor how many shoes he may cast at the half-mile pole, will foot it bravely down the long home-stretch, and win eternal heaven by at least a neck.

Twelfth. With having spoken and written somewhat lightly of the idea of converting the heathen with doctrinal sermons.

Of all the failures of which we have any history or knowledge the missionary effort is the most conspicuous. The whole question has been decided here, in our own country, and conclusively settled. We have nearly exterminated the Indians; but we have converted none. From the days of John Eliot to the execution of the last Modoc, not one Indian has been the subject of irresistible grace or particular redemption.

The few red men who roam the Western wilderness have no thought or care concerning the five points of Calvin. They are utterly oblivious to the great and vital truths contained in the Thirty-nine articles, the Saybrook platform, and the resolutions of the Evangelical Alliance. No Indian has ever scalped another on account of his religious belief.

This of itself shows conclusively that the missionaries have had no effect.