Experimental investigation of the spirit manifestations, [electronic ...

ON THE MORALS OF CHRISTIANS. 257mulgation of Christianity, people of various religious sects were willing; tolive in harmony ; but that after its proraulgation there was much discord,and that those who should have been especially influenced by Christianity(the priesthood) were the foremost in vicelo'24. It is conceived that cither on the one side the evidence of Christianitycould not have gone home tothe soul of those who so grossly violatedits monitions, or that the rewards held out by it had not been presentedunder an aspect sufficiently inviting to counteract the fleeting allurementsof this temporal world. It is conceived that Scripture is frombeginning to end, from the Pentateuch to the Gospel of John, too worldly,as first exhibited in the promise of lands to the Jews, and lastly oijudgeshipsto the apostles.The Old Testament, of necessity, can treat of nothingbut worldliness, since there is throughout scarcely any reference to heaven ;and some of the Psalms would accord better with the curses of a devil,than with the prayers of a sincere Christian. The cix. Psalm containsthis lan";uao;e132.5. '*"\Vhcn lie shall be judged, let him be condemned; and let his prayer become sin.Let his days bo few ; and let another take his office. Let his children be fatherless, and hiswife a -widow. Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg: let them seek theirbread also out of their desolate places. Let the extortioner catch all that he hath, andlet the strangers spoil bis labour. Let there be none to extend mercy unto him : neitherlet there be any to favour his fatherless children. Let his posterity be cut off; and in thegeneration following let their name be blotted out. Let the iniquity of his fathers beremembered with the Lord; and let not the sin of his mother be blotted out. Let thembe before the Lord continualh^, that he may cut off the memory of them from the earth.Because that he remembered not to show mercy, but persecuted the poor and needy man,that he might even slay the broken in heart. As he loved cursing, so let it come untohim : as ho delighted not in blessing, so let it be far from him. As he clothed himselfwith cursing like as with his garment, so let it come into his bowels like water, and likeoil unto his bones. Let it be unto him as the garment which covereth him, and for a girdlewherewith he is girded continually. Let this be the reward of mine adversaries fromthe Lord, and of them that speak evil against my soul."1326. Under these circumstances, wherefore should there be any alarmfor the consequences of replacing belief in Scripture by belief in Spiritualism,if the evidence of this be, as we think, vastly more reliable, and themorality far more consistent with that followed in practice by great andgood men of ancient and modern times.1327. Moreover, the basis of probation, upon which the morality ofScripture is built, is manifestly a castle in the aivj since it involves thiscontradiction, that an omnipotent, omniscient, and prescient Deity, whocan make his creatures what he wishes them to be, and must know whatthey are, has to resort to trial to learn that which he knows before theprocess is undertaken, as well as he can possibly after itsaccomplishment.This demonstration alone overturns the whole probationary superstructureexisting in the minds of sectarians.1328. Meanwhile, the communications which I have submitted involvethe idea of progression, and convey infinitely more knowledge of futuritythan the Old and New Testaments taken tosrether.17