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

268 INFLUENCE OF SCRIPTURES.happy, notwithstanding their admitted sinfulness, by virtue of a bigotedconfidence in the pre-eminent ability of their parents, their priests, orof themselves to learn tenets ofwhich the great majority of mankind areignorant? Humility in profession is associated with a towering and overbearingpresumption in practice toward all who differ with them in creed:hence an effort to instruct others at the expense of millions spent in missions,while they have no better evidence of the accuracy of their ownknowledge than a fallible human conviction.1372. If two persons, A. and ]5., were organized exactly alike, educatedprecisely in the same w^ay, and subjected to the same temptations or incentives,would they not act alike ? Would not their acting differently provethat they were not alike in all respects ?1373. It may bo said that they are free agents, being endowed with freewill;but if they be perfectly alike and similarly situated, (agreeably to thepremises,) their free-will must be perfectly similar ; and if not, let it beallowed to be, through God's will, perfectly similar. Is it in their powerto alter the nature of their will,any more than ^' the colour of their hair."1374. If any other being act differently from these, does it not followthat he is differently organized, educated, or situated from them ; and thatthe diversity in one or all of these respects must be proportionable todegree in which his actions and morals differ from those of A. and B.1375. But it may be inquired, where is the merit of virtue, or the demeritof vice, if they be the consequences of causes over which we haveno control ? The reply is, that virtue is an endowment due to the will ofDeity, just as the difference between the different races of mankind andthe various genera of animals, or between individuals of the same species,must be due to that volition. An analogous idea of the necessity of God'shelp to virtue istheinsisted upon by some of our most respectable and numerousChristian sects. It places virtue in man, so far as it may exist, uponthe same basis as in God. It has always been held by all Christians thatGod can do no wrong; that vice is inconsistent with his nature. Themore, then, a man isby nature and education incapable of being vicious,the greater his natural aptitude for virtue, the more he approaches its mostperfect exemplification.137G. But how can the punishment of the wicked be justified underthis view of their case? I answer, that it can only be justified in selfdefence,for the reformation of the offender, or to prevent the repetitionof injury where no other means can be employed, just as killing wildbeasts, noxious insects, or our enemies in warfare is justified.1377. Punishment, unless with a view to prevention or reformation,seems to me diabolic.It seems irreconcilable with the injunction to returngood for evil, that the Deity from whom it proceeds should return evil forevil, in excess; that he should, for finite and transient sins, award eternalpunishment.