The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume I, No. 7, July, 1880Various
Religion
The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume I, No. 7, July, 1880
Various
Religion and science -- Periodicals
What must we think of the man who says, "I believe in God," and then
explains himself to mean, by the name God, heat, steam, electricity,
force, animal life, the soul of man, magnetism, mesmeric force, and, in
one word, the sum of all the intelligences and forces in the universe,
at the same time denying the proper currency of the term God by denying
the existence of a personal God. All Christians should demand that
Christian terms be used in their own proper currency. But infidels will
always do as they have hitherto, will often get out of their own "ruts,"
by the most perfect abuse of language. They can not, it seems, leave off
the use of language which is only appropriate to the Christian idea.
Their divinity, by their own confession, differs essentially from God,
and let them use a different word to describe it. Let them do like their
heathen brethren in India, call it Brahma, or whatever else they please,
and cease "stealing Heaven's livery to serve the devil." Let them cease
to profane religion and offend common sense by giving the name of the
glorious Father of Spirits to their million-headed nondescript.
Pantheism dethrones Jehovah and places no other intelligence in his
place as Creator and Ruler of the universe; and, being conscious of the
odium that necessarily attaches itself to Atheism, on account of its
everlasting foolishness, they steal the name of God to cloak their
Atheism.
_Pantheism is demoralizing._ It cuts a man loose from all the sanctions
of moral law, by denying the resurrection, the judgment and the future
retribution. It annihilates from the mind of its votary the idea of
God's moral government. If man, as it avows, be the highest intelligence
in the universe of worlds, to whom will he render an account? Who will
call upon him to answer? If men and women are simply developments of
God, will God be offended with himself? "Evil is good," we are told, "in
another way, we are not skilled in." See the author of "Representative
Men," Festus, page 48. "Evil" was held by some of the old heathen
philosophers to be "good in the making." They argued that it was the
carrion in the sunshine, converting into grass and flower. And then, to
apply their figure, man in the brothel, jail, or on gibbets, is in the
way to all that is lovely and true. Such reminds us of the ravings of
lunatics. It is the climax of profanation of the moral government of
God. Let those who fear no God, but have wives and children and property
to lose, reflect upon the propriety of lending their influence to a
system fraught with such consequences. The system positively denies the
distinction between good and evil. It declares that we can not sin;
that we are God, and God can not offend against himself; that sin is all
simply an old lie; that impiety, immorality and vice of frightful mien
are wedded in eternal decrees, and that man can not sever them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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