CHAPTER XXXVIII.—REPENTANCE,—THE DOCTRINE ERRONEOUS.
Having treated this subject somewhat lengthily and critically in "The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors," we shall devote but a brief space to its elucidation here. Nearly all religious nations have attached great importance to the act of repentance; but such an act does not repair the injury or wrong repented of.
The repentance of a murderer does not restore his murdered victim to life; nor does the repentance and tears of the incendiary rebuild the dwelling he has destroyed by fire. What, then, is its practical value?
We would ask, also, what moral value or merit can attach to an act of repentance when it is not claimed to be an act of the sinner, but "the power of God upon the soul"? (Luther.) It appears then, according to orthodox logic,—1. That God won't save the sinner unless he repents. 2. That he can't repent only as God moves him to do so. This places him in a bad predicament. Hence, when he does repent, it is an act of God. 3. And then God saves him because he makes him repent. Here is a jumble of logical incongruities and moral contradictions that can find no lodgment in a scientific mind. A few brief questions will set the doctrine of repentance in its true light.
4. Repentance consists in merely a revival of early impressions, that may be either right or wrong, true or false, and almost as likely to be one as the other.
5. Who ever knew a person to embrace more rational doctrines, or become more intelligent, or have a stronger taste for scientific pursuits, by repentance?
6. Is it not a fact that repentance usually causes a person to cling more tenaciously to the errors and superstitions in which he was educated?
7. Who ever knew a person by repenting, either in health or sickness, to condemn one wrong act which he had erroneously been taught to believe was right? If not, does it not prove that repentance always conforms to education, whether that education is right or wrong, and hence does nothing toward enlightening the convert or anybody else?
8. On the contrary, when a man repents with his mind full of religious errors, is it not evident that the act of repentance will have the effect to rivet these errors more strongly upon his mind, and thus effect a moral injury instead of a moral benefit?
9. If a man may abandon some of his immoral habits, which he has been taught to believe are wrong, by an act of repentance, are not the good effects to some extent counterbalanced by his clinging more strongly to his religious errors?
10. Who ever knew a person to abandon a false religion by repentance? Does a Hindoo or Mahomedan ever embrace Christianity by repenting?
11. Who ever knew a Roman Catholic to become a Protestant, or a Protestant a Catholic, by repentance? And yet orthodox Christians will cite the belief and testimony of a dying man as an evidence of the truth of their doctrines.
12. How can an act of repentance do any thing toward proving what is right and what is wrong in any case, when one person repents for doing what another repents for not doing? We have such cases recorded in history.
We have known a Campbellite to leave his dying testimony in favor of water baptism, and a Quaker to leave his dying testimony against it. Does one case prove it to be wrong, and the other right? If not, why do Christians cite such cases? What do they prove?
For a further illustration of this subject, see "The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors."