On one point we fully concur with Mr. Foster, (see Letter, p. 27:) “As to religious teachers, if this tremendous doctrine be true, surely it ought to be almost continually proclaimed as with the blast of a trumpet, inculcated and reiterated, with ardent passion, in every possible form of terrible illustration; no remission of the alarm to thoughtless spirits.”
But if it be so incumbent on religious teachers, who believe this awful tenet, thus to proclaim it to a perishing world, is it not equally incumbent on them not to speak on such a subject at all until they have taken the utmost pains to form a correct opinion concerning it? If the man who merely proclaims this doctrine in the usual quiet way of preachers, while he sees his fellow-men perishing around, is guilty of criminal neglect, what shall we say of the religious teacher who, without having devoted much time to the investigation of the subject, exerts his powers and his influence to persuade his fellow-men that it is all a delusion, and that the idea of endless misery is utterly inconsistent with the goodness of God? How many feeble outcries and warnings of those who are so terribly rebuked by Mr. Foster, may be silenced and forever laid to rest by his eloquent declamation against the doctrine in question, and how many souls may be thereby betrayed and led on to their own eternal ruin! Yet, wonderful as it may seem, Mr. Foster tells us that his opinion on this awful subject has not been the result of “a protracted inquiry.” In the very letter from which we have so frequently quoted, he says: “I have perhaps been too content to let an opinion (or impression) admitted in early life dispense with protracted inquiry and various reading.” Now, is this the way in which a question of this kind should be decided,—a question which involves the eternal destiny of millions of human beings? Is it to be decided, not by protracted inquiry, but under the influence of an “impression admitted in early life?”