1380. I have already made objections to the idea that we can be placed in this world for the purpose of probation. I will here make use of additional arguments in support of those objections. Spiritualism assumes that we are placed here for progression. It has, in this aspect, a self-evident ascendency over the scriptural doctrine.
1381. A finite being has need to subject his works to trial, in order to learn whether they have the requisite perfection; but how can an omnipotent and omniscient Deity be under any necessity of trying his works? In the first place, they must be precisely what he has designed; in the next place, foreseeing the result of any experiment he may make, he has no motive for the trial. Thus, before placing Adam and Eve in Paradise, God must have known that Adam would be incompetent to resist his wife, his wife the serpent, and that the apple would be eaten. How useless then was the experiment! How can it be reconciled with omniscience and omnipotence? The crime would not have taken place had God made woman less inquisitive; her husband strong enough morally to resist temptation and his wife’s seductive influence; or had not the serpent or Satan, under the form of this reptile, been allowed to tempt Eve. And yet in consequence of that act, not only the soul of the first man, but that of all his posterity, are considered by orthodoxy as having fallen, as being doomed to eternal punishment, unless by being morally regenerated, principally by a blind belief in the allegation of certain priests, who do not agree among themselves as to what we are to believe.
1382. But what had souls unborn to do with the acts of Adam and Eve? Is it conceivable that the soul of the child is begotten by the souls of its parents, or to be inferred that it is a spiritual being, created by God for the body, which the progenitors beget in their corporeal capacity? (See Seneca’s opinion, 1230.) How could a dumb snake, belonging to the class of reptiles, very low comparatively in intellectual capacity, acquire power of speech and reason without a special miracle on the part of God, either directly or indirectly through Satan, acting with the cognizance of his divine master. This reptile, previously created without feet, because the devil merely assumed his form, is doomed as a punishment to crawl on his belly, in the only way in which he could move consistently with his organization, independently of the sentence!!! Would it be any greater punishment to cause snakes to creep on their bellies than quadrupeds to go on their feet? Since none of the genera of serpents are endowed with reason or speech, how could they be responsible for the acts of an animal which, being endowed with those attributes, would not belong to their order? It must have been a peculiar reptile, in the form of a snake, created for the special purpose of tempting Eve. If, with Milton, it be assumed that it was Satan, in the form of a serpent, who tempted her? how could serpents be responsible for the crime?
World least moral when the Christian church had most sway.—Honour and mercantile credit more trusted than religion.—Virtue due more to the heart than to sectarianism.—Bigotry acts like an evil spirit.
1383. It will be perceived, that when the church had the world most completely under its sway, there was the least morality; but as the arts and sciences grew up, in despite of religious intolerance, morality improved. Thus a system has been established, which while violating, more especially the most emphatic monitions of Christ, tends to enforce those rules of conduct which are necessary to the welfare of society. But an auxiliary principle—honour—has come into operation, which often restrains those who are not influenced by religion, nor by pure morality. Honour, like the fear of hell, may make a man act more nobly, or more honestly, without improving his religious principles or his heart. Hence the saying, “Honour among thieves,” and likewise among unprincipled gamblers.
1384. Mercantile honour, under the name of mercantile credit, is another important substitute for real heartfelt integrity. The ill consequences of a loss of worldly consideration, or of those advantages which result from the ability to borrow, or to postpone payment with consent of the creditor, is a motive for punctual payment, when a debt equally due, in honesty, would be neglected. This goes much farther as an element of the prevailing morality in securing punctual payment, than religion.
1385. That religion has actually very little to do with mercantile morals, must be evident, since it is never, on change, an object of inquiry. When men are about to trust large sums, they do not inquire how often the other party goes to church, nor to what church he goes. It has never been my lot to know any one whom I thought better for his religion. I have known many whom I thought better through native goodness of heart than they would have been if left to the influence of their bigoted opinions alone. I heard a clergyman, distinguished for his amiability and liberality in social intercourse, speak from the pulpit of infidelity as “the work of the devil.”
1386. There are allegations of this kind made from the pulpit which to me appear to be absolutely calumnious, though those who make them do not conceive themselves to be calumniators. It is, in truth, their false religion which speaks; they are possessed as if by an evil spirit, yet the goodness of their hearts prevents them from realizing any such calumnies in their personal intercourse with society. Dr. Berg said it was not he (Dr. Berg) that spoke when he used ill language to Barker, but the Bible. There is a want of Christian moderation in the language of Christ, and John the Baptist, and in some of the Psalms, which seems inconsistent with Christ’s precepts. John, addressing the Pharisees as “vipers fleeing from the wrath to come,” representing them as poisonous reptiles, and God as enraged against them. The language of Christ respecting some of the same sect, to which allusion has been made, is even more abusive.
1387. But among the calumnies to which I have alluded, are those which represent the human heart as innately wicked, and only to be corrected by religious regeneration. All the souls created since Adam ate the apple, must be born anew, thus drawing a marked distinction between those who have gone through this second birth, and such as myself, who have not undergone this recuperative process. But what man of common sense draws a line between those who are thought to have been born over again, and those who have not? The great majority of those who call themselves Christians, do not put any more trust in one who has gone through this second birth, than in one who is not deemed to have been thus regenerated.