learning and eloquence, have tended so to harden the hearts of the professors of this religion, that they have exercised, towards their fellow-creatures, a spirit of enmity, which but too well corresponds with the relentless cruelty of their doctrine, and the wrath which they have imagined to exist in our heavenly Father. By having such an example constantly before their eyes, they have become so transformed into its image, that whenever they have had the power, they have actually executed a vengeance on men and women, which evinced that the cruelty of their doctrine had overcome the native kindness and compassion of the human heart. CHAPTER II. RETRIBUTION CONSIDERED IN CONNEXION WITH ANALOGY. PROPOSITION. That the application of analogy to this subject has never been made plain; that much which has been said in regard to it is merely chimerical; and that the common argument, if carried out, involves the subject in inextricable confusion. The argument as drawn from analogy. ANOTHER ground on which the advocates of a future state of rewards and punishments place much dependence for the support of that doctrine, they denominate analogy. We think it too hazardous to attempt anything like an accurate statement of the particular arguments, which are made to depend on this principle, in favor of this doctrine; for we might be liable to some mistakes, which would represent the views of its advocates differently from their mode of representing them. Our liability to misrepresent in such an attempt, seems unavoidable, on account of the fact that there has been nothing like a system of reasoning yet exhibited on the general subject. We feel safe, however, in saying, that, as far as we have been informed, those who rely on what they call analogy to support the doctrine of future retribution, hold that in all respects, which are necessary to carry sin and its miseries into the future state, that state will be analogous to this mode of being. So that, reasoning from analogy, as moral agents sin, and thereby render themselves miserable in this world, the same moral agents may continue to do the same in the world to come. In connexion with this argument, it is urged, that as it is evident to our senses that sin often escapes a just retribution in this world, it must be recompensed in another state, or Divine Justice must forever be deprived of its claims. Such reasoning On reasonings of such a character we shall use the freedom to say, that mere speculation. they appear to have no higher authority than mere human speculations injudiciously managed. That they are nothing more than simple speculations, is evident from the fact that they are not founded on Divine authority. We presume that their own advocates never ventured to support them by Scripture authority. And that they are managed injudiciously is very apparent from the circumstance, that while they profess to be justified by the principle of analogy, they are a direct denial of the very analogy on which they depend. Theologians who endeavor to exert an influence over the minds of people, by means of these spec ulations are constantly urging that in this world we see sin procuring for its agents the riches and honors of the world, while it escapes judicial detection and goes unpunished. Now if they were consistent with their analogy and with themselves, they would see at once, that in the next state of existence sin will procure for its agents the riches and honors of that world, and there as well as here, escape judicial detection, and go unpunished. They would likewise see that as divine justice can quiet its own claims in this world without administering a full and adequate retribution of human conduct, it may do the same in the future state. In this way we might proceed and make the future state precisely like the present; for we have no more authority for carrying sin and its miseries into a future world, than we have for carrying all other things into that state which we find in this. Reasoning from all that we know, we must believe that so long as men sin they will do so from the beguiling power of temptation. If then we believe that sin will exist in the future state, we must suppose that temptations will there act on the mind with a deceiving influence. In this world the wicked are allured with the hopes of temporal gain, and these attractions are strengthened by the belief that crime will not be detected, and that punishment will be avoided. Were it not for these hopes and allurements no wrong doing would be practised in this world; and to suppose that we shall transgress the law of God in the future world, without any temptation, is a speculation altogether arbitrary and capricious, as well as contrary to analogy. If we allow the doctrine of future The argument from retribution to stand on the principle analogy carried out. of analogy we must also conclude, that as those who are called good men, and pious saints in this world, often forsake the right way, turn from the holy commandments, and fall into divers sins and temptations, and become wretched in wickedness, so, in the future world, the saints may depart from the truth of divine rectitude, and debase themselves in the moral defilement of all manner of iniquity. It is only necessary to allow that the temptations which allure men in this world, will exist hereafter, and exert their influence there as they do here, in order to establish the opinion that saints will fall into sin in the future world, on as good authority as stands the opinion that sin will in any case be found in that state. Moreover, as it is true that in this world, many are every day becoming more reformed, and are engaging in the good work of emendation of life; and others are seduced from virtuous sentiments and moral habits into the paths of sin and vice, so we may expect to find the same versa |