第27章

"2. And God said, Let good be manifest! and good unfolded and moral-mental germs, ovariums of heavens, descended from the Procedure. And the dome of disclosive magnificence was heaven, and the expanded glory beneath was the germ of creation. And the divine Procedure inbreathed upon the disclosure, and the disclosure became the universe." We will inflict no more of this "undulatory spiral" nonsense on the reader.

He now has both records before him, and can judge for himself which is the more worthy of his regard. There have been Spiritualists who, writing in their normal state, and not yet fully divorced from the influence of their Page 95 former education, have acknowledged the authenticity of the Bible, and the doctrines of Jesus as recorded in the gospels. But these, it is claimed, are to be understood according to a spiritual meaning which underlies the letter; and this spiritual meaning generally turns out to be contrary to the letter, which is a virtual denial of the record itself. But the quotations here given (only a specimen of the multitudes that might be presented)are given on the authority of the "spirits," whose teachings are what we wish to ascertain.

THEY DENY ALL DISTINCTION BETWEEN RIGHT AND WRONG There is implanted in the hearts of men by nature, a sense of right and a sense of wrong. Even those who know not God, nor Christ, nor the gospel, possess this power of discrimination. This is what Paul, in Rom. 2: 15calls "the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else excusing one another." That this distinction should now be denied by a class in a civilized community, professing to be advanced thinkers and teachers, among whom are found the learned, the refined, and the professedly pious, shows that we have fallen upon strange times. To be sure, many of them talk fluently of the beauty and perfection of divine laws; but in the sense in which they would have them understood, they rob them of all characteristics of law. The first great essential of law is Page 96 authority; but this they take away from it; the next is penalty for its violation; but this they deny, and thus degrade the law to a mere piece of advice. The "Healing of the Nations," an authoritative work among Spiritualists, pp. 163, 164, says: -- "Thus thy body needs no laws, having been in its creation supplied with all that could be necessary for its government. Thy spirit is above all laws, and above all essences which flow therein. God created thy spirit from within his own, and surely the Creator of law is above it; the Creator of essences must be above all essence created. Amid if thou hast what may be or might be termed laws, they are always subservient to thy spirit.

Good men need no laws, and laws will do bad or ignorant men no good. If a man be above law, he should never be governed by it. If he be below, what good can dead, dry words do him?

"True knowledge removeth all laws from power by placing the spirit of man above it." A correspondent of the Telegraph said of this work, "The Healing of the Nations: "According to its teaching, no place is found in the universe for divine wrath and vengeance. All are alike and forever the object of God's love, pity, and tender care -- the difference between the two extremes of human character on earth, being as a mere atom when compared with perfect wisdom." This is a favorite comparison with them,-- that the difference between God and the best of men is so much greater than the extremes of character among men,-- the most upright and the most wicked, -- that the latter is a mere atom, and not accounted of in God's sight. That there is an infinite difference between God and the best of men, is all true; for God is infinite in all his attributes, and man is very imperfect at the best. But to argue from this that Page 97 God is inferior to man, so that he cannot discern difference in character here, even as man can plainly discern it, seems but mad-house reasoning.

What would we think of the man who had the same regard for the thief as for the honest man, for the murderer as for the philanthropist? To ignore such distinctions as even men are able to discern would destroy the stability of all human governments; what then would be the effect on the divine government?

God has given his law -- holy, just, and good -- to men, and commanded obedience. He has attached the penalty to disobedience: "The soul that sinneth, it shall die," "The wages of sin is death." Eze. 18: 20; Rom.

6: 23. And in the judgment, the distinction God makes in character will be plainly declared; for he will set the righteous on his right hand, but the wicked on the left. Matt. 25: 32, 33.

This view of the failure of law, and the absence of all human accountability, naturally leads to a bold denial of sin and the existence of crime. The "Healing of the Nations," p. 169, says: "Unto God there is no error; all is comparatively good." The same work says that God views error as "undeveloped good." A. J. Davis ("Nature of Divine Revelation," p. 521) says: "Sin, indeed, in the common acceptation of that term, does not really exist."A discourse from J. S. Loveland, once a minister, reported in the Banner of Light, contained this paragraph: -- Page 98 "With God there is no crime; with man there is. Crime does not displease God, but it does man. God is in the darkest crime, as in the highest possible holiness. He is equally pleased in either case. Both harmonize equally with his attributes--they are only different sides of the same Deity." In "Automatic Writing" (1896), p. 139, a question was asked concerning evil, meaning sin and crimes among men. The spirit answered that these were conditions of progress, and were so necessary to elevation that they were to be welcomed, not hated. The questions and answers are as follows:

-- " Ques. -- Can you give us any information in regard to the so-called Devil--once so firmly believed in?

" Ans. -- Devil is a word used to conjure with.