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alike benevolently intended; that the latter, though never vindictive, are never relaxed, and that both are designed by God for the sole purpose of training man to the destiny marked out for him. This training, which begins on this side of the grave, continues beyond it, and during eternity, to the end that every human being shall become more and more god-like, and capable of appreciating God's glory and rendering Him higher praise and worship.

From these remarks it will be seen that while we accept every portion of the Bible that is in accordance with the Bible written in men's hearts-or in other words, with natural religion-we repudiate all that professes to be based upon its supernatural or special inspira

tion.

We object to what the Church demands, an unbounded and unjustifiable confidence in the infallibility of the writings of Moses and the Prophets, and the Evangelists, and the Apostles. We dissent from a sentimental attachment to an impossible compound of God and man. We protest that Christian theology, as we have it, is not taught by God Himself, nor by Christ himself, nor is it consistent with established facts, nor is it comprehensible by our reason. We would show you that Christianity, as taught among us, is no better than other systems taught in other than Christian countries, and in some respects not so good.

These are the objects of this publication. If in the course of presenting our views, any thing should be said which may be deemed offensive or disrespectful to those who hold contrary opinions, certainly no such offence or disrespect is intended. We write under an honest conviction of the truth, and yield nothing to preconceived

views. Truth is truth, and will find its way to the surface. Shrieks and lamentations over the scepticism and free-thinking of the nineteenth century will not serve the purpose of concealing it. Nor is it desirable that it should be concealed. We must believe, not what it is convenient, or comfortable, or customary to believe; but what is most in accordance with truth. Truth, and not what is called orthodoxy, should be our prime object. It is not enough, to maintain what we believe; we must believe what we maintain. Any one may bring himself to give blind assent to that which he is inclined to believe, or thinks it becoming or expedient to believe, but this is not genuine belief. It is one thing to wish to have truth on our side; and another to wish, in all sincerity, to be on the side of truth. If the conclusions, at which we arrive, have the weight of evidence in their favor, we have no alternative but to accept them and bide the results. Neither is there occasion to contemplate with uneasiness the admission of truth, or the result of being governed by it, in any matters whatsoever, and more particularly in those pertaining to religion. God did not endow us with perceptive and reasoning faculties, in order that they might be employed upon all other subjects, and remain torpid in relation to that one subject only. We hold to it, therefore, that the truth must be accepted at all hazards, even if it lead to a denial of the supernatural inspiration of Scripture and all dogmas connected therewith, which we are fully persuaded it will do.

Nor, we repeat it, need the prospect of this alarm the most timid. God, the Father, who alone governed the world from the first, governs it now, and will ever govern it. No broader foundation for the faith of all men in their eternal welfare is possible, than that laid by

INTRODUCTORY.

ix

God Himself when He established his never changing laws; and when He so constituted and endowed man, that under the influence and effect of such unvarying laws, he should be conducted to the happy destiny designed for him from the first. The only fear in these matters, becoming to man, is a fear lest he fail in watchfulness to guard against violations of God's laws pertaining to his being; lest he fail in any portion of his duty to God and to his fellow-creatures. All else All else may be implicitly left to his Maker and benefactor.

In all countries, whether civilized or uncivilized, the popular system of theology has invariably been claimed to be based on some supernatural revelation from God.

The founders or acknowledged heads of these systems have claimed, or it has been claimed for them by their followers, that they were supernaturally inspired, and miraculously and specially endowed and commissioned of God to make His will and word known to mankind. Among the persons claiming or who have been claimed, to have been so inspired and commissioned, and who have gained extensive credence in such claim, are the following: Moses, the great leader, historian, and Prophet of the Jews, fourteen or fifteen hundred years before Christ; Zoroaster, who founded the theology that prevails among the Parsees, certainly not less than twelve hundred years before Christ, Confucius, born five hundred and fifty-one years before Christ, the most eminent teacher of natural religion in the great Chinese nation; Buddha, who founded a system of worship in India, called Buddhism, five hundred years before Christ; Godama, who, also about five hundred years before Christ, founded the system of worship which now prevails in the Burmese Empire, Christ, the claimed basis of the Christian theol

ogy; and Mohammed, the founder of the Mohammedan creed.

Among the so-called sacred books embodying systems of theology and said to be derived from supernatural inspiration are the following. The Old Testament of the Jews; the Zend-Avesta of the Parsees; the Great Learning of the Chinese; the Rig Veda of the Hindoos the Vini Pidimot of the Burmese Empire; the Christian Bible; and the Koran.

All or most of the church dogmas, legends, fables, and traditions, in relation to the miraculous conception, birth, miracles, and other pretended supernatural circumstances connected with the history of Jesus, are borrowed fromor find their counterpart in-the several systems of worship founded and practised from four to twelve centuries before his birth.

The historic part of the Bible, in relation to the creation of the world, has its counterpart also in the several systems of theology here mentioned. They all had their cosmologies based on equally good authority and equally wide of the truth, as that recorded in the Bible. This will appear hereafter, when we come to look into the history of the Ancient creeds just mentioned. The time and manner of the creation, no man has ever known, or ever will know, in this life; nor is such knowledge of importance in preparing ourselves for the life to come.

ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS.

I.

MAN needs no teaching to be convinced that there is a God, the creator, the sustainer, the preserver, and the governor of the universe. The idea is innate, imperative, and essential, and declares itself in the mind and conscience so soon as the human being begins to observe, to compare, and to reason. There is no one, however rude or ignorant-unless he be idiotic, or otherwise incapable of consecutive thought-who has not some notion, however vague, of this great and almighty Being. There is no one in the exercise of his intellectual faculties, who would not recognize the existence of a God as an absolute and necessary truth, even if there had been no other book to teach it, than the great book of Nature. The earth, the sea, the sun, the moon, and all the hosts of Heaven, spread out before him in their infinite beauty and majesty, each silently but eloquently and irresistibly proclaims that they have had a divine, omnipotent, eternal, and infinite cause and maker. Man has, moreover, not alone an intuitive conviction of the existence of an overruling Spirit, he is conscious that he has within himself a soul, in affinity-in a limited sensewith that great overruling Spirit.

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