That the obvious tendency of Universalism is irreligious; that it is
opposed to holiness, to reformation of life; that it is in eternal
hostility to all efforts to make the world better; that it paralyzes
and neutralizes the efforts of men to serve God—is one of the most
manifest impressions upon the mind, both from the theory itself, and
from the history of its practical workings among men. No pretended
system in our time has been characterized by such daring and unblushing
effrontery. It comes forward under a pretense of faith, but ridicules
the most awful and fearful things which that faith reveals. It discards
the eternal discriminations which the faith of the Lord Jesus maintains
between the righteous and the wicked—between those who serve God
and those who serve him not—between the vice and virtue—except the
reward of one and the punishment of the other, received in this life.
It proposes to believe the Bible, and would have men believe that it
teaches that he who was an atheist, a deist, and a scoffer at all that
God has said, and a blasphemer of the name of God till he breathed the
last breath, shall be received up into glory, and seated down with the
holy martyrs of Jesus, and enjoy God forever! No other system has so
far imposed upon the credulity of mankind, as to face the world, as
well as the heavens, and declare that the lake of fire prepared for the
devil and his angels, where the beast and the false prophet shall be
tormented day and night, forever and ever—the _gehena_ of fire, where
the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched—is in this world, and
that the wicked we see are actually enduring its punishments!
No infidel desires any better opposition to religion than this. No
man who hates the Bible, and wishes its influence upon the world
counteracted, desires any more effectual method of doing it than this,
so far as men will receive it. Those who fall under its influence will
neither worship God nor keep his commandments. Atheism itself has all
the incentives to a righteous life found in this system, and may be
trusted just as far. Its influence is to harden the heart, and fill the
world with impenitence and indifference.