We will now attempt to show what reason, science, and God's eternal
Bible teach as the nature of sin and its consequences. The orthodox
world represents sin to be a personal affront against a personal God.
But we take a broader, and, we think, a more rational view of the
matter. We believe that no act of ours, whether good or bad, can
possibly affect an infinite, omnipresent, and impersonal Deity in any
way whatever. Nothing we can do can either offend or gratify such a
being. He is infinitely too far removed from our little narrow sphere
of action. But every thing we do can and _does affect ourselves_, and
generally our friends and all connected with us. Every wrong act we
perform inflicts an injury upon our moral consciousness, and a wound
upon our sense of right, and inflicts a lasting injury upon our moral
dignity, if it does not create a painful sense of wrong. And, when once
committed, no repentance, no forgiveness, no prayer, no atonement, no
pardon, can do any thing toward arresting the baneful effects, or toward
healing the wound it has inflicted upon our moral consciousness, or the
injury it has inflicted upon others. Hence we never ask for forgiveness,
nor rely upon any atonement by men, animals, or Gods to cancel the
effects, or mitigate the wrong, or alleviate the injury in the case.
When you put your finger into fire, and burn it, you violate one
of God's laws written upon your own constitution,--the law of
self-preservation; and it inflicts a wound which the longest and loudest
prayer ever uttered can do nothing towards healing. The effect will
remain until healed by the working of nature's inherent laws. A similar
effect is produced by every wrong act you inflict upon yourself or your
fellow-beings. It inflicts a wound which is beyond the reach of prayer,
pardon, repentance, or forgiveness. It most work ita natural cure, as
in the case of physical injury. All bodily suffering comes through the
mind, and hence affects the mind as well as the body; and every
moral wrong we commit inflicts punishment or suffering upon the moral
feelings. Hence it will be seen that sin does not have to wait for God
to point out the penalty or punishment, but contains its own punishment,
which no power in heaven or earth can arrest, avert, or set aside. This
is evidently the only true doctrine respecting the punishment for sin;
and it is the only doctrine that can stop the commission of crime, and
the only doctrine that can ever reform the world; for, while the people
are taught that sin can be atoned for by any power in heaven or earth,
they will the more easily yield to the temptations to commit sin. Their
will feel that this doctrine is a kind of license for sin: at least it
weakens the motive for abstaining from sin. For if a man may lead a
life of crime, sin, wickedness, and debauchery, destitute of all moral
principle, for ninety-nine years, as orthodoxy teaches, and then have
the effect entirely canceled, and the sin entirely erased from his
soul, by one short hour of prayer and repentance and forgiveness, and by
acknowledging his faith in the atoning blood of Christ, and then stand
before God without a moral blot upon his soul, all purified and ready
to join the pure in heart--the white-robed angels who lived a life of
self-denial and purity--in shouting glory to God, where is the motive
for leading a virtuous life? It is entirely too weak to restrain from
the commission of crime while the temptation is as strong as we usually
find it in all countries, especially as there is apparently a large
premium offered to sinners. Christ says, "There is more joy in heaven
over one sinner that repent-eth than over ninety and nine just persons
who need no repentance" (Luke xv. 7). No wonder that sin abounds in all
Christian countries; and it always will abound while people are
taught such pernicious doctrines. Therefore we hold the doctrines of
repentance, atonement, forgiveness, &c., to be all wrong. They are
subversive of the first principles of moral justice, and pernicious in
their effects upon society. Let the wrong-doer, instead of being
taught these pernicious doctrines, be instructed in the true system of
salvation, which will teach him there is no possibility of evading or
escaping the punitive effects of wrong-doing; that every wrong act he
commits will inevitably drive the iron into his soul,--the two-edged
sword of moral conviction; and that the blood of no goats or no Gods can
do any thing toward washing away the sin, or mitigating the punishment.
And let him be rescued also from the pernicious error of the churches,
that "sin is a sweet morsel to be rolled under the tongue," or that
"there is a pleasure in the commission of sin." We hold no such views;
we believe in no such doctrines. We do not believe there is any real
pleasure in the commission of a moral wrong of any kind. We believe that
only a life of virtue is productive of real happiness. Let the wrongdoer
be taught this moral lesson; and let him be also taught that every
humane and virtuous act of this life will expand his soul, and elevate
him to a higher plane of happiness, and bring him one step nearer the
door of the heavenly kingdom. Let the world of mankind all be taught
these beautiful and soul-elevating doctrines, which many now know by
experience to be golden truths; and we will soon witness a great
moral revolution and renovation in society by the propagation of
these doctrines. We shall soon see the proof that our system of faith,
embracing these beautiful, philosophical, and elevating doctrines, is
much better calculated to moralize and reform the world than the morally
weak and unjust doctrines of repentance, atonement, and pardon now daily
preached from the Christian pulpits. Many cases could be cited to show
that they do have a pernicious influence. I will adduce one example:
When that _Christian_ emperor, Constantine, had murdered his wife, son,
nephew, and several other relatives, he raised his hands toward heaven,
and exclaimed, "The blood of Christ cleanseth from all sin." Here is
an example of the pernicious and demoralizing effect of the Christian
doctrines of atonement and forgiveness. We repeat, then, that such
doctrines are demoralizing, as they must operate to retard the progress
of truth and true religion, and the moral reformation of the world.
People should be taught that it is as impossible to escape the penalty
for sin or wrong-doing as it is to escape the darts of death; and
that any act of forgiveness or atonement by some other being is only
calculated to aggravate the wrong, and augment the sin, and open the
door for a future commission of the act. All should understand that
there is no one to pardon sins, and no savior but themselves. "The new
religion," as it is sometimes called,--though it is the oldest religion
in the world, being founded in the moral and religious nature of man,
and an outgrowth of his moral, religious, and spiritual elements,--this
religion, which is the religion of all the truly enlightened and
scientific minds of the age, teaches that every person must be his own
savior; that every man and woman must work out their own salvation, not
with fear and trembling', however, but with joy and rejoicing. Hence
we ask no bleeding saviors, no atonements, no acquittals by pardon
or forgiveness. We offer no such bribery for crime or sin,--no such
allurements and inducements for leading a life of vice; for many can
testify, from their own experience, that they were more easily tempted
from the path of virtue when they believed in these old heathenish,
morally deformed, and morally dwarfing doctrines. On the other hand,
they have felt much more strongly wedded to a life of virtue, and
more powerfully restrained from wrong-doing since they abandoned
these pernicious doctrines, and embraced the healthful, beautiful, and
elevating doctrines of the "Harmonial Philosophy." This system teaches
we have to suffer the penalty in full for every wrong act we commit;
that we _can not escape in any case_ by either _repentance, atonement,
or pardon_; that we can not swim off to heaven through the blood of a
murdered or crucified God, and leave our sins behind unpunished, or pack
them on the back of a savior as the Jews did theirs of the back of a
goat. It teaches us that the penalty is as certain as the commission of
the crime; because one is the cause, and the other the effect. Hence we
could as easily replace a lost arm, torn off in the field of battle, by
prayer, or stop the descending lightning from splintering yonder tree
into a thousand fragments, as to avert or set aside the penalty for
crime by "supplicating the throne of grace." We hold that every wrong
act we commit, if it does not destroy our happiness at the time, and
operate as a barbed arrow sticking in the soul, will at least weaken
our capacity for happiness in the future, weaken our moral strength
and resolution to abstain from crime, weaken our natural detestation of
crime, and weaken our moral ability to resist the temptation to commit
the same and other crimes in the future, and finally destroy our moral
manhood and true dignity. Now, here is a series of powerful motives
for eschewing evil, and leading a life of virtue, which will operate
to arrest that river of crime and iniquity now flowing through all
Christian countries as soon as the people are taught these rational
and beautiful doctrines in lieu of those weak and foolish incentives to
virtue which are taught them from the Christian pulpit. They possess a
much greater moral force than the fear of angry Gods and horned Devils.
_Reader ponder these maxims._ _The True Theory of Reform_.--It requires
but a few words to show what kind of moral teaching is required to
reform the world. As happiness is the predominant desire and inalienable
right of every human being, all aim to pursue that course best
calculated to attain it; but, as men are now organized and
circumstanced, they often pursue a course of life which infringes upon
and destroys the happiness of others: and some of them commit acts
known as crimes, which are simply trespasses upon the rights, peace, and
happiness of their neighbors. If, in thus pursuing happiness, they must
destroy the happiness of others, then it follows that the happiness
of others is incompatible with their own. If so, then God has made a
serious blunder in making one man's happiness depend upon destroying the
happiness of others; and, as their happiness would depend equally upon
destroying his, the happiness of all would thus be destroyed. Hence
the theory won't work. It follows, then, that men lead a life of crime
calculated to destroy the happiness of others, because they are ignorant
of the fact that they can pursue a course of life that will secure their
own happiness without destroying that of others. All that is necessary
to reform them, therefore, is to convince them of this fact. This is
the true theory, and the whole theory, of reform. And when people become
acquainted with the modern discovery in moral philosophy, which teaches
us that we can not attain to complete happiness without consulting the
happiness of others in every act which affects them, there will be a
double motive for leading a virtuous and honorable life. Even Christian
professors will profit by it when they find that the grasping avarice
which prompts them to try to monopolize wealth, and thus withhold the
means of comfort and happiness from their neighbors, is not the way to
attain real happiness for themselves. When the glorious era arrives that
men will daily look after the happiness of others as well as their own,
then we shall have a true religion, and a true state of society, and a
happy world.