Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again / A Life Story

nsiderable changes both in m

His Apostles,-that some doctrines which Christ and His Apostles taught with great plainness, I never had been taught at all; and that some of the doctrines

whole Bible, while in numbers of places quite contrary doctrines were taught. While unscriptural doctrines were inculcated as fundame

become unintelligible to ordinary Christians. While professing to give the passages needful explanations, they had heaped upon them impenetrable obsc

state can do anything towards his salvation,-a doctrine which is neither Scriptural nor rational. Again; Isaiah, referring to the calamitous condition of the Jewish nation, in consequence of God's judgments, says: "The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot to the head, there is no soundness; but wounds, and bruises, and putrefying sores," &c. This, which the prophet said with regard to the state of the Jews, the theologians applied to the character, not of the Jews only, but of all mankind. What Paul said

that many and important changes would have to be made in the creeds and confessions of

ise Lost, or of the Church of England Prayer Book, or on the authority of ea

ulars of the engagement. I told him I had read something about a covenant of that kind in Milton's Paradise Lost, but that I had never met with anything on the subject in the sacred writings, and added that I doubted whether any such transaction ever took place. He got more excited than ever, and expressed some uneasiness at having such a blasphemous heretic in his cart. Just then one of the cart wheels came off and down went the vehicle on one side, spilling me and the driver on the road. I was quickly on my feet, but he la

to be new versions of

ples of human nature, which make men wishful to avoid self-denia

red and horror of Popery, while in others orthodox teachers h

en rested on no authority but the facts, o

regard was paid to the kindred doctrine, its necessary accompaniment, that Jesus was the 'image,' the 'likeness,' of God, the revelation or manifestation of His character. Yet this is essential to a right understanding and a due appreciation of the other. The revelation or manifestation of God, and especially of His eternal and infinite love, was the great de

spel,-the Gospel itself,-the power of God to the salvation of every one that truly believes and contemplates it. It is a world of truth in one,-a wh

ad only to look at the character of Christ,-that what Christ was during His life on earth in the circle in which He moved, that God was throughout all worlds, and towards all the creatures of His hands,-that the love which led Jesus to suffer and die for the salvation of the world, lived and moved in the heart of the

exist. No one taught that goodness was the only thing for which God cared, the only thing which He esteemed and loved, and the only thing He would reward and bless. Books and preachers did not use to tell us, that faith, and knowledge, and feeling,-that repentance, conversion, and sanctification,-that reading the Scriptures, and hearing sermons, and singing hymns, and offering prayers,-that church fellowship, and religious ordinances, were all nothing except so far as they tended to make people good, and then to make them better, and at last to perfect them in all divine and human excellence. No one taught us that goodness was beauty, that goodness was greatness, that goodness was glory, that goodness was happiness, that goodness was heaven. The truth was never pressed on us that the want of goodness was deformity, dishonor and shame,-that it was pain, and wretchedness, and torment, and death,-that goodness in full measure would

ections. They made it impossible for a man to argue with the abler and better informed class of infidel assailants with the success and satisfaction desirable. The theories did not admit of a successful defence. And when the theories were refuted, the Bible and Christianity suffered. On sear

oly Spirit; but I seldom heard and read of the influence of the truth. Ye

iserable, under the curse of God, and liable to death and damnation-that as Adam did do wrong, we all came into the world so depraved that we were incapable of thinking a good thought, of feeling a good desire, of speaking a right word, or of doing a right thing,-that Jesus came into the world to redeem us from the guilt of Adam's sin, and from the punishment due to us for that sin, and to put us on such a footing with regard to G

ypes, which appears to have had an immense circulation, is this sentence,-'That the grand doctrines of Christianity concerning the mediation of Christ, &c., were typically manifested to the church by a variety of ceremonies, persons and events, under the Old Testament dispensation, is

hal lamb, the scape-goat, and other sacrifices under the Law, and Jesus and the sacrifice which He offered. Some preachers and religious writers take almost all things under the law to be types of Christ, or types of things pertaining to Him. They make Noah

e to do evil and learn to do well;' but they never urge them to regard their sacrifices as types or manifestations of the sacrifice of Christ. Christ nowhere teaches the ordinary doctrine of types. He never refers to anything as a type of His sacrifice, or of anything else connected with His work. Nor do the Apostles say anything to countenance the prevailing notion. For anything the Scriptures say to the contrary, the whole doctrine of types, as set forth in such books as that of McEwen, is a human fiction. Indeed, I see no hint in Scripture that any one had the least idea that the Messiah would offer Himself a sacrifice for sin till after the sacrifice had taken place. Isaiah and Daniel spake on the subject, and 'They inquired and searched diligent

go down. Certain notions about the faith of the ancient saints must give way, and the views of sa

dge, and a perfection of righteousness, which the Scriptures nowhere ascribe to them, and which, if they had possess

having effects which are never

aning to the word death conta

s of the globe, as well as a thousand things on the earth's surface, and in the dispositions

tory in Genesis seems to intimate that the sacrifice of Cain was rejected because he was a bad-living man, and that the sacrifice of Abel was accepted because he was a good-living man. Hence the words of God in His address to Cain, 'Why art thou wroth? And why is thy countenance fallen? If thou doest well shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door.' And henc

of saving faith common in religious books for

e. I heard prayers and forms of benediction worded in a way altogether different from the prayers and benedictions found in the Bible. The Scriptures allowed me to think of God, in the first place, as one, as I myself was one. They did not tell me He was three in the same way as I was three; but they left the doctrine of the Trinity i

s love in forgiving men on their repenting and turning to Him, without violating His justice and His truth, and putting in peril the principles of His government. There were several other theological theories of the design or object of the death of Christ. All these theories may be true in a certain sense. They may, perhaps, be so explained as to make them harmonize w

ur work. I could find passages which taught that our debts or sins might be forgiven, on our return to God. So far were the Scriptures from teaching that Christ had don

acy of the death-bed repentances of old, wilful, hardened sinners. The Bible left

loving, than the Son. But as we have seen, the Bible taught that Jesus was God's im

ecause we keep His commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in His sight.' In the parable of the talents I found God represented as saying, 'Well done, thou good and faithful servant, because thou hast been faithful in a very little, have thou authority over ten cities.' And in the Prophet I read, 'Again, when the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness that he hath committed, and doeth that