There cannot be slavery
where there is no tyranny, and to say as Newton did, that we stand in
the same relation to a universal God, as a slave does to his earthly
master, is practically to accuse such God, at reason's bar, of
_tyranny_. If the word of God is relative, and relates itself with
slaves, it incontestably follows that all human beings are slaves, and
Deity is by such reasoners degraded into the character of universal
slave-driver. Really theologians and others who declaim so bitterly
against 'blasphemers,' and take such very stringent measures to punish
'infidels,' who speak or write of their God, should seriously consider
whether the worst, that is, the least religious of infidel writers, ever
penned a paragraph so disparaging to the character of that God they
affect to adore, as the last quoted paragraph of Newton's. If even it
could be demonstrated that there _is_ a super-human Being, it cannot be
proper to clothe him in the noblest human attributes--still less can it
be justifiable in pigmies, such as we are, to invest Him with odious
attributes belonging only to despots ruling over slaves.
Pages:
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119