Better be with the dead
Than on the tortures of the mind to lie
In restless ecstacy.
Better, far better, roam the desert or the forest like any other brutes,
than educate ourselves and others into the monstrous belief in a God who
might have saved the world and would not; who predestinates to endless
and unutterable agonies; who has with the one hand peopled Hell with
millions of immortal creatures, while with the other has filled Heaven
with millions of ransomed sinners, as vile, yea perhaps viler than they.
In justice however to the large class of Christians under the despotic
and truly lamentable influence of this belief, the Author is bound to
admit that they are far more consistent and logical in their notions of
Deity than perhaps any other section of Theists, for it cannot properly
be denied that the doctrine of an Omnipotent and Prescient God destroys
all distinction of virtue and vice, justice and injustice, right and
wrong, among men. Let the omnipotency and prescience of a First Cause be
granted, the corollary of 'whatever is, is right,' is one of the most
obvious that can flow from any proposition: the distance of any link in
the eternal sequence cannot lessen the connection with a First Cause,
admitting its Omnipotency and Prescience.
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