SAID the apostle Paul, "He that cometh to God must believe that he is." Heb. xi, 6. And again that his Son is "the express image of his person." Chap. i, 3. The Son of God, who declared that his testimony was true, said to the Jews, "And the Father himself which hath sent me hath borne witness of me. Ye have neither heard his voice at any time, nor seen his shape." John v, 37. According to the commonly received views of the existence of God, the words of Paul above quoted are mysterious, and those of the Saviour meaningless.
In a number of the Oberlin Evangelist, some time since, I found the expression, "The tug of modern infidelity manifestly is to get rid of a personal, Bible God." And, judging from their sermons and writings, it has been the tug of modern orthodoxy also. The current view of the existence of God, as maintained in the churches, is a mixture of Pantheism and Atheism. I once heard a minister of the same school to which the Evangelist belongs, preach from the text, "Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God." According to him, while the impure in heart see nothing but evil in all the works of creation, the pure in heart see God, in the present, in everything; in the opening flower and springing grass; in the sunshine and the shade; in the still flowing river and roaring cataract; in the creation above and beneath, &c., and a member of the same church endeavoured to fasten conclusions the most ridiculous on the belief of the personal being of God. If the Evangelist can do anything to correct this species of infidelity amongst its friends and readers, I for one shall truly rejoice.
While very many of the members of the orthodox churches deny the personality of the Supreme Being, but few of them, comparatively, have adopted any definite view in its stead: and if their real belief (where they have any at all) was written out, it would take a skillful "doctor of divinity" to determine whether their creeds savored most strongly of Atheism, Pantheism, Deism, or Christianity. To me it seems absurd to teach that the Supreme Ruler of the universe is an impersonal God of three persons!
The vague and indefinite ideas extant of the existence of God, are not drawn from the Scriptures, even by inference, but are made necessary by the adoption of other views, especially of the natural immortality of the soul. This was never so plainly manifested to my mind as in an article on "Spirits and Immortality," in the N. Y. Tribune. The writer first attempts to prove the fact of future existence, or, the immortality of the soul, (for the idea of future life through "Jesus and the resurrection" seems never to enter the minds of Spiritualists,) from "the simple love of life," or "the agreeable character of the fact." He then takes it up in another view and draws a conclusion as follows: "The sheer metaphysical blasphemy involved in the thought [of annihilation] is so obvious to the least reflection, that no inquiring mind can fail to be arrested by it. For he who supposes himself annihilated, or reduced to nothing, is obliged, unless he confess himself the dupe of mere words, to say what nothing is. Things, to his conception, are determined by their sensible qualities, such as weight, color, sound, smell, or taste. Nothing, accordingly, is without these sensible qualities. In order, therefore, to my being reduced to nothing—to my being extinguished or annihilated—it is necessary that I lose my sensible qualities, all those things which make me now appreciable to your senses, namely, weight, color, sound, smell or taste. But in losing my sensible qualities—or in becoming inappreciable to your senses—I do not cease to be. My sensible qualities do not give me being, or absolute existence. They simply give me relative existence, or an existence appreciable to a finite intelligence. God, or the infinite, gives me being; nature, or my finite embodiment, simply makes that being manifest. If, therefore, you deprive me of my sensible or finite qualities, you simply leave me my infinitude, or God. You identify me with God. Nothing, consequently, is infinite, is God. To be nothing is to be God. Accordingly, he who looks forward to annihilation, implicitly deifies himself, practically declares himself on the high road to become God."
This is the climax of modern Spiritualism. "To be nothing is to be God." And these conclusions cannot be fastened upon those who believe in a future life by a resurrection only, as they are based on propositions which we promptly deny. The doctrine of the "infinitude of God," in man belongs to Satan and Spiritualists. We are often told that the influence of the spirits is to ennoble man and draw him towards God; but "he that cometh to God must believe that he is." But "nothing is infinite, is God." The definition of nothing is, "not any thing, non-entity," and the signification of non-entity is non-existence. Therefore, according to the metaphysical reasoning of this writer, God is non-entity, or non-existence. Is it any wonder that infidelity abounds where such metaphysical nonsense is looked upon with complacency, and the masses of church members reject the plain teachings of the word of God, and resort to vain philosophy, and "science falsely so called?"
"There is one God, and one Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus," but Spiritualists having disposed of the existence of God, naturally enough deny the Mediator. Peter proclaimed salvation in the name of Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified, raised from the dead, and exalted to the right hand of God, to grant repentance and remission of sins, neither is there salvation in any other. But in the salvation taught by Spiritualists, the Son of God who was born in Bethlehem is by no means necessary. In a work on "Spiritual Science," by "Rev. R. P. Wilson," I find the following view of a Redeemer, or rather Redeemers, for they are legion, according to his theory. "Although, as a believer in true spiritual philosophy, we cannot receive the orthodox views of salvation, yet we recognize the birth of a Saviour and Redeemer into the universal hearts of humanity, wherein truly the deity is incarnate, dwelling in the interior of man's spirit. We believe that each soul of man is born with his or her Saviour within them, for as man is an embodiment of the universe in epitome, he contains in his central nature an incarnation of Deity. The germ of immortal unfoldings resides within the spirit of it, which needs only appropriate conditions to call forth the expanding and elevating powers of the soul."
This is quite in keeping with the other extract; an incarnation of deity in the birth of every human soul! every one having a Redeemer in his or her "central nature." Spiritualists ought to be content with such "unfoldings," as it would seem that all further efforts would be like an endeavor to make nonsense more emphatic.