Modern Spiritualism. "DOCTRINES OF DEVILS."
By Editor
SPIRITUALISTS destroy all distinctions of right and wrong, by denying the authority of law, human accountability, and the punishment of sin. This charge may seem severe, but it is no more severe than just; and we feel fully warranted in making it, judging them entirely by their own words. We prove them under this charge, in a threefold manner: 1. By their denying all law, and trusting to "intuition." 2. By their denying human accountability, or the punishment of sin. 3. By their denying the plainest principles of morality. 1. They deny all law, and trust to "intuition." By intuition we are to understand their own mentalities—mental views for which they are not dependent. The difference between them and the teachings of the Bible is this: The Bible presents to us a system or code of morality as emanating from God, the Supreme moral Governor; that it is of course of absolute authority; that man is subject to it in his actions, and subject to a penalty (punishment) for its violation. Now, though Spiritualists speak of the holiness and perfection of God's laws, as they sometimes do, we are to take these expressions with very considerable qualification; as by many of their expressions relative to God, we should be led to think they believed in the personality of a Supreme Being. But when we examine their explicit declarations, we find their views are ultra-pantheistic. So, though they speak of laws, they rob them of every characteristic of law: of authority, the first great essential of law; of penalty, without which a law is mere advice; besides this, they deny free-agency, or probation, without which a law is a nullity, though in itself possessed of every essential attribute. The "Healing of the Nations," says:— "Thus thy body needs no laws, having been in its creation supplied with all that could be necessary for its government. Thy spirit is above all laws and above all essences which flow therein. God created thy spirit from within his own, and surely the Creator of essences must be above all essence created. And if thou hast what may be, or might be termed laws, they are always subservient unto thy spirit." Page 163. "Good men need no laws, and laws will do bad or ignorant men no good." "If a man be above the law, he should never be governed by it. If he be below, what good can dead, dry words do him?" "True knowledge removeth all laws from power by placing the spirit of man above it." Page 164. That such expressions as these can only be understood in their most objectionable sense, that is, according to their obvious import, and not with reference to other expressions that might be considered qualifying, is evident from its relation to the following propositions:— 2. They deny human accountability and punishment for sin. A. J. Davis not only denies man's accountability, but argues, or rather asserts, the necessity of human imperfections in the following singular manner:— "Man is not accountable, in the manner in which this supposition would imply, for the original or present imperfection. For these sprang necessarily from his uncultivated social and moral situation. Indeed, it is only by the aid of these imperfections that man can properly know and appreciate purity and perfection."—Nat. Div. Rev., page 392. A correspondent of the Telegraph, elevated the "Healing of the Nations" far above the Bible, and says of it:— "According to its teaching, no place is found in the universe for divine wrath and vengeance. All are alike and forever the object of God's love, pity, and tender care—the difference between the two extremes of human character on earth being as a mere atom when compared with perfect wisdom," This is not merely the sentiment of the correspondent of the paper; he characterizes truly the teachings of the book, which is a standard work of Spiritualism. That there is a wider difference between God and the very best of the human race than there is between the two extremes of the human race, we do not deny; for God is infinite in every perfection, while man is imperfect at best. But to argue from hence that God disregards the distinctions of character, or will not vindicate his laws and punish the guilty, is but shallow reasoning, to say the best of it. Abraham passed a different judgment on the ways of God, and doubtless, his perceptions of truth and justice in this matter were as acute as those of the spiritual authorities. He said, "That the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from thee; shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" Gen. 18:25. Instead of giving us an exalted view of the holiness of the Supreme Being, these spiritual teachings really place him below our estimate of a good, worthy man. We do not conclude that a man, because he is wise and good, will overlook and disregard all difference of action and character in his children or in his fellow-men. He who is the lowest and most debased will least regard these distinctions. Can we respect the man who places the same estimate upon the thief that he does upon the honest man? or regards the murderer in the same light that he does the innocent and inoffensive? We cannot. Such declarations deny, not the Bible only, but every principle in reason or revelation on which the stability of the divine government depends. The Bible informs us that when God created man and placed him in Eden, he told him that if he disobeyed him he should die. We find this penalty for transgression confirmed in many scriptures. "The soul that sinneth, it shall die." Eze. 18:4. "The wages of sin is death." Rom. 6:23. Who would imagine, from reading the works of Spiritualists, or even those of the popular authors of the day, either secular or religious, that death was an enemy, a curse, a fruit of sin? A popular author makes an apostrophe to death as follows:— "O death! thou art lovely! O death! thou art grand! Now I see that man was made in the image of God. Life may deface it, but death restores it. The impress of the Divinity is here." If this were true, Jesus would again deface the image of God when he raised his saints from the dead! The Spiritual Age says:— "There is, strictly speaking, no such thing as death, in the popular signification of that term. Death, so-called—the death of the human—is a veritable birth into a higher life. It is a change in the condition, consequent upon outward dissolution. . . . The REAL man survives the process intact, and still exists in full life and consciousness, upon a plane beyond—far beyond—the reach of fire and flood." The Scripture, corrected by this standard, should read: The soul that sinneth, it shall be born into a higher life! The wages of sin is transition to a more elevated plane of being! This is comforting to sinners, no doubt, for the present; but when the penalty of God's holy, just, and good law shall be inflicted, and the sinner dies, even the second death, how miserably foolish and vain will appear the perversions of God's word on which he has staked eternal life! Truly, "they know not what they do." The "Healing of the Nations" says:— "At the death of the outer body, the true life of the inner spirit commences." Thus again we may paraphrase the threat of the Lord to Adam: In the day thou eatest thereof, the true life of thine inner spirit shall commence. If some of our professed Christian friends discover the counterpart of their systems of theology in such teachings, we hope they may be led to consider well its opposition to the word of God. The rudiments of Spiritualism have been taught in the pulpits throughout the length and breadth of the land. And it is vain for those ministers to try to pull down the superstructure, and denounce it as evil, who guard and defend the foundation with such jealous care. Many professed believers in the Bible, who deny Spiritualism, hold a faith identical with that of the Spiritualists. So far as we can see, they are really Spiritualists, only denying the name. This will appear as we present the teachings of both, and show their harmony. Says Dr. Hare:— "Hence the dark hearse, the black pall, the bitter lamentation over the grave, which shows that it is not realized that death is only a glorious spiritual birth!" Page 145. Dr. H. also gives the following spirit communications:— "Oh, mother, why do you mourn my death? I have just begun to live. Grieve not for me." "MY DEAR AUNT: This is the first time that I have communicated. When I left the rudimental sphere I was so young I did not know what it meant to die; I know now. It was the beginning of life!" Page 188. The Baptist Register said:— "There is no death! what seems so is transition: This life of mortal breath Is but a suburb of the life elysian, Whose portals we call Death." A well-known religious hymn says:— "Death is the gate to endless joy." A Spiritualist paper says:— "Fold us in thy embrace, sweet angel Death, So that no cloud can our twin being sever; Come with soft lips and kiss away our breath, And let us take our heavenward flight together." The American Messenger the organ of the American Tract Society, says:— "Who calls thee grim and terrible, Thou glorious angel, Death? Thy form should wondrous beauty wear, Like sweet perfume thy breath; Thy robes should be of woven light, Of clear, resplendent sheen; A crown of stars upon thy head, Thy face as Heaven serene. But now, midway from earth to Heaven, Upon thy ebon throne, A glorious boon is granted thee, To thee, great Death, alone: The golden key of life, true life, Op'ning the pearly gates, Where never enter woes nor strife, But rest the FREED awaits." Another well-known hymn says that death "Is but the voice which Jesus sends To call us to his arms." Joel Tiffany, in his lectures on Spiritualism, says:— "But hark! a voice comes from beyond the grave to tell us that death is not our foe; that he is the messenger of life and joy; that he is the grand accoucheur of the soul, and comes to usher it into light and life eternal. "To the bereaved husband, the voice of the departed wife comes back, saying, 'Weep not for me, my dear husband, for I am with you still, and I watch over you, and will guide and guard you through life,'" etc. Mr. Tiffany would pass for an infidel with many professed Christians, yet the whole page from which we make the above quotation is, not the mere counterpart of, but identical with, the majority of funeral discourses. "Appendix—B," in the "Healing of the Nations," commences as follows:— "From the N. Y. Evangelist. "On the ministration of departed spirits in this world—By Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe. "It is a beautiful belief That ever 'round our head, Are hovering on viewless wings The spirits of the dead." We will offer a few brief remarks on the foregoing quotations. The Scriptures say that the saints of God will all take their "heavenward flight together," not when they die, but when the Lord Jesus shall come and restore them to life. 1 Thess. 4: 13-18. If the Spiritual theory were true, to destroy death would only be to reverse a desirable "transition." What would the Baptist Register say to this? Again, the Scriptures say, "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death." 1 Cor. 15:26. How different the teachings of Spiritualism, and also of the theology quoted. In the Scriptures, Christ is called "our life;" he says it is his privilege to give life; that no man cometh to the Father but by him. But according to the above quotations, both spiritual and religious, this is the prerogative of death—of "death alone"! While the Spiritualist says it is a messenger of life, and the hymn book says it is the voice of Jesus to call us to his arms, and the American Messenger that it has the key of life and opens the pearly gates, the Bible says it is the fruit and wages of sin, and he that had the power of death is the devil. How different—how widely different! With such unscriptural ideas the theology of the present age has prepared the way for the introduction of Satan's last deception—Spiritualism. And still they go hand-in-hand, affirming that death qualifies our friends to guard and guide us, and render us that assistance that the living cannot give. The article from Mrs. Stowe noticed above, together with a large proportion of the pen and pulpit essays of the theology of this age, is Spiritualism denying its name. "Sin entered into the world, and death by sin." Therefore, if death is a friend, if it opens the elysian fields to our view, we must give all the praise to sin, or yet the devil, by whom this "messenger of life" was sent on his errand of joy! Wisdom cries, "All they that hate me, love death." Oh! that men would listen to the voice of wisdom, and seek life through Jesus and the resurrection from the dead. The Lord, by his prophet, speaks of those who say, "We have made a covenant with death, and with hell [the grave] are we at agreement." Isa. 28:15. They despise the word of the Lord, calling "evil good, and good evil." But there is a day coming when God will vindicate his truth, and his enemies shall perish; for he says, "And your covenant with death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, then ye shall be trodden down by it." But it is not alone by perverting terms, calling darkness light and evil good, that they deny the punishment of sin. The following, from the "Healing of the Nations," well expresses their faith:— "God doth not condemn. A God of perfect love and wisdom can never condemn those himself created, and who are not equally perfect and wise unto himself. When man feeleth condemnation, his own wisdom chides him for his failure to apply wisdom and love. He who hath not wisdom and love within to violate, cannot suffer, for these being violated is the inward cause of suffering." Page 400. The tendency of such teaching as this is unmistakable. We will next pass to consider that wherein they most manifestly destroy the distinctions of right and wrong. EDITOR. (To be Continued.)