"THE PLAN OF SALVATION."

Thames Star, Volume XII, Issue 3822, 29 March 1881, Page 2

"THE PLAN OF SALVATION."

(To the Editor of the Evening Star.)

Sib, —The silence, with which the Hey. Mr IN eill's discourses upon this mystery has been received must not be attributed, entirely to a general public acquiesence in the conclusions he has arrived at, but to the respectful consideration with which his always fair, tolerant, and lucid arguments are stated and maintained; so far, indeed, that the preponderance of reason and proof will be found to lie against his own ratiocination. After all the refinements and subtle distinctions; after all the learned and profound sophisms ; after all the bursts of pathetic eloquence and unsurpassable rhetoric, the question of its truth will constantly recur to minds free from tumultuous emotion and undisturbed by religious enthusiasm. It is not desired or intended hereby to disquiet or injure the religious susceptibilities of sincere believers, or to deny to the story of the atonement intense pathos and great dramatic force, but it cannot be received as literally and absolutely true. Christianity in its, present diversified form does not satisfy thinking and truly religious minds. They seek to get rid of legend and superstition and the preternatural, and to account to themselves intelligently for what they rely upon. Mr Weill's solar illustration of the doctrine of the Trinity is a further proof of its unreality, and is answered by the fact that the rainbow, sunlight, and heat are an effect, and not a cause. This simile serving only, therefore, to render confusion worse confounded. Neither can the word Trinity be used to denote the union of three absolute infinities 'in one Godhead, for it is assumed that there is only one infinity. The principal feature in the Christian religion is the Atonement. Original sin is premised as the foundation of this doctrine, and that this, irrespective of our own, cannot be forgiven. How this incapacity for forgiveness can be reconciled with the oinnipotency of the i Creator is beyond ordinary comprehen- j sion; the penalty, however, is damnation —eternal hell, and other like, but rather disproportionate, punishments. This original sin, too, was committed, it is said, some 6000 years ago, and consisted in eating an apple. Here it may be remarked that the learned Jews do not believe in the miraculous creation of man, and they know something about the old Scriptures at least. Their opinion is that Adam was a symbolical or typical man, and that the fall was a symbolical fall, needing, therefore, it is presumed, a merely symbolical or typical atonement. | Christians will, however, persist in regarding it as literally and positively true, and, therefore, the Judaism of the present day is more charitable and tolerant than other systems or creeds. They did not, and do not believe in the solar myths of the Bible. Christianity is the idolatry of the mind ; Judaism is, in many respects, the outcome of reason. The Jews at- i tempt, and succeed largely in the attempt, j to bring the Bible within the compass of reason. They leave the symbolical parts of it for the (Spirit, knowing that if every word was taken in its literal sense, it . would endow the God of Scripture with every human imperfection. In this way we may regard Jacob's wrestling with an angel, and the speaking of Balaam's ass, as visions, or by similar exegies the David of Scripture, armed with a few pebbles collected from the Brook of Wisdom, meeting the Goliath of things as they are, and, with an unerring arm, flinging the stone of truth, which, reaching the giant's brain, iuaugruate3 the reign of things as

they should be. But the Christian maintains that Jesus the Son of God, Himself being infinite, sacrificed, or was sacrificed by tlie infinite God, His Father, to atone for Adam's sins. Tried, however, by scieace or morality, the doctrine is not only incomprehensible, but unthinkable. The actual existence of Adam six thousand years ago—the first parent of all the human race —is entirely unvouched for by science. Modern experiments of enthorology maintain that the human race, even in its present form, can be traced back to periods far remote from that assigned to the creation of Adam, The ancient monuments, cities, and history of India, China and Egypt establish the fact of human existence antecedent to thatcircumstance by immense periods of time. If millions of men and women of Circassian, Mongolian, Negro and Indian races, all widely different, mentally, physically, as also in habits and customs, lived and-, died before Adam's time, his assumed fall could not have brought sin upon mankind, or death by sin. It is beyond reason, justice, or common sense to maintain that all mankind inherit Adam's misfortune, in face of the wellestablished, ~, fact that man's origin and variety of race is traceable to many more than one centre. Geology establishes the certainty that death, and therefore life, iiust p haVeJS^ existed at incalculably long periods before the time assigned for man's advent in'the"'"' world. Science offers no support to'the/-" atonement, or any other religious doctrine.j Before entering upon the moral aspect of tbe question, it may be observed that figures seem to show that three hundred and fifty thousand millions of people hare passed away from the time of Adam to Christ; to say nothing of the myriads previous. to that time. The thought seems blasphemous that almighty and all-merciful power could create to torture everlastingly this immense multitude, of human creatures, arid this reflection enforces too the inquiry and never yet answered question, Can it be true ? or Why for four thousand years was .the incarnation kept in. abeyance?—l, am, &c, Cebdenda.