ith ransomed sinners as vile, yea perhaps
viler than they.' [83:1]

If the writer of this horrid nonsense do not blaspheme, there surely can
be no possibility of blaspheming. If he do not impute to his God of
mercy cruelty and injustice the most monstrous that can enter into human
conception, all language is void of meaning, and men had far better
cease 'civilising,' and betake themselves to woods and wilds and
fastnesses, to enjoy the state of mere brutishness so infinitely
preferable to that _reasonable_ state in which they are shaken and
maddened by terrible dreams of a vengeful cruel God.

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.

The author of these detestable paragraphs admits both. He is a rigid
Predestinarian, which no one can be who doubts the all powerfulness or
foreknowledge of that God whom Christians worship. Taking Scripture as
his guide, the Predestinarian must needs believe some are foredoomed to
Hell, and some to Hell, irrespective of all merit; it being manifestly
absurd to suppose one man can deserve more or less than another, in a
world, where all are compelled to believe, feel, and act, as they do
believe, feel, and act. The disgrace attached