Litchfield enquirer., 1869-07-15

Tn the universe IS 1mmedlareIy caused by
 him, and tends equally well in its way to
 carry on his great designs Bnt in order
 that this might not interfere with the doc 1 trines of human responsibility, he taught
 that all was accomplished by Omniscient
 skill! and knowledge in such way as not in the slightest degree tointerfere with hu- . man free agency; so that the whole respon- slbility of every human beings actions
 must rest upon himself. EIaa .a.as,ls1 I,.lz .ss. 7s Thus was his system calculated, like a skilful engine of torture, to produce all the
 mental anguish of the most perfect sense Of lelplessness with the most torturing sense of responsibility. rem
 In those days ministers ,taught the saw
 age doctrine that the blessed were to stand
 in the very sight of the smoke arising from
 the eternal torture of relatigesand friends, and yet praise God for such frightful ven gence. pr, Stern (Hopkins ? is quoted as speaking thus :,a,aak t ss r.a.Ezsr..g., ,t 1 The text was from Rev. XIX, 3, "And again they said Alleluia. And her smoke arose up for ever and ever. aA-t oA" A4sa- l 1.-The subject is thus announced: naa 15d .sThe heavenly hosts will praise God for punishing the finally impenitent, forever. :"
 In the improcement or practical applica- 1 tion of this text is the following passage . 'sWill the heavenly host praise God for all ] the displays of his vindictiye justice in the punishment of the damned !? Then we may learn that there is an essential difference between saints and sinners. Sinners often disbelieve and deny this distinction and 1t is very difficult to make them see and believe it. They sometimes freely say that AL T.,
 place as has been described; or that the inhabitants of it say, Amen, Alleluia, while they see the smoke of the torments of the damned ascend up forever and ever. They desire and hope to go. to! Heaven without even being willing to speak such language or express such feelings in view of the damned. And is not this saying that their hearts are essentially different from those who feel such spirit and are willing to l adopt the language of heaven? Good men
 do adopt the language of heaven before they arrive there.i And all who are con- scious that they cannot say Amer, ,Alleluia, may know that they are yet sinners, and essentially different from saints, and alto gether unprepared to go with them to heav- en and join with them in praising God for the vindictive justice he displays in doom ing all unholy creatures to never ending torment. ""0''4 -~ '-.
 It seems strange that anything short of Q Comanche Indian should preach such a God and such heaven, nevertheless, Mrs. Stowe gives many extracts from the mer- ciless old Puritans of the Edwaras-selael, which almost equal the foregoing in atroci- ty. Regarding regeneration as defined by Pierpont Edwards, Mrs. Stowe says :,T Regeneration as he taught it in his Treatise on the Affections," was the inn plantation by Divine power of new spir- itual sense in the soul, as diverse from all the other senses as seeing is from hearing or taste from smelling. No one that had not received this new, divine, supernatural sense, could properly belong to the church of Christ, and all men until they did re- ceive it, were naturally and constitutional ly enemies of God to such a degree, that, as he says in sermon to that effect |" If 1 they had God in their power they would kill him."ie ay n9dt .c1 lsao41ot sd c3 aoca
 { Mrs. Stowe thus pictures the religious state and conversion of one of her heroines:
 Esther, however, had been trained to ex- pect marked and decided period of con- 1 version "a change that could be described in the same, language in which Paul des- cribed the conversion of the heathen at dissolute Corinth and Ephesus. ' Perfectly faultless in every relation so far as human beings could observe, reverent to God, submissive to his will, careful in all outward religious observances, yet want ing in certain emotional experience, she judged herself to be, and was judged to be by the theology which her father taught, utterly devoid of virtue or moral excellence of any kind in the sight of God.
 Esther's deliverance came through that greatest and holiest of all the natural sac- raments and means of grace---Lore.@ aoda
 Mrs. Stowe seems to doubt not only the necessity, but the existence of, any sixth sensei' sikethe Evangelical degeneration, ]" but she makes the following suggestion T It is remarkable that, in all discussions of depravity inherited from Adam, it never seemed to occur to any theologian that there might also be counterworking of the great law of descent, by which the feelings and habits of thought wrought in the human mind by Jesus Christ might descend through generatians of Christians, SO tudo, III COuKS0 N0t Uc beborns predisposed to good, rather than evil Cotton Mather fearlessly says that
 the seed of the Church are born holy not of course meaning it in q strict theo- 1 logical sense, but certainly indicating that, in his day, a mild and genial spirit of hope breathed over the epcradle of infancy and ] childhood. a.a9 10 neits3e saa1i adt no sI3i1 | The goal at which Mrs, Stowe wonld 
 naturally arrive, ,on the road she is now tray- cling is Universalism; nevertheless, she seems to incline for the present to the Ar minian halfway house of Episcopacy.
 While approving the less stringent re- quirementso of the Episcopal Church, and especially admiring its admission of chil- drensto membership, Mrs. Stowe has too ! good sense play any stress on it's sappos- ed dapostoIicalo succession Both her bad boy and her good boy laugh-at that. The
 former tEllery Davenport). discourses as follows .au n1 LsInasa .sss4aa1la 2ob aai
 m'sI don't know how we are any of us to
 gesto heaven now, 2 he said to Miss 4Deb-
 by.Dnss 6upposing want to be, confirmed, I there isn't bishop in America. !"
 Well, don't you think they will send I us our own" said Lady WidQery with a