The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1886-10-23
UTTERLY WITHOUT REASON.

and almighty power of God, they may
thus occur forever. Those who depend
on this argument say, that God allows
men to sin, and to suffer as result OF
SHINING, in this life, without interposing
his power to prevent this, although he is
supreme in goodness and might. There
fore he may continue to allow them
thus, hereafter and forever; so that, in
the nature of the case, endless SHINING
and endless suffering are consistent
with the infinite goodness and infinite
power of God.
Astonishing as it is, this argument
is advanced by men of learning and
culture-men who are credited with
strong reasoning powers, and who are
taken to be familiar with the principles
of logic.
The thought involved in this argu-
ment betrays itself as having proceeded
without consideration, or, at least, with
only very shallow consideration for
if the question is well considered, it
must clearly appear, that supreme
goodness and power, in the nature of
the case, infallibly bring, by their eff
fectual working, everything into har-
mony with themselves. If right is alb
solute, as none but a pessimist will de-
ny, all the wrong, and all the pain at
tending the wrong, are limited. Su-
preme right and supreme wrong can
not co-exist. Right being infinite,
wrong is necessarily finite, with all its
evils. 1t eau, in no instance, eternally
dominate the realm of life. If right is
supreme, right must dispossess wrong
and come itself into rule everywhere
and in every being. If justice is su-
preme principle, injustice cannot for
ever rule the being of single object. No
subject of Gods creation and govern
ment can forever oppose God-forever
exercise an unjust, OR an unrighteous
will. If right is supreme, every will
that exists must become right will.
If right is supreme, there certainly is
a tendency in every moral being to-
wards the right; however obscure this
may be to our temporary vision; how
ever slow it may seem in becoming out
wardly manifest; through however
many ages things may proceed before
the right comes uppermost in every
life. But there is nothing obscure to
the infinite eye; nothing slow in the di-
vine operation. An age is but mo-
ment with God. His design and its
fulfllment are one, though to our finite
conception they are wide apart. These
things are necessarily true. Therefore
the existence of wrong, and the pain of
wrong, at any one point in the life of
Gods creatures, affords not the shadow
of ground for an argument to prove
their eternal existence. To-day's pain
is no possible indication of reverend
ing pain. The sin of even lifetime on
earth goes for nothing as ground upon
which to predicate eternal SHINING.
In universe of eternal motion there
can be no such thing as absolute fixed
ness in place or condition, with any
finite being. Conditions change. They
have to change ever with the revolu-
lions of the ages, and with the natural
progress of ideas.
Truth, and the principles and forces
which declare truth, alone are immuta-
BILE. The eternal action of these i'm
mutables is ever working changes in
condition, and ever bringing, through
their eternal action, the mind and the
thought and the will of the creature
into purer and higher degrees of har-
mony with the mind and thought and
will of the Creator. That all these
things may be seen as truths, they need
only be stated. In fact, they are AK
IONS with every rational intellect that
has advanced to the clear sight of one
supreme divinity, eternally existing as
the source and the rule of all else that
is.
How utterly without foundation,
therefore, is the plea still made by so
many, in support of the most savage
and heartless dogma that was ever con-
ceived in the mind of ignorant, super
stitious, and unreasoning ecclesiastics,
during the dark ages of the worlds
religious history How senseless the
argument that because infinite goodness
permits temporary reign of sin and its
consequent pain in the lives of his
children, las he actually does thus for
ends of discipline, and of development
into the higher good), he may, there
fore, and presumably will, permit their
eternal dominion there
Truly, this dodge in logic by learned
divines and professors of theology, in
the interest of this most inhuman dog
ma, is amazing! And when we see
these same divines and professors zeal
ously associate with this dogma, and
zealously insist upon it as evangelical,
that other dogma, that the soul of man
is so constituted and so conditioned,
that unless a certain change, through a
certain device, be brought about within