What
more natural? "We love you," says the theologian to the heathen, "but
still you are children of the devil. We love men, but the human heart is
desperately wicked. We love your souls, but we hate your bodies. We love
you as brothers; but then God, who so loved the world as to give His Son
to die for it, has left the vast majority to follow their own road to
perdition, and given to us a monopoly of truth and grace. We can only
follow His example, and adore the mysterious dispensations of
Providence."
"Ah!" replies a different school, "that is indeed a blasphemous and
hideous doctrine. We will not presume to divide the human from the
divine. God is the father of all men; His grace is confined to no sect
or creed. His revelation is made to the universal human heart as well as
to a select number of prophets and apostles. He is known in the order of
nature as well as by miracles. The body has been created by Him as well
as the soul, and all instincts are of heavenly origin and require
cultivation not extirpation."
Whether this doctrine is reconcilable with Christianity is a question
not to be discussed here.
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