ON CALUMNY. DEAR SIR, PERHAPS there is no vice more prevalent in the present day, or productive of more pernicious effects in society than calumny. If the following extracts from Lucian on that subject be thought worthy of a place in your Miscellany, I request your insertion of them; they may be new to many of your readers, and prove that calumny is not only condemned in the Scriptures, but was also thought a detestable practice by mere heathens. WISBEACH, JANUARY 26, 1800. I am, yours, &c. R. W. APPELLES drew a picture of Calumny. On the right sits a man with long ears, almost as long as those of Midas, stretching forth his hand to Calumny, coming from a distance to meet him. Close to the man are women, the representatives, I suppose, of Ignorance and Suspicion. Calumny makes her advances from the opposite side; a most beautiful female figure, but heated and agitated, full of rage and fury. In her left hand she grasps a burning torch, while, with her right, she drags, by the hair of his head, a young man, who appears in the posture of invoking the gods to bear witness in his behalf. She is preceded by a pale ugly male, with sharp eyes, and emaciated, as if by a long illness-the plain image of Envy. In the train of Calumny are two female attendants, whose business it is to encourage, assist, and set her off to the best advantage. Of these, as my guide informed me, the one was Treachery, the other Deceit. They were followed by another disinal-looking one in a suit of black; her name was Repentance. As Truth was drawing near, she turned away her eyes, and blushed, and wept. And now, if you please, beginning with the outlines, like the painter of Ephesus, we will finish the portrait. Calumny is an accusation unknown to the party accused; and believed, because there is no person present to contradict it. This is the subject to be enlarged on; but as there are three characters to attend to, he who accuses, he who is accused, and he who listens to the accusation, let us examine them separately, and enquire into their respective parts. As to the principal actor, the author of the calumny, every body must allow that he cannot be a good man; because a good man does no injury to his neighbour, but, on the contrary, all the good he can, never encouraging haired or envy, but ways labouring to obviate their bad effects. The slanderer cannot be otherwise than unjust, wicked, and mischievous; because, to be just is to be impartial, a character to which he has no claim. He seizes the hearer, and makes him private property; gets possession of his ears; crams them so full of his story, till they can hold no more-And is not this the very worst of injuries? In this light it appeared to Solon and Draco, and others the most distinguished lawgivers, who accordingly bound the judges by a solemn oath to hear both parties with equal patience, till, by weighing what each had to say for himself, the right might preponderate. To hear the accuser, and be deaf to the accused, by them was accounted profane and impious. But if lawgivers, enjoining impartiality, are less to be regarded than poets, let us hear how one of the best of them lays down the law :- "Hear both, and not before say which is right." He must have been well convinced that, amongst the many evils of life, there cannot be a greater than to condemn a man without allowing him a fair hearing; and yet this is what the slanderer labours to effect with all his might, constantly exposing the absent to the indignation of all present; and in this clandestine manner robbing him of the means of self defence. The slanderer is a coward, who attempts nothing openly; but, assassin as he is, darts upon you from a hidden corner, where you have no power to resist, but must be the sufferer, you know not how, nor why; which is to me a sufficient proof, that the calumniator never has any sufficient ground to support him. If he were conscious of his charge being founded on fact, what should hinder him from meeting the party accused face to face, and arguing the matter openly and fairly? Where is the warrior who has recourse to stratagem and ambuscade, when he thinks himself superior to his enemy in the open field? The tools which the calumniator goes to work with against the absent, are fraud, lying, perjury, importunity, impudence, and a thousand others; but the most to be depended on is flattery, nearly akin, if not full sister, to slander-And where is the man of so noble a nature, of so adamantine a breast, as to be secure against calumny, wearing the mask of adulation? Calumny may then be said to work under ground, undermining his feet, and leaving him nothing to stand on. In this manner the outworks are carried. Meanwhile the enemy is assisted within by numerous traitors, ever ready to lend him a hand, and open the gates; in the first rank of which stands the love of something new, so natural to us all, not to mention the disgust arising from satiety, and next neighbour to a passion for the marvellous. We are all of us mightily pleased too, I know not why, with the thought of being let into a secret, and listening to the whispers of suspicion. With such powerful auxiliaries conquest is easy, and no wonder, for there is none to resist; he who hears believes; and he who is slandered knows nothing of the matter. The victims of calumny, like the people of a citý taken by night, are destroyed before they awake. Whenever we hear a scandalous report, our business is to enquire into the fact, uninfluenced by the age, character, or cunning of the reporter. The more specious his tale, the more strictly it is to be examined. Rel not on the opinion or prejudice of another; but reserve to yourself your own judgment, leaving the talebearer his full share of spleen, while you are to bring forward every circumstance that may be depended on, to fix your approbation or dislike on a solid foundation. To do otherwise is something worse than childish; it is mean; it is unjust. CONSIDERATIONS ON THE ABSOLUTE INFINITY OF HELL TORMENTS. That to the height of this great argument, may assert eternal providence, And ustify the ways of God to man." "Man shall find grace, And shall not grace find means?" MILTON. So sang the poet who the realms explor'd But let an humbler track by ME be trac'd TO THE READER. THE following observations are the result of much serious thought and reflection. For many years past I could not heartily believe the doctrine of eternal punishment by material fire, as generally set forth by writers on that awful subject; neither, on the other hand, could I ever receive the Antinomian dream of universal salvation, without any punishment after death. Both these notions appear to me absurd, and inconsistent with the essential attributes of that great, good, and tremendous being, who, notwithstanding he is, to all impenitent sinners, a consuming fire," is, nevertheless, " loving to every man, and his mercy over all his works." The shadows of life's evening are now coming on me apace.Sensible that the loving kindness of the Lord has, from the earliest period of life, been extended to me in mind, body, and estate, I think it my duty to Him, to my cotemporary friends, and to the rising generation, to state my reasons for believing sentiments by many regarded as heretical, and by some as worthy of an harsher name. Having, therefore, at different and distant times, as the subject expanded and opened to my view, (without any previous plan) thrown together the following pages, I have only to request of those who shall think it worth their while to peruse them, to divest themselves of prejudice, and to examine them with candour and deliberation: and although I am not so vain as to imagine that the reasons which have prevailed with me, will have the same influence on all others, I am greatly mistaken if such do not confess that the doctrine of never ending misery and torment has not so firm a foundation for its support, as it has been generally supposed to have, and therefore will suffer me to exercise, unblamed and uncensured, that privilege, which I wish to allow every man, of thinking for himself, as every one of us must give an account of himself to God. CASTLE LANE, SOUTHWARK, THOMAS DAY. OCTOBER 2, 1792. Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" Gen. xviii. IT has long been my opinion, that a very great portion of what passes current in the world for Christian divinity, is not intrinsically worth a bunch of rushes. It would be an easy task to defend this sentiment by recounting the many contradictions and absurdities interwoven in the systems adopted by different sects and parties. All these may be accounted as "wood, hay, stubble," which, notwithstanding they may be built on the "sure foundation," will nevertheless be burnt, when they are tried by that "fire, which shall try every man's work, of what sort it is." Yet, certainly there is a standard or criterion of divine truth to be found in the Oracles of God, by which we ought to try all doctrines and systems of religion. I adopt it as a fundamental maxim, that "the Scriptures cannot be broken;" and therefore what we find therein laid down as the essential attributes of that infinitely great, good, and unchangeable Being, who is "the Father of the spirits of all flesh," and the supreme Governor of the universe, must certainly be that standard and criterion; to these every doctrine must be brought; by these every doctrine must be judged: and therefore, That no solid argument, to establish the truth of any opinion, can be drawn from the length of time such tenet has been received by, or the universal belief of, any Christian sect or party, is evident from this single consideration, That opinions and tenets, utterly repugnant and contradictory to these and to each other, have been universally believed and received for ages, by different sects of Christians-the doctrines of transubstantiation and absolute reprobation, when contrasted with their opposites, are irrefragable proofs of the truth of this remark. The doctrine of eternal punishment for sin (in the sense generally received) being, in my apprehension, one of those indefensible tenets, it shall be my endeavour, in the following lines, to lay down those reasons which have induced me (notwithstanding the prejudice of education) to believe, That the punishment of the wicked shall have an end, and That the redemption which is by our Lord Jesus Christ, will finally extend to all the hnman race. But first, it is necessary to premise, that I firmly believe "it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God." I believe that "He is not mocked, and that whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he reap;" that "God is a consuming fire" to all impenitent sinners; and, that "he will render to every man according to his works"-" to all who do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil;" and that those who die in their sins, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.” Yet, I believe this punishment will have an end: and shall therefore proceed to lay down my reasons for, and endeavour to answer some of the objections to, my belief. In the first place, then, I take notice, that Adam is universally allowed to be the head and representative of the whole race of inankind; all fell in him; all derive that corruption of nature, the innate propensity to evil from him. He was, consequently, the greatest sinner of the whole human race: but no one ever yet doubted whether Adam was finally saved or not: all suppose him to be personally interested in that original gracious promise, "the seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head." How, then, it can accord, either with the justice, mercy, or promise, of that divine and gracious Being, who so loved the human race, that he gave his only begotten son, as a propitiation for the sins of the whole world, to felicitate the head without the members, the Foot without the branches, is, to ine, an inexplicable mystery! Secondly. We are expressly told by the great apostle, that "God willeth ALL men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth." A doctrine, therefore, of such importance to mankind as the ENDLESS punishment of wicked men, would most certainly have been as soon, as clearly, and as expressly revealed to mankind as the origina promise of redemption, above recited. But I cannot recollect one passage in the Old Testament, which has been, is, or can be construed to have the least reference to this doctrine, before Isaiah and Daniel, who lived near 3600 years from the creation. As, therefore, this doctrine does not appear to have been revealed to mankind either in the patriarchal or Mosaic dispensation, it is (to me at least) a conclusive argument that no such doctrine was promulged during those dispensations, and therefore cannot be founded in truth. Thirdly. The love of " the Father of the spirits of all flesh" is as infinite and unbounded as his power or his wisdom-but I cannot help thinking, notwithstanding all that Calvinists or Arminians have said on this subject, that if, as they represent, so great a proportion of the human race are to be everlastingly miserable, without hope or remedy; it bears exceeding hard on all these his glorious attributes, as it absolutely renders them imperfect-his love will not, his power cannot, and his wisdom knows not how to extricate the creatures his hands have formed, from a state infinitely worse than never to have existed: all which is, in my apprehension, *Horrid to think, more horrible to tell!" "But an infiinte God requires an infinite satisfaction." This I have indeed heard strongly asserted by very eminent divines-I answer, Where is this written? I never could find it in the Bible, from the beginning of Genesis to the end of Revelations ! Yet suppose we grant this extraordinary position-Jesus is that infinite satisfaction-and he is the propitiation, not for believers only, but for the sins of the whole world." Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin (the aggregate sin) of the world." The JUSTICE of God, therefore, cam VOL. IV, E |