The celestial magnet

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Preface

I choose to inform the reader of the following sheets, that the opinions, which some have pretended to entertain of the first part of the Celestial Magnet, are far from giving me the least discouragement in my quest of truth. When pure conviction wafts the understanding down the peaceful current of truth; or in scripture metaphor, when the soul is moved along solely by the light of evidence (the only light, says Locke, ever known to the mind*) it can fear no evil.

The sentiments, which I have advanced, are by no means new, though every individual may not, without some reflection, recognise them as having often passed his mind. The careful reader, however, will find them, like solitary spires of wheat, amid fields of tares, scattered through the writings of Jews, Gentiles, and Christians. To clear away the rubbish, which has, in some measure, concealed them from the majority of people, and to give them a collected form, is all I ever thought of accomplishing. I have, from the commencement of my writing, felt equally as ready, and thought it equally as much a duty and pleasure to acknowledge an error as to publish a truth. I do not offer this type of my sentiments, this mere shadow of what I think, to be the truth, as a rule of faith and action to any man. The Deity has furnished every man with an understanding competent to the investigation of truth, and it would be impious in me to attempt to rob him of the pleasure of exercising that understanding.

Nothing but the pure light of evidence, can reveal real truth to the human understanding. And so far am I from wishing any man, to make any of mj writings, a measure of his faith, that had 1 lungs of brass, an iron tongue, and a voice of thunder, \ would say, lean not on man, a mere arm of flesh. To my own master, I must stand or fall. The evidence, which has been let into my mind, upon the truths which I have merely transcribed, is sufficient to convince me, that they are not errors.

* Volume 2d. chapter on enthusiasm, section 13, "Light, true light in the mind, is, or can be, nothing else but the evidence of the truth of any proposition. To talk of anv other light in the understanding is to put ourselves in darkoeis."

CELESTIAL MAGNET.

Many serious attempts have been made, todevelepe and to illustrate some one universal principle, in which all mankind have been and are found to agree, in which they all have an involuntary belief, and which they all receive as a rule of action. But these attempts have, in general, failed of their object, inasmuch as they have developed no principle of sufficient universality to satisfy the minds of all denominations and sects of men. Some parls of the scriptures describe the true principle

Thus has a large part of mankind, been troubled and perplexed, from time immemorial, to find something in every individual of our species, which may justly be regarded as a foundation for divine complacency, and which may render man a candidate for salvation from sin. What stumbles most people, is the wonderful variety and often complete opposition of the opinions, customs, and disciplines, which different ages and nations have and do now receive as sacred, and regard as essential to their present happiness and future welfare.

But the moment man is made to take his proper grade in the scale of being, and to hold his just relation to his God, this long day of dreariness and perplexity to the human mind clears away, and the great luminary of truth pours in, its divine rays, to the full satisfaction of every individual.

Although man forms the highest link of that vast chain of being, so indicative of infinite wisdom and omnipotent power, he nevertheless possesses many properties, instincts, passions, and performs many actions in common with those animals which are inferior to him, in his capacities to improve, to enjoy, and to communicate. And so far as man possesses a nature in common with the lower species of animals, just so far does the Deity treat him as a member of the animal race. For if a part of our species be thrown without their consent into such a combination of circumstances and kind of education, that they are without compunction bred up to possess the blind ferocity of the lion, the rapacity of the tiger, or the venom of the asp, they are no more accountable for the possession of this nature, than the lion is for his ferocity, the tiger for his rapacity, or the asp for his venom. Such men are as well pleased with their natures, as though they had been as harmless and as pure as those of the highest beings on earth.

This idea serves to illustrate that profound saying of Jesus Christ, when he said to the Jews, that such and such practices and dispositions were, by the Deity, permitted to exist for the hardness of their hearts. The Deity permits wars and all other kinds of misery to exist now, for the same reasons and precisely in the same way, among other nations. Could men choose the places of their birth, their instructors, iheir models for imitation, and the opinions to be instilled intotheir minds, and still posess such brutish natures, they might then possibly and even probably be guil'y of great iniquity. But in these respects, they have no more choice, nor is it possible for them to have any more, than in the order and variety of the seasons.

All that the Deity requires of men, is to act according to that kind and that measure of knowledge, which they have given them. If they have not advanced beyond the instinctive knowledge of the mere animal, if they have not as yet arrived to that point of improvement, where moral sentiment begins, they are in each of these degrees of knowledge, if they perfectly improve them, as perfect as he who has arriven to the summit of moral perception, and has improved every particle of his knowledge. Or if they never pass the boundary of instinct, but live and die like the lamb or the lion, they will be treated by divine wisdom as subjects of the same famdy.

Let no man think, that by these comparisons. I am endeavouring to prove that the souls of the lower orders of the human species, are to be annihilated. The whole scope of what I have said goes to prove the reverse. And 1 must have more reasons and stronger reasoning than 1 have ever yet seen, to convince me that the spirits oftbe brute creation are annihilated at the dissolution of their houses of clay. Nor is this a peculiar opinion,* it is one congenial with the tenderness of the human soul, and is the belief of many christians and philosophers.

But it is a matter of fact, as well as a sentiment flowing from our persuasion of the benevolence of ihe Deity, that He treats and provides for the different mental states of the same species, on the same principle that He does the different states if individuals of different species, i. e. according to their obedience or disobedience to that kind and measure of knowledge, which He has given them. This principle was recognised and most beautifully illustrated by Jesus Christ, in his parable of the talents given to the ten servants. The first was apparently in a state of infancy, just arriving to the exercise of his understanding, and to him was entrusted only one.

* It may be found in Bishop Butler's Analogy of Nature.

talent. The second had made a farther advancement, which was estimated at two talents, and so on to the tenth, who probably had reached the highest degree of Divine knowledge. The Deity does not treat his creatures according to the merits of those classes and sects into which men have divided themselves, but according to their individual deserts. — - This was the idea of Jesus, when he said to the Jews, M had 1 not come to you, ye should not have sinned, but now ye have no cloak for your sins. Had those jews, to whom, he then spoke, been deprived of his instruction, they would have remained in their old practices without a conviction of their sinfulness, and would have been permitted, by God, to go uncondemned.

1 see no reason, why a variety in the conduct and dispositions of the same species, should be any more a matter of wonder, or unaccountableness, than a perfect uniformity would be. For a variety is created by causes equally beyond the control of the individual, and which are equally as much the appointment of the Deity. We should think him very unwise, who should ask why all the animal tribes, were not made of one and the same species. But the same power, which makes one animal a lion, another a tiger, another a lamb, makes one man a Hindoo, another a Chinese, another an Indian, and another a Christian, but makes no man a liar, a thief, or a robber, these characters must bear the burthen of their own iniquities. When Christ taught this doctrine to the narrow, bigotted Jews, he was reviled by them, and they said " this man is a sinner, who can hear him." If the holy Jesus was called a sinful man, for publishing this doctrine, how much more shall I be. But let men throw off their narrow, measured systems of salvation from sin. and come down to the plain, simple truth, or unqestionable matters of fact, and they will find, that this doctrine has a foundation more solid and immoveable than the mountains.

What meaning is there in asking, how the Indian or the Bramin can be saved from his sins ? Perhaps, such has been his oppressed situation and low condition, that he has not yet a rived to the period of understanding, or to a knowledge of good and evil, or is not capable of being governed by any higher rule of action, than is his dog, his cow, or his infant child. There is nothing very repulsive in the idea, that a human being may, through the whole course of a long life, act from mere instinct, like idiots and children. This kind of action as evidently supposes the immediate direction and control of the Deity, as the highest degree of inspiration, and in my mind is much of the same nature. Jesus commanded his disciples to return to the innocence and simplicity of little children, who seem to have nothing but pure feeling to act by, a feeling created by the immediate power of God. But the moment the creature arrives to a knowledge of evil, and has actually committed it, the only way given or known under heaveti to be saved from it, is to confess it, and to turn from it. This is the way, that Christ insisted on as the only true way. And this way is unavoidably known to every one who has committed sin.

We read in ancient history of a certain description of human beings (or as some have called them, inhuman beings) denominated cannibals or eaters of human flesh. T his class of beings, at first view, have the appearance of being destitute of the least possible degree of moral perception (that is, a perception between good and evil) and it is not impossible, but that this might have been the case, though, in my mind, it is not at all probable. How to dispose of these and the like characters among our numerous species, so as to justify them in any degree, in the sight of Deity, has been a puzzlingchain with many, nearly ever since the good news of Jesus were promulgated in the towns and cities of Judea. But this simple and benevolent principle, viz. that the Deity treats his creatures according to their obedience or disobedience to that kind and measure of knowledge, which He has given them, is broad enough to admit the faithful even among these wild, carniverous infants of our species into a full participation of all that Divine favour, which those experience, who leaving all that's earthly, have entered into the more pure and unsullied kingdom of God. As many of these cannibals as have improved that talent of knowledge, which they have received (no matter through what instruments or manner of education) " are good and faithful servants, and have entered into the joy of their Lord." But the moment that the magnet of Divine truth began to tremble in the breast of any of these seemingly cruel beings, and to stand strongly for the harbour of integrity , justice and mercy, they that moment became answerable and punishable for their iniquities. Those beings most certainly had no more sins to be saved from, than they had actually committed, and were actually sensible of. For a salvation from sin, supposes a conviction of sin. else the brute creation stand in need of salvation as well as men.

It must be recollected, that the distinction of species and genera into which the vast chain of beings has been divided, is the work of men ; and that the Deity does not deal with his creatures according to the divisions and subdivisions of men, but individually and according to the good, or bad use, which they have made of that talent, which he has given them. Men do not shorter, the work ol the I)eii\ bj iheir division* and subdivisions of his creatures, however philosophical or ingenious. He acts in reference to none of their doings, but according to his own good will and pleasure.

Undoubtedly, many of our day would be almost confounded, should they be informed that something like the cannibalism of which I have been speaking, existed, or was in danger of existing, under all the light of the covenant ol Moses, and of the instruction of the Jewish priesthood. The 27th, 28th, and 29th verses of the twenty-sixth chapter of Leviticus, reads thus — s * And if ye will not for all this hearken unto me, but walk contrary unto me ; then will 1 walk contrary unto you also, in my fury, and I, (God,) even I, will chastise }ou seven times for your sins, and ye shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters shall ye oat." li this state of things could exist among individuals of the Jewish nation ; and if these individuals could still be in a salvable state, it should be no kind of marvel, that the same state of things can exist at other periods, and in other parts of the world, upon the same principle. The verses above quoted represent rather a degenerate state of the Israelites, than an uncultivated state : and the degeneracy here implied, is represented as preparing them for this lamentable act ofmUery. Had they been bred up to this conduct, like those animals, which instinct impels to prey upon each other, they would have been* like those carmverous tribes, justified in the mind of Deity. For in the Words of the pious Young, they

" Who do the best their circumstance allow, 4 * Do well, act nobly ; angels could no more."

But the Jews having departed from their integrity, grew gradually in iniquity, till the misery of their degeneracy was but a just, and an equitable punishment for their wickedness.

How insufficient is any one rode of human laws, or even any one thousand, or one million of codes, to reach the mental slates and the various degrees of the improvements of the human species. Mm as an individual is continually passing out of one state of existence into another, somewhat new and untried; and if he resigns himself, unreservedly, to the light of evidence, even day, every moment, seems to give hirn a new birth; and like our noble ancestor, Columbus, he, ingenuous, sing* his jojous Te Deum at his entry into every new world. Not so he who is confined to the circular marches of an idolised theory : his faculties seem rather to wither and decay at every step, aud far from progressing, they ignobly and selfishly remain in the womb of everlasting immaturity .^ Who, but Thou, O mighty God, art able to govern, to reward, and to punish (his vast chain of being, which from Thee began.

It has been an inexplicable mystery with many, how man can be capable of inheriting, receiving, or contracting such a state of mind, as to punish, torture and even to slay his fellowmen and himself, and still feel justified and innocent in his doings. But perhaps, to these very persons, it is no mystery, how animals of a lower order, impelled by an instinct from God, can prey upon each other, or how a man can lose hissight, and in consequence of it fail from a precipice, and end his existence, or how the Deity Can send a pestilence, a fam» ine, or an earthquake, and destroy thousands of beings at once. The truth of the matter is, that men try to solve these things upon a wrong principle, and get perplexed and bewildered like the young arithmetician, who attempts to divide his shillings to get them into pence.

Men grow up like trees, according to the soil in which they are planted ; they differ in colour, in features and in stature ; and in most of the opinions, and sentiments, which they imbibe, they have no more choice and agency, than they have in the growth of their bodies, or in the proportion and consistency of their features. The Hindoo walks up to the flames of death with the same composure, and from the same principle, that he walks up to the table of refreshment. The Chinese puts the fatal knife to the neck of his aged sire, with the same composure, and from the ^ame principle, that he puts the foot of his infant into an iron shoe, or bathes himself in the refreshing river. The Christian warriour who is sincere, marches up in the front of death, and sheathes his bayonet in the bosom of his brother, with the same composure, and from the same principle, that he seats himself at the table of his Lord. All happy, all without a compunction. O mysterious Deity, how unbounded is. thy mercy, how marvellous is thy wisdom. O may I ever receive the rod from thy hand, with as much love as 1 do thy greatest blessings. It appears to matter not what our natures are, provided they are innocent, happy, and the gifts of God.

On the principle, that mer are dealt with according to their obedience, or disobedience to that kind and measure of knowledge, which they possess, and on no other principle, can the covenant, the conduct, and the dispositions of Moses and the Israelites, be justified and regarded as divine. This system of religious policy, and its subjects have been the common mark, at which the shafts of malignant and shallow philosophy, have for ages, been hurled. No doubt, but that n

in many respects, it was a bloody system, but no more so than many now in existence. It was the best that Moses and the Israelites were capable of receiving, and consequently, was founded upon philosophical and divine principles. But stiil the person, who reads many of the laus and commands of the old covenant, however divine in their origin, will be ready to say that the new and better covenant, of which Jesus Christ was the mediator, was seasonably introduced. This covenant, (instead of binding whole nations, like the former, which was but a shadow of the new) binds every individual immediately to his God, makes him a king over the province of his own heart, and a priest to get his knowledge immediately from his God. It is not in writing.

But according to that palpable and unwarranted assumption of many Calvinists, " that the Deity judges all mankind by the same identical rule,"* which some of our species never knew, and many never were capable of knowing, the whole system of Moses, must be considered as impious. No wonder that they tremble so much at infidelity, when the brittle, silken thread upon which they hang, is of their own spinning, and perhaps will break of itself, even under the soundest slumbers of infidelity* How can the Calvinist reconcile with his scholastick rule of salvation, this statuie which Moses delivered in the name of Go J. Levit. chap. xxi. 9(b. verse. '* And the daughter of any pile st. if she profane herself by playing; the harlot, she profanetk her father : she shall be burnt with fir eS** A funeral pile prepared for the daughter of a clergyman, or a layman, would at this day, let her be ever so great a prostitute, be insupportable. The dullest sympathies of the pirate, would be so roused at such a spectacle, that he would involuntarily drag the victim trom the angry flames. That this Mosaic statute was of divine authority, 1 have no doubt, but it originated in a time, and was applicable to a people, which do not now exist, in Christendom, though they may in other parts of the world.

A class of men called Christians, long ago threw off the burdensome garb of the Mosaic covenant, as they did their woollen garments ai the arrival of the vernal season, and left nothing remaining, but that divine principle of truth, which convinces every man of his sins and justifies him in his integrity. John the Baptist planted the seeds of righteousness, Jesus of Nazereth watered and nurtured the scions, and his disciples prepared them for the garner of God Thus, step after step, one dispensation preparing for another, did human forms, and rules, and disciplines recede, till the subjects

* I mean the bible.

of the gospel triumphantly sang "the kingdom of God is truly come on eartn." But soon the scene changed ; the veil of sVloses began again gradually to be let down, and form after form, rule after rule, and creed after creed, was gradually enforced ; the slumber of- death soon commenced ; chains of slavery Were forged amid the general slumber, and men shrouded in a lethargy, fatal to their improvement, knew hut little of their condition till Fenelon, Molinos and Fox announced again the rising of the sun of righteousness.

In my father's house, said the Divine Jesus, are many mansions : had it not been so 1 would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you i. e. by my going away, your dependance on my personal instruction will be cut off, and placed on God, who alone can admit you into his kingdom. In other places, it is said that the heart of man is the house or temple of God. consequently, by many mansions, he must have meant that there were many different states of the human soul equally acceptable to the divine being, and that by his goin^ away their acceptability would be perfected. God is represented as coming into this world in the form of a servant, but this must be a fieure, for where could He come from? Is He any more present in any other world, than in this? He comes in the form of a servant to every heart that will hear, and receive what he brings, viz : a robe of righteousness. By the phrase, coming, &c. nothing more could have been meant, than a new perception of his power in consequence of the abolition of the veil of prejudice in the human mind. The kingdom of God is represented as being withm those, who obey him in heart. These scriptures clearly show the difference between the Christian's heaven and the Mahometan's, which is a place of locality, and consequently at a certain distance, and in a certain direction from the earth. But to conclude ; let no man think, that God will justify him in his sins: No, Pe commands all who know what sin is, to flee from it a6 from a deadly thing. He never will let the ftithful go unrewarded, nor the guilty escape the punishment of their iniqui- ,4ie&.

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JSY DAVID F. SLACK*

Proud men, suppress your scorn, forget my youth, Weigh well my reasons, and then judge their truth j If these you find scholastick, or unsound. Point out their weakness, and I'll yield the ground,

PROVIDENCE I

Printed by Miller & Hutchens, No. 1, Market- Square, up stairs, 1821.

PREFACE.

1 have chosen the celebrated John Locke to preface this number of the Magnet. Speaking of a particular class of men whose understandings had been cast into a mould and fashioned just to the size of a received hypothesis, he makes the following admirable remarks. " Would it not be an insufferable thing for a learned professor, and that which his scarlet would blush at, to have his authority of forty years standing, wrought out of hard Greek and Latin, with no small expense of time and candle, and confirmed by general tradition and a reverend beard, in an instant overturned by an upstart novelist ! Can any one expect that ne should be made to confess, that what he taught his scholars forty years ago was all error and mistake ; and that he sold them hard words and ignorance at a very dear rate ? What probabilities I say, are sufficient to prevail in such a case. And who ever, by the most cogent arguments, will be prevailed with, to disrobe himself at once of all his old opinions and pretences to knowledge and learning, which, with hard study, he hath been labouring for, and turn himself out stark naked in quest of fresh or new notions ? All the arguments that can be used, will be as little able to prevail, as the wind did with the traveller to p3rt with his cloak, which he held only the faster."

" Earthly minds, like mud walls, resist the strongest batteries ; and though, perhaps, sometimes the force of a clear argument may make some impression, yet they nevertheless stand firm, and keep out the enemy truth, that would captivate or disturb them." To the above, I shall make no addition.

Introduction

As the subsequent dissertation is rather intended to expose the .aise opinions of others than to establish a new system, some candid persons may think, that it does away all their religion, and that they have nothing in it offered them, as a rule of faith and duty. But if such is the nature of your religion, whoever you are, that it can be done away by the power of human invention and reason, the sooner you realize its destruction the better and the safer it will be for you. If you harbour such fearful apprehensions as these, is it not a clear indication, that you look not for the kingdom of heaven where only it is to be found ; that is, in your own hearts, the true and only temple and throne of Almighty God. And if you are looking for any other kingdom of God than that within you, your hopes and fears are of your own fabrication, and will assuredly fail you.

But if, in scripture metaphor, you suffer your old heaven and earth to be done away, and regard the kingdom of God as a grain of mustard seed placed in the heart of man (however unfashionable this glorious kingdom may appear, thus reduced) you are on that rock, where the frightful surges of calumny and falsehood may beat, but cannot remove you. — On the other hand, if the temple of your hearts is not so far swept of its wickedness, fraud, injustice and deceit, and garnished with confession, restitution and repentance, as to admit that little seed of divine power and counsel, called conscience, to discharge its office, unimpeded by your obstinacy and self-importance, you have closed the door of God's kingdom against yourselves.

1 believe that all our knowledge of the Deity and of religion amounts in the commencement of it to no more than this, there is a powerful something in the human mind which makes a distinction among our thoughts, affections and actions, into what is called right and wrong. This powerful something which makes this distinction is no less and no other, than the God whom all men obey or disobey, by whom all men are tormented or made happy, a power over which we have no control.

We have power to remember or not to remember, to reason or not to reason, to reflect or not to reflect. But in spite of all our power, we are convicted if we do some things, and approved if we do others. Some attribute these convictions and approbations to conscience, by which, they say, they mean no more than a faculty of the mind. But if conscience is no more than a capacity of the mind, and at the same time the origin of conviction and approbation, why have not men power to use and govern this capacity, to convict and approve themselves at their pleasure ? Nothing is more evident, than that, when men speak of the stings, the convictions, and the approbations of conscience, they include in this term, besides a capacity of the mind, an omnipotent, omnipresent, uncontrolable power, which is as distinct from the mind as light is from the eye, and which, by acting upon a capacity of the mind, produces the sense of right and wrong, in like manner as the light of the sun, acting upon the eye, produces the phenomena of vision ; whence the foundation and propriety of that figurative expression in scripture, *" God is light."