HKB
if no such judgment will ever take place, admitting all this, even then should I stand in the same relation to my fellow beings in a moral point of view.
Christian preachers, generally, teach their hearers the entire worthlessness of good works, without they are connected with faith in the Gospel. This mode of treating unbelievers has a bad effect on the minds of church members, who, giving full credit to the pastor of the flock, are taught to consider that the person, or persons (however just, humane and virtuous they may be in all their actions,) who do not come up to the standard of their faith, are wicked, and will, at the day of judgment, be condemned, and their sentence will be, "Go, ye cursed, into everlasting fire." &c. We need not wonder, therefore, at the intolerant spirit which is so active among all professing the Christian name. Notwithstanding the moral precepts taught by Jesus, his followers, at the present day, pay but little regard to them. To believe in the Saviour, and consider him as the endorser of their sins, and presenting their claims at the throne of the Eternal, form an easy way for expiating a life of wickedness and cant. If we compare the moral character of professing Christians with the precepts taught by Jesus, we shall be surprised at the vast discordance between their profession and their practice. We find that, in practice, Christianity is hostile to justice and humanity.
This is easy to be accounted for. It is because the Scriptures represent our most virtuous actions as worthless in the sight of God, and without faith we are told it is impossible to please him; and this is not all: much depends on what kind of faith it is. The followers of John Calvin think the faith of the disciples of John Wesley but little better than the faith of devils, "who believe and tremble." It has been because men have judged by their faith, and not by moral rectitude, that one Christian sect has persecuted even to death, others who have borne the Christian name. It was this spirit of intolerance that propelled John Calvin to cause Servetus to be burnt by a slow fire, not because he was a wicked man, nor was it for want of faith in the Christian religion, but because the faith of Servetus did not agree with the faith of John Calvin. Had moral excellence been the standard of their friendship, and virtue the bond of their union, Servetus would have died in peace, and Calvin would not have been handed down to posterity as a cold-hearted murderer.
It is the common practice of Christians, when in conversation with Infidels, to boast of the purity of Christ's moral precepts; but in all their sayings and doings with Infidels, the want of faith is the unpardonable crime which induces them to fix the badge of infamy on the head of the unbeliever. No doubt cruel Calvin would very good-naturedly shake hands with a brother of his own church and creed, and love him for Christ's sake; but at the same time torment poor Servetus to death, as the enemy of God, for God's sake. Oh! ye persecuting Christians! your prayers ought ever to be opposed to a day of judgment, and your constant hope should be, that it will never take place, for "how can you escape the damnation of hell?"