20 Sept 1811

Jug Util

§.2.

B.II. Under Revelation

Mischief 7.

Ch.9. Antipathy for unbelief

§.2. Mischief no contempt not even Atheism.

To present Atheism idiots should be allowed.

5. Well therefore might he say I came not to bring peace but the sword

6. Non sequitor, even in physical principle, that because such a proposition is true, it is wicked not to believe it.

§.2. Erroneous conception exasporative of this antipathy—notion of contempt to God as if attached to unbelief or misbelief.

Ask for the cause of all this hatred, the cause or remedy, and that cause of course a reason, a justification, the fullest of justifications.

God hath delivered /this/ his word: these infidels will not take /[...?]/ his word: /God, if you believe them, is/ They charge God with being a liar. O horrid blasphemy!

God hath delivered these his commands. These men refuse to obey his commands. Oh mad rebellion /contumers/ God to man an object of contempt! /Omnipotence to human imbecility./

Never was charge more compleatly groundless. In no mans heart in no mans life was God was a liar.

To no man, man or woman was God ever, or can God ever be an object of contempt.

By the Atheist God is no more an object of contempt than to the most jealous theist.

The question take it /on/ in what shape /occasion/ you will is no mere question of judication of inference drawn from evidence. A matter of fact is always in question: in relation to it, /in the eyes of those on one side/ in the one part the affirmative is true: in those of the other, the negative.

1.

Justificative cause assigned for antipathy on the score of unbelief—contempt and disobedience: God’s veracity denied, his will destroyed.

2.

The imputations are groundless.

Not true, that by any man God was ever deemed a liar.

Not true, that to any man he ever was an object of contempt.

To the Atheist not more so than to the Theist.

3.

The question is one of evidence—to some the affirmative is true, to others the negative.