REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS
(Part of the Collection, Kersey's Essays)
Jesse Kersey
Taken From A Narrative of the Early Life, Travels, and Gospel Labors
of Jessey Kersey, Late of Chester County, Pennsylvania. Philadelphia:
T. Ellwood Chapman, 1851, pages 268-271.
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[P. 268] In reflecting upon the doctrine of rewards and punishments, it has
presented as a clear case that it never was consistent with the attributes
of the Deity to [P. 269] impose suffering upon any of his creatures. But
he has done all that could be done to make all parts of his creation happy;
and therefore all the misery that we experience is the consequence of our
own misconduct. In the formation of man it appears that it was consistent
with the wisdom of his great Author to constitute him a being capable of
devotion; and to this end he gave to him an amount of freedom agreeing with
the capacity that he was endued with. Hence he would think for himself, and
make his own elections by following his passions and appetites, and indulging
them, he would run into excesses, and those excesses would produce their
own sufferings. Experience teaches us that every act has its consequence.
Thus we find a motive for self-government, and as we learn on the one hand
that every improper indulgence produces misery, so we find on the other that
the more we become subject to the principle of self-government, the greater
is our happiness. In those two cases of fact we have full proof that it is
not the pleasure of the Creator that we should be sufferers, but that he
has done all that could be done consistent with the nature or-our being to
render us completely happy. Had we been created without any portion of freedom,
we could never have known or enjoyed devotional feelings, but must have moved
along in life as mere machines. Having then a devotional capacity, it must
follow that when all our experience proves the goodness of God to us in giving
us the means of happiness, that this knowledge should excite the highest
sense of obligation, and of course the most pure devotion and love to God.
If we were obliged to contemplate him in any other light, it would have the
most melancholy effect upon us. [P. 270] Finding, then, that by regarding
the light of Truth and walking in it, we give energy and dominion to our
more exalted and higher nature, and witnessing daily the consequence to be
a complete quietude of the passions, and the most perfect possession of
intellectual happiness, we are thus united to the great Fountain of spiritual
good, and are one with our glorious author. We cannot believe, while possessing
this blessed state, that it ever was any part of the design or purpose of
God to render any part of his creation miserable. Of course we must be convinced
that all the miseries of mankind are the fruit of their own doings. According
to those views it will appear that there is nothing in the attributes of
God that ever can consist with dealing out penalties and afflictions upon
his finite creatures. Hence we come to the belief that because it was necessary
in order to our own preservation, that evil and folly should bring sufferings
upon us as a consequence, or otherwise we should never be brought out of
it; therefore those sufferings themselves are demonstrations of the goodness
and mercy of God to man. The truth appears to be that in every case where
we witness suffering, there is no more of it than seems necessary to promote
their own good. In looking into the human composition, and considering it
in agreement with the foregoing sentiments, we find an admirable proof of
the sublimity and greatness of the Christian system. By this we are taught
to believe that we have to control all our animal passions, in order to become
acceptable to God: and by our own positive practical knowledge we are convinced
that our happiness can never be completed by sensual indulgences. The obligations
of Christianity and those that are found from the operation [P. 271] of the
laws of our nature, both prove that they have the same origin; that is, the
wisdom that dictated the christian path of duty, and that fixed the consequences
of sensual excess is one and the same. Therefore, however the reputed
philosopher, or the common sceptic may point the finger of derision at the
humble and self denying follower of the Son of God, it is impossible for
himself to be happy in any other course of life than that which is adopted
by the latter. But we are told that there must be some mistake on the part
of those who would prohibit the indulgence of the passions and appetites
of nature. "Why," say they, "were they given, if they must .be kept in such
strict subordination?" The answer is not difficult, because it is easy to
prove that the same wisdom and power that gave those dispositions, has set
for them the requisite boundary, and no man can pass it without bringing
upon himself consequences of a suffering kind. From which we might expect
every enlightened individual would surely be convinced that the precepts
themselves that are taught by Christianity have flowed from the same fountain
of perfect wisdom.