John Hayward

“ This is true religion, which is the perfection of human nature, and the joy and delight of every one that feels it active and strong within him. It is true, this is not arrived at all at once, and it will have an unhappy alloy, hanging long even about a good man; but, as those ill mixtures are the perpetual grief of his soul, so that it is his chief care to watch over and to mortify them, he will be in a continual progress, still gaining ground upon himself; and as he attains to a degree of purity, he will find a noble flame of life and joy growing up in him. ”

“ And one would imagine there needed not one word more to satisfy a reasonable man of this than the ancient promise, ‘Then will I circumcise thy heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.’ How clearly does this express the being perfected in love!—how strongly imply the being saved from all sin! ”

“ What raises Christ and his religion far above all the fictions of Mahomet, is that awful alternative of hopes and fears, that looking-for of judgment, which our Christian faith sets before us. At that day, when time, the great arbiter of truth and falsehood, shall bring to pass the accomplishment of the ages, and the Son of God shall make his enemies his footstool,—then shall the deluded followers of the great Impostor, disappointed of the expected intercession of their prophet, stand trembling and dismayed at the approach of the glorified Messiah. ”

“ Self-love is the source of all profaneness and impiety in the world, and of all pride and ambition among men, which is nothing but selfishness, acted out in this particular way. This is the foundation of all covetousness and sensuality, as it blinds people's eyes, contracts their hearts, and sinks them down, so that they look upon earthly enjoyments as the greatest good. This is the source of all falsehood, injustice, and oppression, as it excites mankind by undue methods to invade the property of others. ”

“ All united in the cheering hope that, in the fulness of the dispensation of times, sin will be finished, transgression ended, and all moral intelligences reconciled to God, in true holiness and everlasting happiness. A view so grand and glorious, so full of comfort, of joy, and of peace, and so triumphant, was sufficiently powerful to draw together all who enjoyed it, and to hold them together as a denomination distinct from all those who hold the unmerciful doctrine of endless punishment. ”

“ The history of this people certainly forms a striking evidence of the truth of divine revelation. They are a living and perpetual miracle, continuing to subsist as a distinct and peculiar race for upwards of three thousand years, intermixed among almost all the nations of the world, flowing forward in a full and continued stream, like the waters of the Rhone, without mixing with the waves of the expansive lake through which the passage lies to the ocean of eternity. ”

“ What would the world think of a man that should advance such an opinion as this, and write a book for it? If they would do him right, they ought to look upon him as mad; but yet with a little more reason than any man can have to say that the world was made by chance, or that the first men grew up out of the earth as plants do now. ”

“ They advocate the most perfect toleration. They regard charity as the crowning Christian grace,—the end of the commandment of God. They consider a pure and lofty morality as not only inseparable from true religion, but the most acceptable service that man can render to his Maker, and the only indubitable evidence of a believing heart.
They believe that sin is its own punishment, and virtue its own rewarder; that the moral consequences of a man's good or evil conduct go with him into the future life, to afford him remorse or satisfaction ”

“ But I do believe that sin, universally, is no other than selfishness, or a preference of one's self to all others,—of some inferior good to God; that this free, voluntary preference is a permanent principle of action in all the unconverted; and that this is sin, and all that in the Scriptures is meant by sin. I also believe that such is the nature of the human mind, that it becomes the occasion of universal sin in men in all the appropriate circumstances of their existence, and that, therefore, they are truly and properly said to be sinners by nature. ”

“ There seems to be an evident propriety in calling all who believe in the final holiness and happiness of all mankind, Universalists. There appears no good reason why those who believe in a limited punishment, in the future state, should have a less or a greater claim to be called Universalists, than those who entertain a hope that all sin and misery end when the functions of life cease in the mortal body. ”

“ The worship of saints is such an abomination in heaven, that, if they only hear it, they are filled with horror; since, as far as worship is ascribed to any man, so far it is withheld from the Lord; for thus, he alone is not worshipped; and, if the Lord alone is not worshipped, a discrimination is made, which destroys communion, and the happiness of life flowing from it. That I might know what the Roman Catholic saints are, in order that I might make it known, as many as a hundred were brought forth from the earth below, who knew of their canonization. ”

“ Doddridge, indeed, has this striking remark—“That a Being who is said not to tempt any one, and even swears that he desires not the death of a sinner, should irresistibly determine millions to the commission of every sinful action of their lives, and then, with all the pomp and pageantry of a universal judgment, condemn them to eternal misery, on account of these actions, that hereby he may promote the happiness of others who are, or shall be, irresistibly determined to virtue, in the like manner, is of all incredible things to me the most incredible!” ”

“ So that, by religion, I mean such a sense of divine truth as enters into a man, and becomes the spring of a new nature within him; reforming his thoughts and designs; purifying his heart; sanctifying and governing his whole deportment, his words as well as his actions; convincing him that it is not enough not to be scandalously vicious, or to be innocent in his conversation, but that he must be entirely, uniformly, and constantly, pure and virtuous, animated with zeal to be still better and better, more eminently good and exemplary. ”

“ I believe it is revealed in the best possible manner for all people, in every age and under every circumstance, to understand, and that it is to be understood as literal as it can be and make good sense; and that in every case where the language is figurative, we must let the Bible explain its own figures. We are in no case allowed to speculate on the Scriptures, and suppose things which are not clearly expressed, nor reject things which are plainly taught. I believe all of the prophecies are revealed to try our faith, and to give us hope, without which we could have no reasonable hope. ”

“ I moreover believe that God, according to the counsel of his own will, and for his own glory, hath foreordained whatsoever comes to pass, and that all beings, actions, and events, both in the natural and moral world, are under his providential direction; that God's decrees perfectly consist with human liberty, God's universal agency with the agency of man, and man's dependence with his accountability; that man has understanding and corporeal strength to do all that God requires of him; so that nothing but the sinner's aversion to holiness prevents his salvation ”

“ In all these different sections, their leading purpose, at first, appears to have been, not so much to establish any peculiar or distinctive doctrine, as to assert for individuals and churches more liberty and independence in relation to matters of faith and practice; to shake off the authority of human creeds, and the shackles of prescribed modes and forms; to make the Bible their only guide, claiming for every man the right to judge for himself what is its doctrine, and what are its requirements; and in practice to follow more strictly the simplicity of the apostles and primitive Christians. ”

“ I believe in practical godliness, as commanded us in the Scriptures, (which are our only rule of faith and practice,) and that they only will be entitled to heaven and future blessedness, who obey and keep the commandments of God, as given us in the Bible, which is the word of God. I believe in God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is a Spirit, omnipresent, omniscient, having all power, Creator, Preserver, and self-existent. ”

“ He walks, runs, and sits, as in the former world; he lies down, sleeps, and wakes up, as in the former world; he eats and drinks, as in the former world; he enjoys conjugial delight, as in the former world; in a word, he is a man as to all and every particular; whence it is manifest, that death is not an extinction, but a continuation, of life, and that it is only a transition. ”

“ How long might a man be in sprinkling colors upon canvass with a careless hand, before they would happen to make the exact picture of a man! And is a man easier made by chance than his picture? How long might twenty thousand blind men, who should be sent out from several remote parts of England, wander up and down before they would all meet upon Salisbury Plain, and fall into rank and file in the exact order of an army! ”

“ Our country is the world, our countrymen are all mankind. We love the land of our nativity only as we love all other lands. The interests, rights, liberties of American citizens, are no more dear to us than are those of the whole human race. ”