"Liberty, a word without which--All other words are vain."
Whoever has an opinion of his own, and honestly expresses it, will be
guilty of heresy. Heresy is what the minority believe; it is a name
given by the powerful to the doctrine of the weak. This word was born
of the hatred, arrogance, and cruelty of those who love their enemies,
and who, when smitten on one cheek, turn the other. This word was born
of intellectual slavery in the feudal ages of thought. It was an
epithet used in the place of argument. From the commencement of the
Christian era, every art has been exhausted, and every conceivable
punishment inflicted to force all people to hold the same religious
opinions. This effort was born of the idea that a certain belief was
necessary to the salvation of the soul. Christ taught, and the church
still teaches, that unbelief is the blackest of crimes. God is
supposed to hate with an infinite and implacable hatred, every heretic
upon the earth, and the heretics who have died are supposed, at this
moment, to be suffering the agonies of the damned. The church
persecutes the living, and her God burns the dead.
It is claimed that God wrote a book called the bible, and it is
generally admitted that this book is somewhat difficult to understand.
As long as the church had all the copies of this book, and the people
were not allowed to read it, there was comparatively little heresy in
the world; but when it was printed and read, people began honestly to
differ as to its meaning. A few were independent and brave enough to
give the world their real thoughts, and for the extermination of these
men the church used all her power. Protestants and Catholics vied with
each other in the work of enslaving the human mind. For ages they were
rivals in the infamous effort to rid the earth of honest people. They
infested every country, every city, town, hamlet, and family. They
appealed to the worst passions of the human heart. They sowed the
seeds of discord and hatred in every land. Brother denounced brother,
wives informed against their husbands, mothers accused their children,
dungeons were crowded with the innocent; the flesh of the good and true
rotted in the clasp of chains, the flames devoured the heroic, and in
the name of the most merciful God, his children were exterminated with
famine, sword and fire. Over the wild waves of battle rose and fell
the banner of Jesus Christ. For sixteen hundred years the robes of the
church were red with innocent blood. The ingenuity of Christians was
exhausted in devising punishment severe enough to be inflicted upon
other Christians who honestly and sincerely differed with them upon any
point whatever.
Give any orthodox church the power, and today they would punish heresy
with whip, and chain, and fire. As long as a church deemed a certain
belief essential to salvation, just so long it will kill and burn if it
has the power. Why should the church pity a man whom her God hates?
Why should she show mercy to a kind and noble heretic whom her God will
burn in eternal fire? Why should a Christian be better than his God?
It is impossible for the imagination to conceive of a greater atrocity
than has been perpetrated by the church. Let it be remembered that all
churches have persecuted heretics to the extent of their power. Every
nerve in the human body capable of pain has been sought out and touched
by the church. Toleration has increased only when and where the power
of the church has diminished. From Augustine until now the spirit of
the Christian has remained the same. There has been the same
intolerance, the same undying hatred of all who think for themselves,
the same determination to crush out of the human brain all knowledge
inconsistent with the ignorant creed.
Every church pretends that it has a revelation from God, and that this
revelation must be given to the people through the church; that the
church acts through its priests, and that ordinary mortals must be
content with a revelation--not from God--but from the church. Had the
people submitted to this preposterous claim, of course there could have
been but one church, and that church never could have advanced. It
might have retrograded, because it is not necessary to think, or
investigate, in order to forget. Without heresy there could have been
no progress.
The highest type of the orthodox christian does not forget. Neither
does he learn. He neither advances nor recedes. He is a living
fossil, imbedded in that rock called faith. He makes no effort to
better his condition, because all his strength is exhausted in keeping
other people from improving theirs. The supreme desire of his heart is
to force all others to adopt his creed, and in order to accomplish this
object, he denounces all kinds of free thinking as a crime, and this
crime he calls heresy. When he had the power, heresy was the most
terrible and formidable of words. It meant confiscation, exile,
imprisonment, torture, and death.
In those days the cross and rack were inseparable companions. Across
the open bible lay the sword and fagot. Not content with burning such
heretics as were alive, they even tried the dead, in order that the
church might rob their wives and children. The property of all
heretics was confiscated, and on this account they charged the dead
with being heretical--indicted, as it were, their dust--to the end that
the church might clutch the bread of orphans. Learned divines
discussed propriety of tearing out the tongues of heretics before they
were burned, and the general opinion was that this ought to be done, so
that the heretics should not be able, by uttering blasphemies, to shock
the christians who were burning them. With a mixture of ferocity and
christianity, the priests insisted that heretics ought to be burned at
a slow fire, giving as a reason, that more time was given them for
repentance.
No wonder that Jesus Christ said, "I came not to bring peace but a
sword!"
Every priest regarded himself as the agent of God. He answered all
questions by authority, and to treat him with disrespect was an insult
offered to God. No one was asked to think, but all were commanded to
obey.
In 1208 the inquisition was established. Seven years afterward; the
fourth council of the Lateran enjoined all kings and rulers to swear an
oath that they would exterminate heretics from their dominions. The
sword of the church was unsheathed, and the world was at the mercy of
ignorant and infuriated priests, whose eyes feasted upon the agonies
they inflicted. Acting as they believed, or pretended to believe under
the command of God, stimulated by the hope of infinite reward in
another world--hating heretics with every drop of their bastille
blood--savage beyond description--merciless beyond conception--these
infamous priests in a kind of frenzied joy, leaped upon the helpless
victims of their rage. They crushed their bones in iron boots, tore
their quivering flesh with iron hooks and pinchers, cut off their lips
and eyelids, pulled out their nails, and into the bleeding quick thrust
needles, tore out their tongues, extinguished their eyes, stretched
them upon racks, flayed them alive, crucified them with their head
downward, exposed them to wild beasts, burned them at the stake, mocked
their cries and groans, ravished their wives, robbed their children,
and then prayed God to finish the holy work in hell.
Millions upon millions were sacrificed upon the altars of bigotry. The
Catholic burned the Lutheran, the Lutheran burned the Catholic; the
Episcopalian tortured the Presbyterian, the Presbyterian tortured the
Episcopalian. Every denomination killed all it could of every other;
and each Christian felt it duty bound to exterminate every other
Christian who denied the smallest fraction of his creed.
In the reign of Henry the VIII., that pious and moral founder of the
Apostolic Episcopal church, there was passed by the Parliament of
England an act entitled, "An act for abolishing of diversity of
opinion." And in this act was set forth what a good Christian was
obliged to believe.
First, that in the sacrament was the real body and blood of Jesus
Christ.
Second, that the body and blood of Jesus Christ was in the bread, and
the blood and body of Jesus Christ was in the wine.
Third, that priests should not marry.
Fourth, that vows of chastity were of perpetual obligation.
Fifth, that private masses ought to be continued.
And sixth, that auricular confession to a priest must be maintained.
This creed was made by law, in order that all men might know just what
to believe by simply reading the statute. The church hated to see the
people wearing out their brains in thinking upon these subjects. It
was thought far better that a creed should be made by Parliament, so
that whatever might be lacking in evidence might be made up in force.
The punishment for denying the first article was death by fire. For
the denial of any other article, imprisonment, and for the second
offense--death.
Your attention is called to these six articles, established during the
reign of Henry VIII, and by the Church of England, simply because not
one of these articles is believed by that church today. If the law
then made by the church could be enforced now, every Episcopalian would
be burned at the stake.
Similar laws were passed in most Christian countries, as all orthodox
churches firmly believed that mankind could be legislated into heaven.
According to the creed of every church, slavery leads to heaven,
liberty leads to hell. It was claimed that God had founded the church,
and that to deny the authority of the church was to be a traitor to
God, and consequently an ally of the devil. To torture and destroy one
of the soldiers of Satan was a duty no good Christian cared to neglect.
Nothing can be sweeter than to earn the gratitude of God by killing
your own enemies. Such a mingling of profit and revenge, of heaven for
yourself and damnation for those you dislike, is a temptation that your
ordinary Christian never resists.
According to the theologians, God, the father of us all wrote a letter
to His children. The children have always differed somewhat as to the
meaning of this letter. In consequence of these honest differences,
these brothers began to cut out each other's hearts. In every land,
where this letter from God has been read, the children to whom and for
whom it was written have been filled with hatred and malice. They have
imprisoned and murdered each other, and the wives and children of each
other. In the name of God every possible crime has been committed,
every conceivable outrage has been perpetrated. Brave men, tender and
loving women, beautiful girls, prattling babes have been exterminated
in the name of Jesus Christ. For more than fifty generations the
church has carried the black flag. Her vengeance has been measured
only by her power. During all these years of infamy no heretic has
ever been forgiven. With the heart of a fiend she has hated; with the
clutch of avarice she has grasped; with the jaws of a dragon she has
devoured, pitiless as famine, merciless as fire, with the conscience of
a serpent. Such is the history of the church of God.
I do not say, and I do not believe, that Christians are as bad as their
creeds. In spite of church and dogma, there have been millions and
millions of men and women true to the loftiest and most generous
promptings of the human heart. They have been true to their
convictions, and with a self-denial and fortitude excelled by none,
have labored and suffered for the salvation of men. Imbued with the
spirit of self-sacrifice, believing that by personal effort they could
rescue at least a few souls from the infinite shadow of hell, they have
cheerfully endured every hardship and scorned danger and death. And
yet, notwithstanding all this, they believed that honest error was a
crime. They knew that the bible so declared, and they believed that
all unbelievers would be eternally lost. They believed that religion
was of God, and all heresy of the devil. They killed heretics in
defense of their own souls and the souls of their children. They
killed them, because, according to their idea, they were the enemies of
God, and because the bible teaches that the blood of the unbeliever is
a most acceptable sacrifice to heaven.
Nature never prompted a loving mother to throw her child into the
Ganges. Nature never prompted men to exterminate each other for a
difference of opinion concerning the baptism of infants. These crimes
have been produced by religions filled with all that is illogical,
cruel and hideous. These religions were produced for the most part by
ignorance, tyranny, and hypocrisy. Under the impression that the
infinite ruler and creator of the universe had commanded the
destruction of heretics and infidels, the church perpetrated all these
crimes.
Men and women have been burned for thinking that there was but one God;
that there was none; that the Holy Ghost is younger than God; that God
was somewhat older than his Son; for insisting that good works will
save a man, without faith; that faith will do without good works; for
declaring that a sweet babe will not be barred eternally, because its
parents failed to have its head wet by a priest; for speaking of God as
though He had a nose; for denying that Christ was His own father; for
contending that three persons, rightly added together, make more than
one; for believing in purgatory; for denying the reality of hell; for
pretending that priests can forgive sins; for preaching that God is an
essence; for denying that witches rode through the air on sticks; for
doubting the total depravity of the human heart; for laughing at
irresistible grace, predestination, and particular redemption; for
denying that good bread could be made of the body of a dead man; for
pretending that the Pope was not managing this world for God, and in
place of God, for disputing the efficacy of a vicarious atonement; for
thinking that the Virgin Mary was born like other people; for thinking
that a man's rib was hardly sufficient to make a good sized woman; for
denying that God used His finger for a pen; for asserting that prayers
are not answered, that diseases are not set to punish unbelief; for
denying the authority of the bible; for having a bible in their
possession; for attending mass, and for refusing to attend, for wearing
a surplice; for carrying a cross, and for refusing; for being a
Catholic, and for being a Protestant, for being an Episcopalian, a
Presbyterian, a Baptist, and for being a Quaker. In short, every
virtue has been a crime, and every crime a virtue. The church has
burned honesty and rewarded hypocrisy, and all this she did because it
was commanded by a book--a book that men had been taught implicitly to
believe, long before they knew one word that was in it. They had been
taught that to doubt the truth of this book, to examine it, even, was a
crime of such enormity that it could not be forgiven, either in this
world or in the next.
The bible was the real persecutor. The bible burned heretics, built
dungeons, founded the Inquisition, and trampled upon all the liberties
of men.
How long, O how long will mankind worship a book? How long will they
grovel in the dust before the ignorant legends of the barbaric past?
How long, O how long will they pursue phantoms in a darkness deeper
than death?
Unfortunately for the world, about the beginning of the sixteenth
century a man by the name of Gerard Chauvin was married to Jeanne
Lefranc, and still more unfortunately for the world, the fruit of this
marriage was a son, called John Chauvin, who afterward became famous as
John Calvin, the founder of the Presbyterian church.
This man forged five fetters for the brain. These fetters he called
points. That is to say, predestination, particular redemption, total
depravity, irresistible grace, and the perseverance of the saints.
About the neck of each follower he put a collar, bristling with these
five iron points. The presence of all these points on the collar is
still the test of orthodoxy in the church he founded. This man, when
in the flush of youth, was elected to the office of preacher in Geneva.
He at once, in union with Farel, drew up a condensed statement of the
Presbyterian doctrine, and all the citizens of Geneva, on pain of
banishment, were compelled to take an oath that they, believed this
statement. Of this proceeding Calvin very innocently remarked, that it
produced great satisfaction. A man by the name of Caroli had the
audacity to dispute with Calvin. For this outrage he was banished.
To show you what great subjects occupied the attention of Calvin, it is
only necessary to state, that he furiously discussed the question, as
to whether the sacramental bread should be leavened or unleavened. He
drew up laws regulating the cut of the citizens' clothes, and
prescribed their diet, and all whose garments were not in the Calvin
fashion were refused the sacrament. At last, the people becoming tired
of this petty, theological tyranny, banished Calvin. In a few years,
however, he was recalled and received with great enthusiasm. After
this, he was supreme, and the will of Calvin became the law of Geneva.
Under the benign administration of Calvin, James Gruet was beheaded
because he had written some profane verses. The slightest word against
Calvin or his absurd doctrine was punished as a crime.
In 1553, a man was tried at Vienne by the Catholic church for heresy.
He was convicted and sentenced to death by burning. It was his good
fortune to escape. Pursued by the sleuth hounds of intolerance he fled
to Geneva for protection. A dove flying from hawks, sought safety in
the nest of a vulture. This fugitive from the cruelty of Rome asked
shelter from John Calvin, who had written a book in favor of religious
toleration. Servetus had forgotten that this book was written by
Calvin when in the minority; that it was written in weakness to be
forgotten in power; that it was produced by fear instead of principle.
He did not know that Calvin had caused his arrest at Vienne, in France,
and had sent a copy of his work, which was claimed to be blasphemous to
the archbishop. He did not then know that the Protestant, Calvin, was
acting as one of the detectives of the Catholic church, and had been
instrumental in procuring his conviction for heresy. Ignorant of all
this unspeakable infamy, he put himself in the power of this very
Calvin. The maker of the Presbyterian creed caused the fugitive
Servetus to be arrested for blasphemy. He was tried; Calvin was his
accuser. He was convicted and condemned to death by fire. On the
morning of the fatal day, Calvin saw him; and Servetus, the victim,
asked forgiveness of Calvin, the murderer, for anything he might have
said that had wounded his feelings. Servetus was bound to the stake,
the fagots were lighted. The wind carried the flames somewhat away
from his body, so that he slowly roasted for hours. Vainly he implored
a speedy death. At last the flame climbed around his form; through
smoke and fire his murderers saw a white, heroic face. And there they
watched until a man became a charred and shriveled mass.
Liberty was banished from Geneva, and nothing but Presbyterianism was
left; honor, justice, mercy, reason and charity were all exiled; but
the five points of predestination, particular redemption, irresistible
grace, total depravity, and the certain perseverance of the saints
remained instead.
Calvin founded a little theocracy in Geneva, modeled after the old
testament, and succeeded in erecting the most detestable government
that ever existed, except the one from which it was copied.
Against all this intolerance, one man, a minister, raised his voice.
The name of this man should never be forgotten. It was Castellio.
This brave man had the goodness and the courage to declare the
innocence of honest error. He was the first of the so-called reformers
to take this noble ground. I wish I had the genius to pay a fitting
tribute to his memory. Perhaps it would be impossible to pay him a
grander compliment than to say, Castellio was in all things the
opposite of Calvin. To plead for the right of individual judgment was
considered as a crime, and Castellio was driven from Geneva by John
Calvin. By him he was denounced as a child of the devil, as a dog of
Satan, as a beast from hell, and as one who, by this horrid blasphemy
of the innocence of honest error, crucified Christ afresh, and by him
he was pursued until rescued by the hand of death.
Upon the name of Castellio, Calvin heaved every epithet, until his
malice was satisfied and his imagination exhausted. It is impossible
to conceive how human nature can become so frightfully perverted as to
pursue a fellow-man with the malignity of a fiend, simply because he is
good, just and generous.
Calvin was of a pallid, bloodless complexion, thin, sickly, irritable,
gloomy, impatient, egotistic, tyrannical, heartless and infamous. He
was a strange compound of revengeful morality, malicious forgiveness,
ferocious charity, egotistic humility, and a kind of hellish justice.
In other words, he was as near like the God of the old testament as his
Health permitted.
The best thing, however, about the Presbyterians of Geneva was, that
they denied the power of the Pope, and the best thing about the Pope
was, that he was not a Presbyterian.
The doctrines of Calvin spread rapidly, and were eagerly accepted by
multitudes on the continent. But Scotland, in a few years, became the
real fortress of Presbyterianism. The Scotch rivaled the adherents of
Calvin, and succeeded in establishing the same kind of theocracy that
flourished in Geneva. The clergy took possession and control of
everybody and everything. It is impossible to exaggerate the slavery,
the mental degradation, the abject superstition of the people of
Scotland during the reign of Presbyterianism. Heretics were hunted and
devoured as though they had been wild beasts. The gloomy insanity of
Presbyterianism took possession of a great majority of the people.
They regarded their ministers as the Jews did Moses and Aaron. They
believed that they were the especial agents of God, and that whatsoever
they bound in Scotland would be bound in heaven. There was not one
particle of intellectual freedom. No one was allowed to differ from
the church, or to even contradict a priest. Had Presbyterianism
maintained its ascendancy, Scotland would have been peopled by savages
today. The revengeful spirit of Calvin took possession of the Puritans
and caused them to redden the soil of the new world with the brave
blood of honest men. Clinging to the five points of Calvin, they, too,
established governments in accordance with the teachings of the old
testament. They, too, attached the penalty of death to the expression
of honest thought. They, too, believed their church supreme, and
exerted all their power to curse this continent with a spiritual
despotism as infamous as it was absurd. They believed with Luther that
universal toleration is universal error, and universal error is
universal hell. Toleration was denounced as a crime. Fortunately for
us, civilization has had a softening effect upon the Presbyterian
church. To the ennobling influence of the arts and science the savage
spirit of Calvinism has, in some slight degree, succumbed. True, the
old creed remains substantially as it was written, but by a kind of
tacit understanding it has come to be regarded as a relic of the past.
The cry of "heresy" has been growing fainter and fainter, and, as a
consequence, the ministers of that denomination have ventured now and
then to express doubts as to the damnation of infants, and the doctrine
of total depravity. The fact is, the old ideas became a little
monotonous to the people. The fall of man, the scheme of redemption
and irresistible grace, began to have a familiar sound. The preachers
told the old stories while the congregation slept. Some of the
ministers became tired of these stories themselves. The five points
grew dull, and they felt that nothing short of irresistible grace could
bear this endless repetition. The outside world was full of progress,
and in every direction men advanced, while the church, anchored to a
creed, idly rotted at the shore. Other denominations, imbued some
little with the spirit of investigation, were springing up on every
side, while the old Presbyterian ark rested on the Ararat of the past,
filled with the theological monsters of another age.
Lured by the splendors of the outer world, tempted by the achievements
of science, longing to feel the throw and beat of the mighty march of
the human race, a few of the ministers of this conservative
denomination were compelled by irresistible sense, to say a few words
in harmony with the splendid ideas of today.
These utterances have upon several occasions so nearly awakened some of
the members, that, rubbing their eyes, they have feebly inquired
whether these grand ideas were not somewhat heretical? These ministers
found that just in proportion as their orthodoxy decreased, their
congregations increased. Those who dealt in the pure unadulterated
article, found themselves demonstrating the five points to a less
number of hearers than they had points. Stung to madness by this bitter
truth, this galling contrast, this harassing fact, the really orthodox
have raised the cry of heresy, and expect with this cry to seal the
lips of honest men. One of these ministers, and one who has been
enjoying the luxury of a little honest thought, and the real rapture of
expressing it, has already been indicted, and is about to be tried by
the Presbytery of Illinois.
He has been charged:
First. With speaking in an ambiguous language in relation to that dear
old doctrine of the fall of man. With having neglected to preach that
most comforting and consoling truth, the eternal damnation of the soul.
Surely, that man must be a monster who could wish to blot this blessed
doctrine out and rob earth's wretched children of this blissful hope!
Who can estimate the misery that has been caused by this most infamous
doctrine of eternal punishment? Think of the lives it has blighted--of
the tears it has caused--of the agony it has produced. Think of the
millions who have been driven to insanity by this most terrible of
dogmas. This doctrine renders God the basest and most cruel being in
the universe. Compared with him, the most frightful deities of the
most barbarous and degraded tribes are miracles of goodness and mercy.
There is nothing more degrading than to worship such a God. Lower than
this the soul can never sink. If the doctrine of eternal damnation is
true, let me have my portion in hell, rather than in heaven with a God
infamous enough to inflict eternal misery upon any of the sons of men.
Second. With having spoken a few kind words of Robert Collyer and John
Stuart Mill.
I have the honor of a slight acquaintance with Robert Collyer. I have
read with pleasure some of his exquisite productions. He has a brain
full of the dawn, the head of a philosopher, the imagination of a poet,
and the sincere heart of a child.
Is a minister to be silenced because he speaks fairly of a noble and
candid adversary? Is it a crime to compliment a lover of justice, an
advocate of liberty; one who devoted his life to the elevation of man,
the discovery of truth, and the promulgation of what he believed to be
right?
Can that tongue be palsied by a presbytery that praises a self-denying
and heroic life? Is it a sin to speak a charitable word over the grave
of John Stuart Mill? Is it heretical to pay a just and graceful
tribute to departed worth? Must the true Presbyterian violate the
sanctity of the tomb, dig open the grave, and ask his God to curse the
silent dust? Is Presbyterianism so narrow that it conceives of no
excellence, of no purity of intention, of no spiritual and moral
grandeur outside of its barbaric creed? Does it still retain within
its stony heart all the malice of its founder? Is it still warming its
fleshless hands at the flames that consumed Servetus? Does it still
glory in the damnation of infants, and does it still persist in
emptying the cradle in order that perdition may be filled? Is it still
starving the soul and famishing the heart? Is it still trembling and
shivering, crouching and crawling, before its ignorant confession of
faith? Had such men as Robert Collyer and John Stuart Mill been
present at the burning of Servetus, they would have extinguished the
flames with their tears. Had the Presbytery of Chicago been there,
they would have quietly turned their backs, solemnly divided their
coat-tails and warmed themselves.
Third. With having spoken disparagingly of the doctrine of
predestination.
If there is any dogma that ought to be protected by law, predestination
is that doctrine. Surely it is a cheerful, joyous thing to one who is
laboring, struggling and suffering in this weary world, to think that
before he existed, before the earth was, before a star had glittered in
the heavens, before a ray of light had left the quiver of the sun, his
destiny had been irrevocably fixed, and that for an eternity before his
birth he had been doomed to bear eternal pain!
Fourth. With having failed to preach the efficacy of vicarious
sacrifice.
Suppose a man had been convicted of murder, and was about to be
hanged--the Governor acting as the executioner. And suppose just as
the doomed man was to suffer death, some one in the crowd should step
forward and say, "I am willing to die in the place of that murderer.
He has a family, and I have none." And suppose further that the
Governor should reply, "Come forward, young man, your offer is
accepted. A murder has been committed, and somebody must be hung, and
your death will satisfy the law just as well as the death of the
murderer." What would you then think of the doctrine of vicarious
sacrifice?"
This doctrine is the consummation of two outrages--forgiving one crime
and committing another.
Fifth. With having inculcated a phase of the doctrine commonly known
as "Evolution" or "Development." The church believes and teaches the
exact opposite of this doctrine. According to the philosophy of
theology, man has continued to degenerate for six thousand years. To
teach that there is that in Nature which impels to higher forms and
grander ends, is heresy of course. The Deity will damn Spencer and his
"Evolution," Darwin and his "Origin of Species," Bastin and his
"Spontaneous Generation," Huxley and his "Protoplasm," Tyndall and his
"Prayer Guage," and will save those, and those only who declare that
the universe has been cursed from the smallest atom to the grandest
star; that everything tends to evil, and to that only; and that the
only perfect thing in Nature is the Presbyterian confession of faith.
Sixth. With having intimated that the reception of Socrates and
Penelope at heaven's gate was, to say the least, a trifle more cordial
than that of Catherine II.
Penelope waiting patiently and trustfully for her lord's return,
delaying her suitors, while sadly weaving and un-weaving the shroud of
Laertes, is the most perfect type of wife and woman produced by the
civilization of Greece.
Socrates, whose life was above reproach, and whose death was beyond all
praise, stands today, in the estimation of every thoughtful man, at
least the peer of Christ.
Catharine II assassinated her husband. Stepping upon his corpse, she
mounted the throne. She was the murderess of Prince Ivan, the
grand-nephew of Peter the Great, who was imprisoned for eighteen years,
and who, during all that time, saw the sky but once. Taken all in all,
Catharine was probably one of the most intellectual beasts that ever
wore a crown.
Catharine, however, was the head of the Greek Church, Socrates was a
heretic, and Penelope lived and died without having once heard of
"particular redemption," or "irresistible grace."
Seventh. With repudiating the idea of a "call" to ministry, and
pretending that men were "called," to preach as they were to the other
avocations of life.
If this doctrine is true, God, to say the least of it, is an
exceedingly poor judge of human nature. It is more than a century
since a man of true genius has been found in an orthodox pulpit. Every
minister is heretical just to the extent that his intellect is above
the average. The Lord seems to be satisfied with mediocrity; but the
people are not.
An old deacon, wishing to get rid of an unpopular preacher, advised him
to give up the ministry, and turn his attention to something else. The
preacher replied that he could not conscientiously desert the pulpit,
as he had a "call" to the ministry. To which the deacon replied, "That
may be so, but it's mighty unfortunate for you that when God called you
to preach, He forgot to call anybody to hear you."
There is nothing more stupidly egotistic than the claim of the clergy
that they are, in some divine sense, set apart to the service of the
Lord; that they have been chosen and sanctified; that there is an
infinite difference between them and persons employed in secular
affairs. They teach us that all other professions must take care of
themselves; that God allows anybody to be a doctor, a lawyer,
statesman, soldier, or artist; that the Motts and Coopers--the
Mansfields and Marshalls--the Wilberforces and Sumners--the Angelos and
Raphaels--were never honored by a "call." These chose their
professions and won their laurels without the assistance of the Lord.
All these men were left free to follow their own inclinations while God
was busily engaged selecting and "calling" priests, rectors, elders,
ministers and exhorters.
Eighth. With having doubted that God was the author of the 109th Psalm.
The portion of that Psalm which carries with it the clearest and most
satisfactory evidences of inspiration, and which has afforded almost
unspeakable consolation to the Presbyterian church, is as follows:
"Set thou a wicked man over him; and let Satan stand at his right hand.
"When he shall be judged, let him be condemned; and let his prayer
become sin.
"Let his days be few; and let another take his office.
"Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.
"Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg; let them seek
their bread also out of their desolate places.
"Let the extortioner catch all that he hated; and let the strangers
spoil his labor.
"Let there be none to extend mercy unto him; neither let there be none
to favor his fatherless children.
"Let his posterity be cut off; and in the generation following let
their name be blotted out.
"But do thou for me, O God the Lord, for Thy name's sake; because Thy
mercy is good, deliver thou me.... I will greatly praise the Lord with
my mouth."
Think of a God wicked and malicious enough to inspire this prayer.
Think of one infamous enough to answer it. Had this inspired Psalm
been found in some temple erected for the worship of snakes, or in the
possession of some cannibal king, written with blood upon the dried
skins of babes, there would have been a perfect harmony between its
surroundings and its sentiments.
No wonder that the author of this inspired Psalm coldly received
Socrates and Penelope, and reserved his sweetest smiles for Catharine
the Second!
Ninth. With having said that the battles in which the Israelites
engaged with the approval and command of Jehovah surpassed in cruelty
those of Julius Caesar.
Was it Julius Caesar who said, "And the Lord our God delivered him
before us; and we smote him, and his sons, and all his people. And we
took all his cities, and utterly destroyed the men, and the women and
the little ones, of every city, we left none to remain?"
Did Julius Caesar send the following report to the Roman Senate? "And
we took all his cities at that time, there was not a city which we took
not from them, three-score city, all the region of Argob, the kingdom
of Og, in Bashan. All these cities were fenced with high walls, gates
and bars; besides unwalled towns a great many. And we utterly
destroyed them, as we did unto Sihon, king of Heshbon, utterly
destroying the men, women, and children of every city."
Did Caesar take the city of Jericho "and utterly destroy all that was
in the city, both man and woman, young and old?" Did he smite "all the
country of the hills, and of the south, and of the vale, and of the
springs, and all their kings, and leave none remaining that breathed,
as the Lord God had commanded?"
Search the records of the whole world, find out the history of every
barbarous tribe, and you can find no crime that touched a lower depth
of infamy than those the bible's God commanded and approved. For such
a God I have no words to express my loathing and contempt, and all the
words in all the languages of man would scarcely be sufficient. Away
with such a God! Give me Jupiter rather, with Io and Europa, or even
Siva with his skulls and snakes, or give me none.
Tenth. With having repudiated the doctrines of total depravity.
What a precious doctrine is that of the total depravity of the human
heart! How sweet it is to believe that the lives of all the good and
great were continual sins and perpetual crimes; that the love a mother
bears her child is, in the sight of God, a sin; that the gratitude of
the natural heart is simple meanness; that the tears of pity are
impure; that for the unconverted to live and labor for others is an
offense to heaven; that the noblest aspirations of the soul are low and
groveling in the sight of God; that man should fall upon his knees and
ask forgiveness, simply for loving his wife and child, and that even
the act of asking forgiveness is in fact a crime.
Surely it is a kind of bliss to feel that every woman and child in the
wide world, with the exception of those who believe the five points, or
some other equally cruel creed, and such children as have been
baptized, ought at this very moment to be dashed down to the lowest
glowing gulf of the hell!
Take from the Christian the history of his own church; leave that
entirely out of the question, and he has no argument left with which to
substantiate the total depravity of man.
A minister once asked an old lady, a member of his church, what she
thought of the doctrine of total depravity, and the dear old soul
replied that she thought it a mighty good doctrine if the Lord would
only give the people grace enough to live up to it?