time when the whole of the universe did not exist. Creation! who is it
that really believes in creation? Do any of you? Let us fathom the
depths of the past as far back as we will, there is still the great
impenetrable beyond. No man, even in thought, can annihilate existence,
or bring to light a first evolution of nature, and say, Here the universe
began. There can be no origination of the universe conceivable by the
human mind. But suppose you could in thought annihilate the universe.
You say that God is unchangeable. Was there a moment when he began to
create? Then is not that an assumption of an act of change? I will not
stop to argue on this point. The bishop did not on this head condescend
to argue at all. His third sermon was only a torrent of ably delivered
words, and however fitting it might be for those whose faith was firm, it
was useless for drawing to the Church those without faith. The Bishop
says, Our faith in Christ is confirmed by the story of his life as
recorded by his disciples. He says that whether the Gospel of John is
true or untrue, it contains the delineation of a perfect being. He spoke
of Christ as being better than any man the world has yet seen, as the
only teacher whose life was better than his teaching. What is the
history of his life? Jesus was born without a father. His mother’s
husband had two fathers. Jesus was descended from David, through Joseph,
who was not his father. He was born in the reign of Herod, but was not
born till after the death of Herod. Jesus passed his early life in
Egypt, but he was during the same time in Judæa. He was baptised by
John, who knew him before the baptism, but who did not know him till he
had been baptised. Jesus was taken into the wilderness, where he fasted
forty days, but he was during part of the same time at a marriage feast
in Cana of Galilee. During the forty days’ fasting, the devil took Jesus
to the top of a high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the
world, and said, All these will I give thee, it thou wilt fall down and
worship me. Yet this Jesus was, as the Bishop teaches, very God of very
God; and if so, could not be tempted with an offer of his own creation by
his own creature; and the temptation must have been a sham. Jesus is
said to have worked miracles, but the people who had the opportunity of
seeing them never believed in them or him. He fed 5,000 persons with
five loaves and a few fishes, and yet his own disciples—who, he promised,
should sit on twelve thrones, judging the tribes of Israel—when many
persons had to be fed at another time, wondered how it was to be done.
Jesus was betrayed by Judas with a kiss; but he was not so betrayed, for
when the armed men came to Jesus he asked them, Whom seek ye? and they
answered, Jesus of Nazareth; he said, I am he. Jesus was crucified early
in the morning, and yet at noon he was still on his trial. Jesus was
three days and three nights in the grave; but he was crucified on Friday,
his body was taken down from the cross on Friday evening, and it must
have been late on Friday evening when he was put into the sepulchre; the
first people who looked into it on Saturday night, as it began to dawn
towards Sunday morning, found that the body was gone; so that from Friday
night till Sunday morning, made three days and three nights! Jesus
appeared to two of his disciples, and they did not know him; he walked
with them till the evening, and then they knew him. When it was daylight
they did not know him, but when it was dark then they knew him. While
they could see him, they did not know him; when they knew him, they could
not see him. Such is the story of Jesus. It is not true that his life
was better than that of any other man.
I will take a noble life, and put it against the life of Jesus, the life
of the Infidel Bruno against the life of your God Jesus. Bruno was born
near Naples, and trained as a monk. Leaving his ministry, to teach
people in their vulgar tongue, he was driven out of Italy. Going to
Switzerland, bigotry was too strong, and he was driven thence. At Paris
he debated with the doctors of the Sorbonne, until arguments failing
them, they drove him away with threats of the faggot. From Paris he went
to England, there debating at Oxford and Cambridge; thence to Germany;
and thence back to Italy, where a prison awaited him, as a full
refutation of his heresies, where he was confined in a dungeon for eleven
years, where the rack was the answer to his arguments, and where he at
last died, a gallant martyr at the stake. He died fearlessly confronting
his enemies, having truly told them that they had more fear in condemning
him to be burned alive, than he had in being condemned.
Jesus was God, and could not die; but if your Bible be true, his last
words were a despairing cry, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”
Compare these two men in their lives and their deaths, and see which was
the nobler and the braver. Jesus did not come to save the world. He
said, I am sent only to the lost sheep of Israel. Jesus told his
disciples not to go to the Gentiles, be forbade them even to visit the
Samaritans, and it was not till after his resurrection that he said, Go
ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature. I have
spoken in language which you may think unfitting for such a theme. Do
you believe the Bishop, that Jesus died to save all mankind? Do you
believe the doctrine, that only those who have faith in Jesus can be
saved? What is to become of those who have never heard his name? Do you
believe that all the Chinese will be damned? If you believe this, what
must you think of God? If you believe that the Chinese will be pardoned,
because they cannot be expected to believe in Jesus of whom they have not
heard, how can you be so wicked as to send them Bibles and missionaries,
which may bring them to damnation? I plead here for what some call
infidelity, for what some call heresy. I plead for the rights of
humanity. I plead against a system which, to my mind, has greatly
hindered the education of the world, and impeded its improvement; and if
you tell me that my language is coarse and blasphemous, I will ask you in
what language do your missionaries describe the Mohammedan and his Koran,
the Brahmin and his Vedas? You call me an Infidel; what are you? You
disbelieve all the religions of the world save one, I disbelieve that one
also; my disbelief is but one degree greater than yours.
A Bishop comes now in the nave of the Cathedral, to answer modern
Infidelity. Why does modern Infidelity exist? Why has Infidelity grown?
It has grown because the Church has grown fat and the people lean. It
has grown because Convocation quibbles over rites and formularies,
instead of devising schemes for the redemption of mankind from ignorance;
because the Church said nothing while back streets were built for the
poor, and grand abbeys and cathedrals for the priest. The rich grow
richer and the poor grow poorer, while the Church pretends to regard as a
blessing the poverty she carefully avoids. The Church pretends to have
the authority to speak in the name of God, and the Bishop, on that last
evening, prayed for my conversion. You see the effect of that prayer in
these lectures. Clergymen threw down the gauntlet, and it has been taken
up. We have been attacked, and we will compel the Church to afford us a
hearing. You have now no right to say that we are too insignificant,
after you have yourselves challenged us to the fray. You must not
pretend that modern Infidelity is too blasphemous; you have undertaken to
confute it by competent persons. I appeal to Christians of every sect
for one thing only; I don’t ask you to give me your faith, but to
remember that amid the hundreds of religions with innumerable
antagonistic Churches and Chapels, that amid the multiplicity of error,
you may be wrong. We do not pretend to be perfect thinkers, nor thinkers
free from error; we claim only to be earnest thinkers, desiring to be set
right where wrong. I deny the right of any Church to pretend to be the
only true Church. I take the right to utter my thoughts. The Church of
England is a rotten Church, a falling Church, a Church divided against
itself, a Church with Colensos and Voyseys, as against Puseys and
Mackonochies, a Church which by the admission of her own divines is
illogical, which cannot defend her Thirty-nine Articles, nor her
Athanasian Creed.
I have finished these lectures, and I ask those who intend to follow me
to remember that Freethought has done something since the days of
Spinoza, Carapanella, and Bruno. It is only since Freethinkers began to
fight against the Church that there has been any real popular progress
made by you Liberals. The Church has not helped you at all. It has by
its bench of bishops hindered your reforms as long as it could, and
maintained tithes and exactions and bad laws till humanity rebelled
against the obstruction. Whether right or wrong, we have at least done
something to make the world better worth living in. (Applause.)
* * * * *
* * * * *
Printed by Austin & Co., 17 Johnson’s Court, Fleet Street, London E.C.
WORKS PUBLISHED BY AUSTIN & CO.
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