SIN AND SALVATION.
What is sin? If we are able to ascertain what sin is, we shall probably
understand why salvation should be extended to the one that sins,
or to a community of sinners.
Everything has a beginning. We draw our deductions by comparison. Men
judge in part by their own experience, and in part by the experience
of others. We see what is going on in our daily active life, how every
work or enterprise, society or society reform, is started and set in
active operation.
Every beginning is crude and awkward. Rules adopted to govern a
family circle, jar and chafe when introduced to govern larger bodies
of individuals. What may seem good for a household government would
hardly be suitable for a community, and the rules regulating the
general community would hardly be available for a people or a nation.
Modifications in the rule of conduct are inevitable as families or
communities increase numerically. They may be slow, imperceptible, and
cause little disturbance. But sudden and radical changes produce quite
another effect. They may cause simple irritation or friction among
the elements composing the family or community, may cause temporary
embarrassment, or may cause an eruption with considerable commotion,
and accompanied with more or less serious effects.
Change in the methods of conducting and regulating the affairs of
mankind, individually or collectively, in small family groups or in
large communities, has ever been a matter, not only of great interest
and deep concern to mankind, but also of bitter dispute, conflict,
and hostility.
It has ever been thus, from the time intelligence superseded instinct,
with attempts to introduce innovations, new or improved methods
regulating the conduct of either individuals or communities, or the
general affairs of man. Individual must yield to family, family to
community, community to people, and people to nation.
Rules once established, no matter how rude, vulgar, or barbarous,
or how enlightened and beneficial, were adopted to secure a general
uniformity of conduct or line of action for each individual or family
belonging to the community or people, for what was considered the
best interest of the whole, and their mutual benefit and safety.
The most primitive rules were instinctively adopted in the lower order
of animal life, the laws of self-preservation and mutual protection.
The individual conduct, in either family or community life, is
governed accordingly. That is very evident, and requires but little
observation to find the secret spring that explains the necessity
for its existence.
If a community, whether animals or men, are favorably located, have
ample provision and comfort, they will live in peace and contentment,
thrive, develop, without friction or trouble. Let a lack of food
arise, or let the numbers increase and produce a scarcity, strife is
inevitable. New, other than peaceful, methods are adopted. Either
they quarrel and battle among themselves, or they go in search of
food elsewhere--emigrate, in part or as a whole. If they meet with
opposition, they will fight--the strongest takes possession, might
asserts its right, and the conquerer becomes the ruling power.
In the early stages of human civilization, thousands of years ago,
the simplest primitive rules were established for the conduct and
guidance of the individual living in the community--for, of course,
mutual protection and self-preservation. Humanity in a barbarous
state adopted these rules, and handed them down from generation to
generation until at length they were codified into laws. What are they?
Honor thy parents.
Do not commit murder.
Do not take another man's wife.
Do not bear false witness.
Do not take anything belonging to another.
These are laws for self-preservation and mutual protection! If such
simple rules were not recognized and established, neither life nor
property would be safe. Destruction of life and forcible possession
of property would naturally lead to extermination.
The family union is instinctive. The father, like the leader of a
flock, is in authority. He is feared, therefore honored.
A community soon learns from experience that "in union is
strength." Herds of cattle seem to know this, and are ever ready to
protect and defend themselves collectively.
The lowest savages, barbarians, observe among themselves the first,
yes, primitive rules to govern them in community, in family.
These rules arose from necessity. It was for each individual's
interest, for family interest, and for the interest of the community
at large, to adopt these rules, obey them and have them obeyed. These
rules were for individual welfare, and for the common welfare of the
community at large, the preservation of their lives and the protection
of their life and property.
So long as any community of human beings, whatever be their condition,
have ample provision to satisfy their wants, and are secure from
depredations from without, there will be no trouble. Happiness and
contentment, as well as peace and prosperity, will characterize
their state.
As to the relation between males and females, that regulates
itself. All communities, barbarians and savages, have always some
general recognized rule to guide them. Female chastity is secure
among all nations, high and low, civilized and uncivilized, whether
they are decorated in a complete suit of nudity, a gauze covering,
or a ball-room dress. There is no necessity of going back four or
five thousand years. Cæsar relates (Lib. vi, 21) that the Germans were
in complete undress costume when bathing promiscuously; yet they had
their customs of marriage and marriage ceremonies. In this country we
have had the same customs and may have again. When Columbus arrived
at one of the islands of the Caribs, 1494, a cacique and his family
paid him a visit. This family consisted of two daughters, five sons,
and five brothers. "One of the daughters was eighteen years of age,
beautiful in form and countenance; her sister somewhat younger;
both were naked, according to the custom of these islands, but were
of modest demeanor" (Irving).
As a further illustration I quote from Irving's description of
the people that Peter Martyr met with. He relates: "It is certain
that the land among the people is as common as the sun and water;
and that 'mine and thine,' the seed of all mischief, have no place
with them. They are content with so little, that in so large a
country they have rather superfluity than scarceness; so they seem
to live in the golden world, without toil, living in open gardens;
not intrenched with dykes, divided with hedges, or defended with
walls. They deal truly one with another, without laws, without books,
without judges. They take him for an evil and mischievous man who
taketh pleasure in doing hurt to another; and albeit they delight not
in superfluities, yet they make provision for the increase of such
roots whereof they make their bread, content with such simple diet,
whereby health is preserved and disease avoided."
Possibly somewhere on the African continent there may still exist a
people that live a life as simple and as happy as those in the time
of Columbus. But everything must yield before northern energy and
Christian greed; besides, the new-comers need the land for their
surplus population.
May we not ask, Is not our present high state of civilization the
natural outcome of our necessities in the struggle to exist? Is not
our high state of nervous development largely due to that struggle?
Indolence and inactivity produce nothing. Activity and diligence
produce and invent all things.
All wrongful acts committed are either injuries done to ourselves,
or injuries inflicted upon others.
Injuries done to ourselves are not necessarily sins. Onanism, for
example, is unquestionably injurious, yet is not recognized as a
sin. It leads to the insane asylum, and in many instances underlies
religious insanity.
There are other disgusting practices that are neither injurious nor
recognized as sins.
The stomach commits no sin, but leads nevertheless to many wrongs,
to one's self.
All crimes are sins, but all sins are not crimes. And all injuries
done to others are accounted both sins and crimes.
What seems very strange yet is wonderfully true is that all sins and
crimes against others find their origin in the indulgence of either
stomach or sexual organs.
Starvation may lead to crime. Hunger often drives to
theft. Extravagance, lust, and luxury lead to any variety of crime,
from forgery to appropriating another man's wife.
In the gratification of those two organs, passions, we find the cradle
of all crime.
And what we call morality means the proper regulation of these
passions, of these organs.
The church occasionally takes cognizance of sins, when discovered,
that do not come within the category of crime, as was seen recently
in the case of a Major Theobald who seduced his niece while nursing
his invalid wife; he was suspended for one year, but saved his soul!
All our civil justices in the city of New York are kept busy to
regulate and to punish overindulgences of the stomach and some other
petty wrongs. Our criminal courts are kept busy in punishing those
who have wrongfully appropriated other people's property, or injured
or killed another.
The superior civil courts attend to the disputes about property.
Why do those who adopt for their mode of livelihood the profession
of theology want to exercise salvation? What have they to save?
Let us examine for what sins the Deluge was brought, Sodom and Gomorrah
were destroyed, and Christ was crucified.
The principal scriptural sins:
Cain commits murder, from jealousy, because God preferred meat to
vegetables (Gen. iv, 8).
Gen. vi, 5: "And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the
earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was
only evil continually." The contents of this sentence is absurd. The
heart cannot imagine, or think. The function of the heart is the
circulation of the blood.
What this wickedness consisted of, we do not know.
History has no record exactly where this Flood or Deluge took
place. That it was localized is certain. It was in all probability
nothing more than an overflow of the river Euphrates--that is joined by
the river Tigris, and terminates in the Gulf of Persia--in consequence
of a series of consecutive rainstorms, etc., and God had as much to
do with this supposed deluge as he has to do with any deluge in the
Mississippi valley when that river overflows.
Gen. vi, 6: "And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth
and it grieved him at his heart." Now we are getting at God's anatomy!
Man may labor under delusions--hear voices, etc. All those extravagant
statements are perfectly excusable from our modern standpoint.
All this wickedness is supposed to have taken place 2348 before the
Christian era, and we have still the same sort of wickedness on earth
as there was then. Barbarians inhabited that region--rude, crude,
half-civilized herdsmen, not much superior to our Indians. Minding
their flocks and increasing their families was their main
occupation. Abraham made no scruples in cohabiting with Miss Hagar,
Sarah's maid; nor had Jacob any objections to Miss Bilhah, Rachel's
maid, nor did he scruple to accommodate Miss Zilpha, Leah's maid, and
later we read how Reuben lay with Bilhah, Jacob's mistress. Shechem
seduced Dina, Jacob's daughter. Her brothers Simon and Levi killed
all the males, etc. At this time, we learn, harlots were in fashion.
We have it recited, crime after crime--according to our modern
notions--yet these barbarians were God's own people! After killing
Shechem, and Hamor his father, and all the rest of the males, they
took possession of their property. Lot and his daughters is another
instance of biblical ethics.
This barbarian family, these shepherds, had their first experience in
civilization when they reached Egypt, and whatever they practiced later
was adopted from that nation. They had received some training under
Egyptian rule for nearly four hundred and thirty years. During this
period we hear nothing of sin or transgression. No sooner were they
organized as a community than the sins, transgressions, and wickedness
broke out anew, and continued right along in a greater or lesser degree
through the patriarchal period, theocratic period, and monarchial
period. During the entire national existence of nearly one thousand
years to their captivity, we have recited sins, transgressions, and
crime, crime, transgressions, and sin; and all are perfectly human,
perfectly natural among barbarians, savages, half-civilized, and even
civilized people. Whether David lusts after a nude woman, or Amnon
forces his own sister, it reveals the weakness of animal human nature,
and is a breach of the recognized laws, and a lack of discipline.
All through the Old Testament the same story is repeated--sensuality,
cruelty, and crime; and rebellion against the established laws. It is
the burden of song and of prophecy--greed and scramble for power, the
cause of continual dissension. The only time the Jews were reasonably
quiet was when they were exterminating other nations, plundering
and taking forcible possession of their women and female children as
well as their property. The great burden of sin throughout the Old
Testament consists in the infringement of the law established by Moses,
to worship no other god except the one he manufactured--that is, a God
endowed with all brutality and sensuality, without a representative
form, a God that had all the senses and could utilize them. The wooden
idol had these organs but could not use them, while the Mosaic God
had them not but could exercise all the functions of animal life. In
the light of history, all ages display the same process in the human
mind--the same passions and the same tendencies, held more or less
under restraint, according to the laws, customs, and habits of the
people. The Jews during their whole career were more or less idolators,
and were continually relapsing into the idolatry, of some one kind or
another, of dead men, which was practiced under different celestial
or animal emblems in the neighboring countries. And it was not ended
until after the Babylonish captivity, 588 B.C., and when Ezra returned
to Jerusalem, 557 B.C., who collected the various manuscripts and put
them into some sort of shape and started to rebuild the Temple. This
event took place during the reign of Xerxes son of Darius. Ezra and his
companions had been educated meanwhile. They had enjoyed the privilege
of a Babylonian education. They had the advantage of their learning,
their philosophy. Now they returned better equipped mentally than ever
they were before their captivity. And for the first time they began
to call themselves "holy seed" (chapter ix). They had intermarried
with the Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Jebusites, Ammonites,
Moabites, Egyptians, Amorites, etc., (verse 2) "so that the holy seed
have mingled themselves with the people of those lands." Verse 6,
this priest goes into hysterics: "O my God, I am ashamed and blush
to lift up my face to thee," etc. Chapter x: He prays, confesses,
and weeps and casts himself down before the house of God, etc. Verse
11: "And separate yourself from the people of the land, and from
the strange wives." Of course their wives were sent adrift. That
was the first time in their history that marriages were restricted
to their own nation. This also is the first wholesale divorce on
record. Intermarriages they had been guilty of for many centuries,
and they were never accounted a sin until the time of Ezra. After
this reformation the same sins continue, intermarriages perhaps
excepted. The animal predominated, as it naturally would. Selfishness
was more prominent than ever. They knew the value of gold, and onyx
stone, and bdellium. God had told them all about it in Gen. ii,
11, 12. The commercial enterprise started with creation, and has
continued. Jehova had not half the romance and the poesy of Zeus or
Jupiter. The latter had all the Grecian refinement, while the former
had all the barbarity of Chaldea.
Thus, the identical sins continued through the remaining centuries
until Christ made his entry on this world's stage. He came
opportunely. It was at a time of great agitation. Judea was a Roman
province. Pontius Pilate was governor. Corruption, fraud, and crimes
of all descriptions were practiced and flourished. The Temple served
as a place for barter and business. Sedition, parricide, greed, and
seduction were the ruling crimes and passions. Fanatics, heretics, and
blasphemers were abundant. There were any number of religious factions,
quarreling and fighting among themselves, hating one another heartily,
and doing one another as much mischief as in their power lay. The
frequent contact with foreign invading nations brought new notions,
new customs and usages. New ideas consequently developed--sins and
salvation of souls. And humility and meekness were put forth against
arrogance of wealth, domineering, and priestly oppression. Communistic
and socialistic ideas are always a prolific field for the hungry,
poor, and starving. "Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us
our debts," etc. (Matt. vi, 11, 12). Christ's camel and needle story
confirms it. The result was he had a following, preached reformation,
and accusation and persecution put an end to his life. It had taken
root, and a new sect was formed.
Was his life sacrificed for the sins of humanity? Nonsense! This
young man's death has not relieved any one, much more all future
generations, of their sins. What? Sacrifice a man to God in place of
sheep and cattle? So long as men have senses and passions, so long
as we have extremes of poverty and wealth, sin remains.
The prevention of sin has never been the function of the church. The
trespasses of the natural laws were not properly understood, and the
masses are not educated up to that standard even now. Each man and
woman pays the penalty if he or she trespass against her or himself;
and if they trespass or sin against another, our civil laws take care
of that part.
Has humanity improved since the coming of Christ? Where do you find
it? In the history of the Catholic church?
They have two kinds of sin, mortal and venial sin. Mortal sin entails
spiritual death. Venial sin does not. Mountains of literature have
been written upon that one subject. Hundreds of thousands of men have
assumed the task of salvation for nearly two thousand years. What
have they accomplished? What have the popes, bishops, and priests
done? And what are they doing now? Of what use are they? They
have been more of a curse to the world than a benefit. We are too
busy to look back at popish history, the power, the ignorance, the
superstition, the darkness, and the persecution that overshadowed the
world during the popes' tyrannical and bloodthirsty rule. Greed, the
chief characteristic of the churchmen, readily finds means to raise
money for their use and benefit. In 1517 they sold indulgences for
past and future sins. Every crime was pardoned. Luther and reformation
came. Did this change or eradicate the evil? No! God, Christ, Holy
Ghost, Virgin Mary, etc., assumed only a milder role, only a slight
transformation. The Catholic church has been the greatest curse of
any church that ever existed. They started their anathemas (curses)
at Nice 325 A.D., and have continued cursing, through the twentieth
council at Trent, 1546 A.D., and still continue. Their power has
to some extent been modified, but the spirit of intolerance only
slumbers. They readily accommodate themselves to circumstances. If
they cannot rule the nation, they will seize the schools and train the
young, inculcating obedience to the church--that the youth shall be
subservient to the priest and yield up their earnings to the pope's
treasure. These are supported by the masses, assisted by the state,
to teach stuff like the following sample:
THE LITANY OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN.
We fly to thy patronage, O holy mother of God! Despise not our
petitions, but deliver us from all dangers, O ever glorious and
blessed Virgin!
Lord have mercy on us.
Christ have mercy on us.
Lord have mercy on us.
Christ hear us.
Christ graciously hear us.
God the father of heaven have mercy on us.
God the son, redeemer of the world, have mercy on us.
Holy Trinity, one God, have mercy on us.
Holy Mary, }
Holy mother of God, }
Holy Virgin of Virgins, }
Mother of Christ, }
Mother of divine grace, }
Mother most pure, }
Mother most chaste, }
Mother undefiled, }
Mother unviolated, }
Mother most amiable, }
Mirror of justice, }
Seat of wisdom, }
Cause of our joy, }
Spiritual vessel, } Pray for us.
Mother most adorable, }
Mother of our creator, }
Mother of our redeemer, }
Virgin most prudent, }
Virgin most venerable, }
Virgin most renowned, }
Virgin most powerful, }
Virgin most merciful, }
Virgin most faithful, }
Vessel of power, }
Vessel of singular devotion, }
Mystical rose, }
Tower of David, }
Tower of ivory, }
House of gold, }
Ark of the covenant, }
Gate of heaven, }
Morning star, }
Health of the weak, }
Refuge of sinners, }
Comforter of the afflicted, }
Queen of angels, } Let us pray.
Queen of patriarchs, }
Queen of prophets, }
Queen of apostles, }
Queen of martyrs, }
Queen of confessors, }
Queen of virgins, }
Queen of all saints, }
Etc., etc., etc.
From the time of Luther up to the present, God, Christ, Holy Ghost,
Virgin, etc., have been toned down considerably, until there is indeed
very little left except a shade of God. Our creeds now that have
dismissed Christ, Holy Ghost, and Virgin, yet retain a hazy something
which they still call God. The most erratic of these denominations
yell themselves hoarse with shouting Sin and Salvation!
The modern kindergarten of Protestant fashionable church organizations,
the society churches, the scholarly preachers, entertain their
congregations with a novel sort of oratory and classic music. These
represent a God at ease, a gentlemanly and mild sort of a God, with a
constant aristocratic smile round his lips, as irresistibly attractive
as money can make him.
Strong drastic terms, as purgatory, hell, and brimstone, are seldom
heard. That sort of doctrine is usually reserved and dished up in
furnace-like fashion to the poor, half-starved, ignorant sinners.