divided among themselves as regards topics vitally important, and to
draw from the fact of such division an argument for making Scripture the
only 'rule of faith and manners.' Chillingworth said, 'there are Popes
against Popes, councils against councils, some fathers against others,
the same fathers against themselves--a consent of fathers of one age
against a consent of fathers of another age, the church of one age
against the church of another age. Traditive interpretations of
Scripture are pretended, but there are few or none to be found. No
tradition but only of scripture can derive itself from the fountain, but
may be plainly proved, either to have been brought in in such an age
after Christ; or that in such an age it was not in. In a word, there is
no sufficient certainty but of Scripture only for any considering man to
build on. [70:1] And after reading this should 'any considering man' be
anxious to know something about the Scripture on which alone he is to
build, he cannot do better than dip into Dr. Watt's book on the right
use of Reason, where we are told 'every learned (Scripture) critic has
his own hypothesis, and if the common text be not favourable to his
views a various lection shall be made authentic. The text must be
supposed to be defective or redundant, and the sense of it shall be
literal or metaphorical according as it best supports his own scheme.
Whole chapters or books shall be added or left out of the sacred canon,
or be turned into parables by this influence. Luther knew not well how
to reconcile the epistle of St. James to the doctrine of justification
by faith alone, and so he could not allow it to be divine. The Papists
bring all their Apocrypha into their Bible, and stamp divinity upon it,
for they can fancy purgatory is there, and they find prayers for the
dead. But they leave out the second commandment because it forbids the
worship of images. Others suppose the Mosaic history of the creation,
and the fall of man, to be oriental ornaments, or a mere allegory,
because the literal sense of those three chapters of Genesis, do not
agree with their theories.
These remarks are certainly not calculated to make 'considering men' put
their trust in Scripture. Coming from a Protestant Divine of such high
talent and learning, they may rather be expected to breed in
'considering men' very unorthodox opinions as well of the authenticity
as the genuineness of _both Testaments_, and a strong suspicion that
Chillingworth was joking when he talked about their "sufficient
certainty." The author of this Apology has searched Scripture in vain
for 'sufficient certainty,' with respect to the long catalogue of
religious beliefs which agitate and distract society. Laying claim to
the character of a 'considering man,' he requires that Scripture to be
_proved_ the word of a God before appealed to, as His Revelation; a feat
no man has yet accomplished. Priests, the cleverest, most industrious,
and least scrupulous, have tried their hands at the pious work, but all
have failed. Notwithstanding the mighty labours of our Lardner's and
Tillemont's and Mosheim's, no case is made out for the divinity of
either the Old or New Testament. 'Infidels' have shown the monstrous
absurdity of supposing that any one book has an atom more divinity about
it than any other book. Those 'brutes' have completely succeeded in
proving that Christianity is a superstition, no less absurd than
Mohammedanism, and to the full as mischievous. To us, we candidly avow
that its doctrines, precepts, and injunctions appear so utterly opposed
to good sense, and good government, that we are persuaded even if it
were practicable to establish a commonwealth in harmony with them at
sun-rise it would infallibly go to pieces before sunset. The author has
read that Roman augurs rarely met to do the professional without
laughing at each other, and he is bothered to understand how Christian
priests contrive to keep their countenances, amid the many strong
temptations to mirth, by which, in their official capacity they are
surrounded. No doubt very many of them laugh immoderately in private, by
way of revenge for the gravity they are constrained to assume in public.
It is well known that hypocrites are most prone to an affectation of
sanctity; which marvellously steads them in this world, happen what may
in the world to come. Nine-tenths of those who make a parade of their
piety, are rotten at heart, as that Cardinal de Crema, Legate of Pope
Calixtus 2nd, in the reign of Henry 1st, who declared at a London Synod,
it was an intolerable enormity, that a priest should dare to consecrate,
and touch the body of Christ immediately after he had risen from the
side of a strumpet, (for that was the decent appellation he gave to the
wives of the clergy), but it happened, that the very next night, the
officers of justice, breaking into a disorderly house, found the
Cardinal in bed with a courtezan; an incident, says Hume, [72:1] "which
threw such ridicule upon him, that he immediately stole out of the
kingdom; the synod broke up, and the canons against the marriage of its
clergymen, were worse executed than ever."
Christian practice is after all, the best answer to Christian theory.
Men who think wisely, do not it is true, always act wisely; but
generally speaking, the moral, like the physical tree, is known by its
fruit, and bitter, most bitter, is the fruit of that moral tree, the
followers of Jesus planted. Notwithstanding their talk about the pure
and benign influence of their religion, an opinion is fast gaining
ground, that Bishop Kiddor was right, when he said, 'were a wise man to
judge of religion by the lives of its professors, perhaps, Christianity
is the last he would choose.'
No unprejudiced thinker who is familiar with the history of religion
will deny, that of all priests in this priest-ridden world Christian
priests are the worst. Though less potent they are not much less proud
or ambitious than when Pope Pascal II. told King Henry I. that all
ecclesiastics must enter into the church through Christ and Christ
alone, not through the civil magistrate or any profane laymen. Nor are
they less jealous of such as would fain reduce the dimensions of their
'spiritual jurisdiction,' than when that haughty Pope reminded his king
that 'priests are called God in Scripture as being the vicars of God;'
while in consideration for the poor and the oppressed, modern priests
are disadvantageously distinguished, from those 'vicars of God,' who
trod upon the necks of emperors and kings, made or unmade laws at
pleasure, and kept Europe, intellectual Europe, in unreasoning,
unresisting subjection. The reader who agrees with Milton that
To know, what every day before us lies,
Is the prime wisdom,
will in all likelihood not object to cast his eyes around and about him,
where proofs of modern priestly selfishness are in wonderful abundance.
By way of example may be cited the cases of those right reverend Fathers
in God the Bishops of London and Chester, prelates high in the church;
disposers of enormous wealth with influence almost incalculable; the
former more especially. And how stand they affected towards the poor? By
reference to the _Times_ newspaper of September 27th, 1845, it will be
seen that those very influential and wealthy Bishops are supporters _en
chef_ of a 'Reformed Poor Law,' the 'virtual principle' of which is 'to
reduce the condition of those whose necessities oblige them to apply for
relief, below that of the labourer of the _lowest class_.' A Reformed
Poor Law, having for its 'object,' yes reader, its object, the
restoration of the pauper to a position below that of the independent
labourer.' This is their 'standard' of reference, by rigid attention to
which they hope to fully carry out their 'vital principle,' and thus
bring to a satisfactory conclusion the great work of placing 'the pauper
in a worse condition than the independent labourer.' It appears, from
the same journal, that in reply to complaints against their dietary, the
Commissioners appointed to work the Reformed Poor Law, consider that
twenty-one ounces of food daily 'is more than the hard working labourer
with a family could accomplish for himself by his own exertions.' This,
observes a writer in the _Times_, being the Commissioners' reading of
their own 'standard,' it may be considered superfluous to refer to any
other authority; but, as the Royal Agricultural Society of England have
clubbed their general information on this subject in a compilation from
a selection of essays submitted to them, we are bound to refer to such
witnesses who give the most precise information on the actual condition
of the _independent labourer_, with minute instructions for his general
guidance, and the economical expenditure of his income. 'He should,'
they say, 'toil early and late' to make himself 'perfect' in his
calling. 'He should _pinch and screw_ the family, even in the _commonest
necessaries_,' until he gets 'a week's wages to the fore.' He should
drink in his work 'water mixed with some powdered ginger,' which warms
the stomach, and is 'extremely cheap.' He should remember that 'from
three to four pounds of potatoes are equal in point of nourishment to a
pound of the best wheaten bread, besides having the great advantage of
_filling_ the stomach. He is told that 'a lot of bones may always be got
from the butchers for 2d., and they are never scraped so clean as not to
have some scraps of meat adhering to them.' He is instructed to boil
these two penny worth of bones, for the first day's family dinner, until
the liquor 'tastes _something_ like broth.' For the second day, the
bones are to be again boiled in the same manner, but for _a longer
time_. Nor is this all, they say, 'that the bones, if again boiled for a
_still longer_ time, will _once more_ yield a nourishing broth, which
may be made into pea soup.'
This is the system and this the schoolmastership expressly sanctioned by
the Bishops of London and Chester. In piety nevertheless these prelates
are not found wanting. They may starve the bodies but no one can charge
them with neglecting the souls of our 'independent labourers.' Nothing
can exceed their anxiety to feed and clothe the spiritually destitute.
They raise their mitred fronts, even in palaces, to proclaim and lament
over the spiritual destitution which so extensively prevails--but they
seldom condescend to notice _physical_ destitution. When the cry of
famine rings throughout the land they coolly recommend rapid church
extension, thus literally offering stone to those who ask them for
bread. To get the substantial and give the spiritual is their practical
Christianity. To spiritualise the poor into contentment with the
'nourishing broth' from thrice boiled bones, and to die of hunger rather
than demand relief, are their darling objects. Verily, if these and men
like these do not grind the faces of the poor, the Author of this
Apology is unable to conceive in what that peculiar process consists. In
Scripture we are told, the bread of the poor is his life, and they who
defraud him thereof are men of blood; and by whom are the poor defrauded
of their bread if not by those who, like the Bishops of London and
Chester, legislate for poverty as if it were a crime, and lend theft
sanction to a system which, while it necessitates the wholesale pinching
and screwing even in the commonest necessaries of life 'of independent
labourers,' does also necessitate the wholesale starvation of still more
wretched paupers? Formerly our 'surplus populations' were 'killed off'
by bullet and sabre, now they are got rid of in Poor Law Unions by a
process less expensive perhaps, but not less effectual.
Did Atheists thus act, did they perpetrate, connive at, or tolerate such
atrocities as were brought to light during the Andover inquiry, such
cold blooded heartlessness would at once be laid to the account of their
principles. Oh yes, Christians are forward to judge of trees by their
fruit, except the tree called Christianity. Their great 'prophet' argued
that if the tree is good the fruit will be good; but when their own
religion is in question they give such argument the slip. The vices of
the Atheist they ascribe to his creed. The vices of the Christian to
anything but his creed. Let professors of Christianity be convicted of
gross criminality, and lo its apologists say such professors are not
Christians. Let fanatical Christians commit excesses which admit not of
open justification, and the apologist of Christianity coolly assures us
such conduct is mere rust on the body of his religion--moss which grows
on the stock of his piety.
It has been computed that the Spaniards in America destroyed in about
forty-five years ten millions of human creatures, and this with a view
of converting them to Christianity. Bartholomew Casa, who made this
computation, affirms that they (the Spaniards) hanged those unhappy
people _thirteen in a row_, in honour of the _thirteen Apostles_, and
that they also gave their infants to be devoured by dogs. [75:1]
Corsini, another religious author, tells us the Spaniards destroyed more
than fifteen millions of American aborigines, and calculates that the
blood of these devoted victims, added to that of the slaves destroyed in
the mines, where they were compelled to labour, would weigh as much as
all the gold and silver that had been dug out of them.
If these or similar horrors were perpetrated by Atheists, who can doubt
that Roman Catholics would at once ascribe them to the pestiferous
influence of Atheistical principles. And the Author of this Apology is
of opinion that they would be justified in so doing. When whole nations
of professed irreligionists shall be found conquering a country, and
hanging the aborigines of that country thirteen in a row, in honour of
some thirteen apostles of Atheism, their barbarity may fairly be
ascribed to their creed. Habit does much, and perhaps much of our
virtue, or its opposite is contingent on temperament; but no people
entertaining correct speculative opinions could possibly act, or
tolerate, atrocities like these. But strange to say, neither Roman
Catholic, nor any other denomination of Christians, will submit to be
tried to the same standard they deem so just when applied to Atheists.
Now sauce for the goose every body knows is equally sauce for the
gander, and it is difficult to discover the consistency or the honesty
of men, who trace to their creed the crimes or merest peccadilloes of
Atheists, and will not trace to their creed the shocking barbarity of
Christians. To understand such men is easy; to admire them is
impossible; for their conduct in this particular palpably shocks every
principle of truth and fairness. Why impute to Atheism the vices or
follies of its Apostles, while refusing to admit that the vices or
follies of Christians should be imputed to Christianity. Of both folly
and vice it is notorious professing Christians have 'the lion's share.'
Yet the apologists of Christianity, who would fain have us believe the
lives of Atheists a consequence of Atheism, will by no means believe
that the lives of Christians are a consequence of Christianity.
Let no one suppose the Author of this Apology is prepared to allow that
Atheists are men of cruel dispositions or vicious. He will not say with
Coleridge that only men of good hearts and strong heads can be Atheists,
but he is quite ready to maintain that the generality of Atheists are
men of mild, generous, peaceable studious dispositions, who desire the
overthrow of superstition, or true religion as its devotees call it,
because convinced a superstitious people never can be enlightened,
virtuous, free, or happy. Their love of whatever helps on civilisation
and disgust of war are testified to even by opponents. We may learn from
the writings of Lord Bacon not only his _opinion_ that Atheism leaves
men to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation,
all which, he justly observes, may be guides to an outward moral virtue,
though religion were not; but the _fact_ that 'the times inclined to
Atheism (as the times of Augustus Caesar) were civil times.' Nay, he
expressly declared 'Atheism did never perturb states; for it makes men
wary of themselves as looking no further.' [76:1] Can the same be said
of religion? Will any one have the hardihood to say religion did never
perturb states, or that the times inclined to religion (as the times of
Oliver Cromwell) were civil times, or that it makes man wary of
themselves as looking no further? During times inclined to religion more
than one hundred thousand witches were condemned to die by Christian
tribunals in accordance with the holy text, thou shalt not suffer a
witch to live. During times inclined to religion it was usual to burn,
broil, bake, or otherwise murder heretics for the glory of God, and at
the same time to spare the vilest malefactors. During times inclined to
religion, it has been computed that in Spain alone no less than 32,382
people were, by the faithful, burnt alive; 17,690 degraded and burnt in
effigy; and all the goods and chattels of the enormous number of 291,450
consigned to the chancery of the Inquisition. [77:1] In short, during
those 'good old times,' men yielded themselves up to practices so
strangely compounded of cruelty and absurdity, that one finds it
difficult to believe accounts of them, however well authenticated.
Speaking of the bigotted fury of certain ecclesiastics, Hippolyto Joseph
de Costa, in his 'Narrative of the persecution' he suffered while lodged
gratis by the Portuguese Inquisition for the pretended crime of Free
Masonry, says, it would exceed the bounds of credulity, had not facts in
corroboration of it been so established by witnesses, that nothing can
shake them. Among ecclesiastics of this denomination we may mention that
Pontiff, who, from a vile principle of hate for his predecessor, to whom
he had been an enemy, as soon as he ascended the Papal chair directed
the corpse to be taken out from the grave, had the fingers and the head
cut off and thrown into the sea, ordered the remainder of the body to be
burnt to ashes and excommunicated the soul. Could revenge be carried
farther than in this instance? The institution itself of the inquisition
and the cruelty with which its members persecute those whom they suspect
of tenets different from their own, may well excite surprise. In their
eyes the tortures and the death of their fancied enemies are a mere
amusement. They burn some of their prisoners alive, render their
memories infamous, and prosecute their children and all the connections
of these unhappy sufferers; they deprive orphans of the inheritance of
their parents, dishonour families in every possible shape, and at length
have recourse to the auto da fe, [77:2] on which occasion, while the
miserable wretches are lingering in torments, the members of the
inquisition not only feast their eyes with this Infernal spectacle, but
regale themselves with their friends at the expense of their unhappy
victims. Such are the practises of the Inquisition.
When those Spanish Christians who amused themselves by hanging poor
wretches, thirteen in a row, in honour of the thirteen apostles, were
taunted with cruelty, they boldly affirmed that as God had not redeemed
with his blood the souls of the Indians, no difference should be made
between them and the lowest of beasts. In Irvings history of New York is
a letter written, we are told, by a Spanish priest, to his superior in
Spain, which, 'among other curiosities, contain this question--'Can any
one have the presumption to say these savage pagans have yielded
anything more than an inconsiderable recompense to their benefactors, in
surrendering to them a little pitiful tract of this dirty sublunary
planet in exchange for a glorious inheritance hereafter.'
Such is the conceit as well as cruelty of men who imagine themselves the
vicegerents and avengers of Deity. In His name they burn, and slay, and
rob without compunction or remorse; nay, when like Sir Giles Overreach,
their ears are pierced by widows cries, and undone orphans wash with
tears their thresholds, they only think what 'tis to make themselves
acceptable in the sight of God. Believing pious ends justify any means,
they glory in conduct the most repugnant to every principle of decency,
equity, and humanity.
In the cathedral of Saragossa, is a magnificent tomb, raised, in honor
of a famous inquisitor; around it are six pillars, to each of which is
chained a Moor preparatory to his being burnt. And if additional
evidence were needed of human folly, and stupid disposition, like dray
horses to go perpetually, on 'one's nose in t'others tail,' we have it
in the astounding fact, that when the Spanish Cortes proposed the
abolition of the Inquisition, the populace of Spain considered such
proposal, 'an infringement of their liberties.' [78:1] We have it on
respectable authority, that Torquemada in the space of fourteen years
that he wielded the chief inquisitorial powers, robbed, or otherwise
persecuted eighty thousand persons, of whom about six thousand were
committed to the flames.
Inquisitors made no secret of their hatred towards heretics; to destroy
them they considered a sacred duty. Far from ashamed of their cruelty
towards heretics, they gloried in it, as undeniable evidence of their
enthusiasm in the cause of Christ. Simoncas, one of their most esteemed
writers, said, 'the heretics deserve not merely one death, but many
deaths; because a single death is the punishment of an ordinary heretic;
but these (the heretics) are deserving of punishment without mercy, and
particularly the teachers of the Lutheran heresy, who must by no means
be spared.' Pegma, another of their writers, insists, that dogmatical
heretics should be punished with death, even though they gave the most
unequivocal proof of their repentance.
That eminently pious monarch, Phillip the Second of Spain, so loved to
hear heretics groan, that he rarely missed Auto da Fes; at one of which
several distinguished persons were to be burnt for heresy; among the
rest Don John de Cesa, who while passing by him, said,' Sire, how can
you permit so many unfortunate persons to suffer? How can you be witness
of so horrid a sight without shuddering?' Phillip coolly replied, 'If my
son, sir, were suspected of heresy, I should myself hand him over to the
Inquisition.' 'My detestation,' continued he, 'of you and your
companions is so great, that I would act myself as your executioner, if
no other could be found.'
Phillip the Fifth, as may be seen in Coxe's Memoirs of the Kings of
Spain, 'presented about the year 1172, three standards taken from
'infidels' to our lady of Atocha; and sent another to the Pope, as the
grateful homage of the Catholic King to the head of the Church. He also,
for the first time, attended the celebration of an Auto da Fe, at which
in the commencement of his reign he had refused with horror to appear,
and witnessed the barbarous ceremony of committing twelve Jews and
Mohammedans to the flames.' So great during times inclined to religion
was inquisitorial power, that monarchs and statesmen of liberal
tendencies were constrained to quail before it. It is related that a
Jewish girl, entered into her seventeenth year, extremely beautiful, who
in a public _act of faith_, at Madrid, June 30th, 1680, together with
twenty others of the same nation of both sexes, being condemned to the
stake, turned herself to the Queen of Spain, then present, and prayed,
that out of her goodness and clemency she might be delivered from the
dreadful punishment of the fire. 'Great Queen,' said she, 'is not your
presence able to bring me some comfort under my misery? Consider my
youth, and that I am condemned for a religion which I have sucked in
with my mother's milk.' The Queen turned away her eyes, declaring, she
pitied the miserable creature, but did not dare to intercede for her
with a single word.
Not only have Roman Catholic writers defended these inquisitorial
abominations, but, with what every Protestant must needs consider daring
and blasphemous impiety, laboured to prove that the first Inquisitor was
God himself. Luis de Paramo, for instance, in his book 'De Origine et
Progressu Officii Sanctoe Inquisitionis, ejusque dignitate et
utilitate,' proves God to be the first Inquisitor, and that in the
Garden of Eden was the first auto da fe.
Nor do these most pious casuists discover anything in Scripture which
forbids the burning of heretics, notwithstanding such texts as
'Whosoever sheddeth man's blood by man shall his blood be shed,' which
they contend inquisitors do never violate the true meaning or spirit of,
it being evident that to burn men is not to shed their blood--thus
eluding the maxim Ecclesia non novit sanguinem. And if their right to
burn heretics was questioned they triumphantly cited the text (as given
in the 'Beehive' of the Romish Church) 'Whosoever doth not abide in me,
shall be cast out of the vineyard as a branch and there wither; and men
gather those branches and cast them into the fire and burn them.'
On this text John Andreas, Panormitamis, Hostraensii, Bernardus
Leizenburgen, and others of the Roman Catholic casuists built up their
proof that heretics, like grape branches, should be cast into the fire
and burnt.