theme of unsparing invective, as if the burning of heretics and its
justification by Scripture were crimes peculiar to Roman Catholics, when
in point of fact both have been shamelessly committed by Christians
rejoicing in the name of Protestants. John Calvin burnt Servetus, and
Robert Hall, as we have seen, applauded the act. England, to say nothing
of other countries, has had its auto da fe, as well since as before the
Reformation. Heretics were first made bonfires of in England during the
reign of Henry the Fourth, who permitted the abomination in order to
please certain bishops he was under obligation to for assisting him to
depose Richard the Second and usurp his throne. But that the practice of
committing heretics to the flame prevailed in England long after Popery
ceased to be the dominant religion is notorious. If heretics were thus
sacrificed by Henry the Fourth to please Popish Bishops, they were also
sacrificed by Elizabeth with a view to the satisfaction of Protestant
Bishops. Cranmer literally compelled her brother, the amiable Edward, to
send a half crazed woman named Joan Boacher to the stake. Elizabeth
herself caused two Dutch Anabaptists to be burnt in Smithfield, though
it is but just to admit that, unlike her sullen sister, she preferred
rather to hang than to burn heretics. Lord Brougham has recently done
mankind another valuable piece of service by painting the portrait of
that Protestant princess in colours at once so lively and faithful that
none, save the lovers of vulgar fanaticism and murderous hypocrisy, will
gaze on it without horror. [81:1]
'Mary, honoured with the title of "bloody," appears to me a far more
estimable character than her ripping-up sister Elizabeth, who, when
Mary, on her death-bed, asked her for a real avowal of her religion,
"prayed God" that the earth might open and swallow her up if she was not
a true Roman Catholic.' She made the same declaration to the Duke of
Ferria, the Spanish Ambassador, who was so deceived that he wrote to
Philip, stating no change in religious matters would take place on her
accession, and soon afterwards began ripping up the bellies of
Catholics. That was quite the fashionable punishment in this and the
succeeding reign. I have the account, with names, dates, and reference
of no less than 101 more Catholics who were burnt, hung, ripped up, &c.,
by Elizabeth, and on to Charles the Second's end, than there were
Protestants in Mary's, and all the reigns which preceded her, letting
lying Fox count all he has got. Elizabeth, too, was by law a bastard,
and is to this day; and so soon did her intentions appear of changing
the religion, that all the bishops but one refused to crown her; and
when this was done, it was by the Catholic ritual. However the
Act-of-Parliament religion was set up again; the prayer book of Cranmer
was set up again, after sundry alterations: it was altered too, in
Edward's reign, yet when first made, it was duly declared to come from
the 'Holy Ghost;' so it was after its second polishing under Elizabeth.
To refuse the Queen's supremacy was death; it was death to continue in
that religion, which, at her coronation she had sworn to firmly believe
and defend. It was high treason to admit or harbour, or relieve a
priest, and hosts of these were ripped up, for, in the piety of their
hearts, risking all to afford the consolations of their religion to the
Catholics of England. Victim after victim came to the sacrifice, mostly
from the college of Douay. It is really horrible to read of these good
and faithful champions of their religion being hung, cut down
instantaneously, their bellies ripped up, their hearts cut out, their
bodies chopped in pieces with every insult and indignity added to
injury, all through this reign, and then to be talked to about 'bloody
Mary,' and the 'Good Queen-Bess.' Verily, countrymen, you are vilely
deceived. Taking into account the rippings, and burnings, and roastings,
and hanging; the racks, whips, fines, imprisonments, and other horrors
of the reign of this 'Good Bess,' there was a hundred times more human
misery inflicted in her reign than in that of' Bloody Mary.' [82:1]
The second Catherine of Russia, though remarkable for rigid and
scrupulous adherence to the ceremonial mummeries of her 'true church,'
was at the same time as remarkable for liberality of sentiment. It is
said, that upon a certain occasion, being strongly advised by her
ministers to deal out severe punishment on some heretics of Atheistical
tendencies, who had given offence by rather freely expressing their
opinions, she laughingly said, 'Oh, fie, gentlemen fie, if these
heretics are to be eternally miserable in the other world, we really
ought to let them be comfortable in this.'
Few religious persons are liberal as this empress, whose strong good
sense seems to have been fully a match for her bad education: that
education was Christian. She was taught to loathe the opinions, aye, and
the persons, of heretics, under which denomination may be included all
dissenters from religious truth as it was in her, or rather in the
church of which she was chief member. No other kind of teaching is
accounted orthodox in our 'land of Bibles' than that of state paid
priests of law established religion. Look at the true Church of
England's Thirty-Nine Articles. Do they not abound in anathema, and
literally teem with the venom of intolerance? Do they not shock the
better feelings even of those who believe them divine? The truth is, all
priests teach religion which no wit can reconcile with reason, and very
many of them make their followers believe, and perhaps believe
themselves, that to villify, abuse, and hunt down 'infidels,' are acts
acceptable in the sight of God. The idea of compensating poor
unbelievers in this world by an extra quantum of comfort for the
torments they are doomed to suffer in the next, never enters their head.
Indeed, not a few of them gloat with satisfaction over the prospect of
'infidels' gnashing their teeth in that fiery gulph prepared for the
devil and his angels. By this odious class of fanatics neither the worm
that dieth not, nor the flame never to be extinguished, is deemed
sufficient punishment for the wretch whose thoughts concerning religion
are not as their thoughts. By them the imagined 'Creator of the Heavens
and the earth' is dressed, up in attributes the most frightful. Witness
the character of Him implied in the conceit of that popular preacher who
declared 'there are children in hell not a span long'--a declaration
which could only be made by one whose humanity was extinguished by
divinity.
Our pulpits can furnish many such preachers of 'a religion of charity,'
while a whole army of Christian warriors might be gathered from
metropolitan pulpits alone, who deeming it impious to say their God of
mercy would permit the burning of infants not a span long, do
nevertheless, firmly believe that 'children of a larger growth' may
justly be tormented by the great king of kings; and as _ignorantia legis
non excusat_ is a maxim of _human law_, so, according to them, ignorance
of _divine_ law is no excuse whatever, either for breaking or
disregarding it.
The Author of this Apology was recently in Scotland, where a vast number
of religious tracts were put into his hand, one of which contains the
following among other striking paragraphs:--
'Man could, not _create_ himself, and far less can he save himself. When
God made him, he brought him out of nothing; when God. saves him, he
brings him out of a state far lower and worse than nothing. If in the
one case, then, everything depended, upon God's will and decree, much
more in the other. There can be no injustice here. Had God pleased, He
might have saved the whole world. But he did not; and thousands are now
in hell, and shall be to all eternity.'
'Hell is peopled already with millions of immortal souls doomed to fiery
wrath; while Heaven is filled with ransomed sinners as vile, yea perhaps
viler than they.' [83:1]
If the writer of this horrid nonsense do not blaspheme, there surely can
be no possibility of blaspheming. If he do not impute to his God of
mercy cruelty and injustice the most monstrous that can enter into human
conception, all language is void of meaning, and men had far better
cease 'civilising,' and betake themselves to woods and wilds and
fastnesses, to enjoy the state of mere brutishness so infinitely
preferable to that _reasonable_ state in which they are shaken and
maddened by terrible dreams of a vengeful cruel God.
Better be with the dead
Than on the tortures of the mind to lie
In restless ecstacy.
Better, far better, roam the desert or the forest like any other brutes,
than educate ourselves and others into the monstrous belief in a God who
might have saved the world and would not; who predestinates to endless
and unutterable agonies; who has with the one hand peopled Hell with
millions of immortal creatures, while with the other has filled Heaven
with millions of ransomed sinners, as vile, yea perhaps viler than they.
In justice however to the large class of Christians under the despotic
and truly lamentable influence of this belief, the Author is bound to
admit that they are far more consistent and logical in their notions of
Deity than perhaps any other section of Theists, for it cannot properly
be denied that the doctrine of an Omnipotent and Prescient God destroys
all distinction of virtue and vice, justice and injustice, right and
wrong, among men. Let the omnipotency and prescience of a First Cause be
granted, the corollary of 'whatever is, is right,' is one of the most
obvious that can flow from any proposition: the distance of any link in
the eternal sequence cannot lessen the connection with a First Cause,
admitting its Omnipotency and Prescience.
The author of these detestable paragraphs admits both. He is a rigid
Predestinarian, which no one can be who doubts the all powerfulness or
foreknowledge of that God whom Christians worship. Taking Scripture as
his guide, the Predestinarian must needs believe some are foredoomed to
Hell, and some to Hell, irrespective of all merit; it being manifestly
absurd to suppose one man can deserve more or less than another, in a
world, where all are compelled to believe, feel, and act, as they do
believe, feel, and act. The disgrace attached to the memory of Judas,
supposing him really to have betrayed his Divine Master, has no
foundation in human justice, for 'surely as the Lord liveth,' he was
foredoomed, and therefore compelled to betray him. Luther saw that
truth, and had the good sense to avow it. No more rational or just are
the denunciations of Judas than those so unsparingly heaped upon the
Jews for crucifying the Redeemer of the world, when every body must, or
at least, should know, that admitting the world's redemption depended
upon the Crucifixion of Christ, if the Jews had _not_ crucified him the
world could not have been redeemed. So far then from blackguarding Judas
and the Jews for doing, what in the Gospel they are represented to have
done, we should consider them rather as martyrs in the cause of Divine
Providence than as villains worthy only of abhorrence and execration. To
the Author of this Apology it seems certain that if there is a God, such
as the Christian delighteth to honour, nothing happens, nothing has
happened, nothing can happen contrary to His will. And is it not absurd
to say that what He pre-ordains mere mortals can hinder coming to pass?
Even the Devil, believed in by Christians, is a creature--how then could
he be anything else than the Creator thought fit to make him? Grant he
is the Father of Lies, and then he will appear worthy of compassion, if
you reflect that he was made so by the Father of Truth. In the Tract to
which such special reference has been made, it is contended that Adam
was made not because he chose to be made, but because God chose to make
him, and surely the same may be contended on the part of Judas, the
Jews, and last, though, assuredly, not least, the Devil himself. He who
is without God cannot run into absurdities and blasphemies like these,
whereas he who is with one cannot keep clear of them. If consistent he
must clothe Him with Calvinistic attributes. To present Him stripped of
foreknowledge, or omnipotency would outrage all just conception of that
'Immense Being' who brought his worshippers out of nothing. And yet if
we allow him these attributes there is no help for us, headlong we go
into the dark and fathomless doctrine of predestination, than which no
religious doctrine is so consistent or so revolting. Receive it, and at
once you find yourself bound heart and brain to belief in a supernatural
MONSTER--'a vengeful, pitiless, and Almighty Fiend, whose mercies are a
nickname for the rage of hungry tigers.'
The believers in this terrible offspring of heated imagination,
naturally aim at imitating, and thus rendering themselves acceptable, to
Him. Here is the source, whence for ages have flowed the bitter waters
of religious intolerance. If Calvin had not worshipped a cruel God, he
never could have hoped to please Him by the murder of Servetius. If
Cranmer had wanted lively faith in a God who people's Hell 'with
millions of immortal souls,' he never would have brought Joan Bocher to
the stake. Full of that Christian zeal, so 'apt to tarn sour,' these men
lived like the hermit Honorius, 'in hopes of gaining heaven by making
earth a hell.'
The savage bigotry of an Elizabeth or a Mary, naturally resulted from
the notion that monarchs unquestionably ruling by Divine right, were
called upon by every earthly, as well as heavenly consideration, to
prove their zeal in the cause of God, by destroying His adversaries.
Heretics have been consigned to dungeon and to name, for His glory, and
His satisfaction. All inquisitors from St. Dominic downward, have
indignantly repelled the charge that they have punished heretics just to
glut their own appetite for cruelty. Worshippers of a God who saith,
'vengeance is mine,' they have felt themselves mere instruments in His
hands; of themselves, and for themselves, they did nothing; all was for
God. To please Him, the Jew and the Heretic shrieked amid the flames.
They are not ashamed, why should they? to perform His behests. When the
late Duke of York was about to leave Lisbon, its Inquisitor-General
waited upon him, with a humble request that he would delay his departure
for a few days, in order to make one at an Auto da Fe, where it was
kindly promised, some Jews should be burnt for his diversion: so cruel
and so blind are the superstitious.
Queen Mary has long been the mark at which our most eloquent Protestant
Divines have aimed their shafts, while of her no less 'bloody' sister's
reputation, they have been most watchful and tender. With respect to
_her_ persecution of heretics, they preserve a death-like silence. Fear
of damaging Protestantism deters them from exposing the enormous
abomination of Protestant monarchs. Against the bigotry of Catholics
they hurl the fiercest denunciations; but if called upon to denounce as
fiercely the bigotry of Protestants, they make us understand 'the case
being altered, that alters the case.' A Popish Inquisition they abhor,
but see no evil in Inquisitions of their own. Smithfield Auto da Fe's,
according to these consistent Christians, were wrong during the reign of
Mary, and right during the reign of her pious sister, 'Good Queen Bess.'
Such is the justice of superstition. Its votaries knowing themselves the
favoured of heaven, feel privileged to outrage and trample under foot
the great principles of sense, propriety, and honour. Between Catholics
and Protestants as regards these principles there is little to
distinguish; for in the race of abomination, they have kept pretty
nearly neck and neck. The author of this Apology has no sympathy with
either, but of the two much prefers Popery. There is about it a breadth
of purpose, a grandeur, and a potency which excites some respect, even
in the breast of an enemy. Unreasonable it assuredly is, but Christians
who object to it on that ground, may be told--religion was never meant
to be reasonable; and that an appeal to rational principles will as
little avail one religion as another, as little avail Protestant as
Roman Catholic faith. All religion is unreasonable, and, moreover, to
rationalize would be to destroy it. Hobbes could discover nothing in
superstition essentially different from religion, nor can we. He deemed
true religion as the religion which is fashionable, and superstition as
the religion which is not fashionable.
So do we, so do all absolute Atheists. The notion that false religion
implies the true, just as base coin implies the pure, will have weight
with those, and only those, who cannot detect the sophistry of an
argument _a rubii toto caelo differentibus_; or in plain English, from
things entirely different presumed to be similar. Between coin and
religion there is no precise analogy. False coin implies true coin,
because none are sceptical as to the reality of true coin, but false
religion does not necessarily imply true religion, because the reality
of true religion is not only questionable, but questioned. It is not
usual for money-dealers to be at issue as to the quality of their cash.
The genuine article will stand the test, and always passes muster. A
practised ear can easily decide between the rival claims of two
half-crowns, one genuine, the other spurious, thrown upon a tradesman's
counter. But where are the scales in which we can weigh to a nicety true
and false religions? Where is the ear so well practised and so
delicately sensitive as to distinguish the true from the 'number without
number' of false voices raised in their behalf? Where the eye so
perfectly theologic, so sharp, piercing, and free of that film called
prejudice, as to see which of our religions is the genuine article? All
are agreed as to the genuineness of current money. All are at 'daggers
drawn' as to the genuineness of any one religion. That Christianity is
true no Christian denies, but which is the true Christianity _has not_
and we think _cannot_ be determined.
The knot of old fashioned politicians who call themselves Young England,
are enamoured of 'graceful superstition.' Alarmed at the march of
reason, and admirers of 'blind faith in mystery,' they sigh for a
renewal of those times when no one doubted the propriety of drowning
witches, or being touched for the king's evil. _Cui bono_ is the
question repeatedly put to the proselytising Atheist by this modern
antique class of persons, who cannot see the utility of destroying the
vital principle of all religions. But if that principle is false, no
sane man can doubt the expediency of proving it so. Falsehood may be
useful to individuals, but cannot tend to the moral and political
advancement of nations. Apologists of error find the presumed unfitness
of their fellow creatures to appreciate truth a sufficient reason for
not teaching it. To raise up the populace to their own intellectual
level they deem impracticable, and therefore speak down to their lowest
passions and prejudices: like Varro they contend there are some truths
the vulgar had better think falsehoods, and many falsehoods they had
better think truths. The consequences of such 'moral swindling' are
everywhere visible: on all sides superstition, wild, unreasoning,
senseless superstition rears its hateful front, and vomits forth
anathema on the friend of progress, humanity, and social justice. Look
at Ireland: see to what a Pandaemonium superstition has converted 'the
first flower of the land and first gem of the sea.' In that unhappy
country may be seen seven or eight millions of people cheated, willingly
defrauded of their substance, by a handful of designing priests, who,
dead to shame, erect the most stupid credulity into exalted virtue
--battle in support of ignorance because knowledge is incompatible with
their 'blood-cemented pyramid of greatness,' and to aggrandise
themselves, perpetuate the vilest as well as most palpable delusions
that ever assumed the mask of divine truth. Daniel O'Connell may object
to have them called 'surpliced ruffians,' not so the philosopher, who
sees in pious fraud on a gigantic scale, the worst species of ruffianism
that ever disgraced the earth.
These are no new tangled or undigested notions. From age to age the
wisest among men have abhorred and denounced superstition. It is true
that only a small section of them treated religion as if _necessarily_
superstition, or went quite so far as John Adams, who said, _this would
be the best of all possible worlds if there were no religion in it_. But
an attentive reading of ancient and modern philosophical books has
satisfied the Author of this Apology that through all recorded time,
religion has been _tolerated_ rather than _loved_ by great thinkers, who
had _will_, but not _power_ to wage successful war upon it. Gibbon
speaks of Pagan priests who, 'under sacerdotal robes, concealed the
heart of an Atheist.' Now, these priests were also the philosophers of
Rome, and it is not impossible that some modern philosophical priests,
like their Pagan prototypes, secretly despise the religion they openly
profess. Avarice, and lust of power, are potent underminers of human
virtue. The mighty genius of Bacon was not proof against them, and he
who deserves to occupy a place among 'the wisest and greatest' has been
'damned to eternal fame' as the, 'meanest of mankind.'