Our senses are the means by which we were made competent witnesses. They
are the bed-rock of evidence. We know facts and truths, both
comprehensible and incomprehensible, by the same means. We are as
competent to testify of that which we do not comprehend as we are to
testify of the most ordinary fact. As competent to bear testimony to the
fact of a sweeping tornado as to the fact of a gentle breeze. As competent
to bear testimony to the fact that water freezes and becomes hard as to
testify to the truth of its being a fluid. As competent to testify to a
fact that we never before experienced as to one that we have. Without this
competency no man could be justly held responsible for slander or perjury.
We gain knowledge by means of our senses, and all lying and perjury is
outside of our senses, having no connection with them. We can, in truth,
testify to that which we have seen, heard, tasted, smelt or felt, and to
such only. That which somebody else thus witnessed may be testified by
him, but not by me, unless I, too, was connected with it by means of my
senses. Wise men may be deceived in some things, but fools can not be
deceived in others. Things addressing themselves to our senses are things
about which we can not be so deceived as to truthfully deny that they ever
occurred. I know a live man when I see him by the same means I know a dead
man.
Being competent to bear witness to a new fact, to one heretofore
unexperienced, I would have been competent to bear witness to the death,
burial and resurrection of the Christ, in case I had lived in his day, and
had been as familiar with him as his witnesses. By which I mean to say,
they were competent witnesses; every way qualified to know assuredly
whether the Savior rose from the dead. _They could not be deceived_ about
the matter. They were not. If they were honest men they told the truth,
for they say, We saw, and heard, and our hands have handled. Then the
entire Christian religion, with its immortal blessings, stands or falls
upon the honesty of the Savior’s witnesses. Martyrdom has been universally
conceded to be an evidence of sincerity; there may be a few exceptions to
this general rule, but even they are not parallel cases. There is a story
of a man who endured with great fortitude all the tortures of the rack,
denying the fact with which he was charged. When he was asked afterwards
how he could hold out against all the tortures, he said: I painted a
gallows on the toe of my shoe, and when the rack stretched me, I looked on
the gallows, and bore the pain to save my life. This man denied a plain
fact under torture, but he did it to save his life.
When criminals persist in denying their crimes they do it with the hope of
saving their lives. Such cases are not parallel. Who ever heard of persons
dying _willingly_ in attestation of a false fact? Can we be made to
believe that any set of rational men could be found who would _willingly
die_ in attestation of the false fact that the President of the United
States is now on the throne of England? The witnesses of Christ died in
attestation of those facts which they say they saw, and heard, and knew,
among which was the great fact of the resurrection of Christ. It was their
privilege to quit their evidence, at any instant, and save their lives,
but they did not do it. Who can account for this strange course of conduct
upon the ground of dishonesty?
If a man reports an uncommon fact that is a plain object of sense, and we
do not believe him, it is because we suspect his honesty and not his
senses. If we are satisfied that the reporter is sincere, of course we
believe. So our case is now in this shape: First, the great facts of the
gospel of Christ addressed themselves, as simple facts, to the senses of
men; second, no witness could affirm those facts honestly unless they took
place; third, the witnesses to those facts gave all the evidences of
sincerity and honesty that are possible. Reputation for truthfulness and
honesty has never rested upon any evidence that is not found in great
abundance in the lives of the witnesses of Christ. It is said that men die
for false opinions: very true, but their sufferings and death,
nevertheless, prove that they were sincere. True philosophy does not
charge men who die for their opinions with dishonesty. Men may be mistaken
in some things, but mistaken men are _not cheats_; are not insincere or
dishonest. But the witnesses of Christ could not, in the nature of the
case, belong to this class; they could not be mistaken about any such
facts as those of the gospel. The only fort to be held in order to hold
the gospel of Christ is the sincerity of his witnesses. When a man gets
rid of the evidence upon which the reputation of those witnesses for
honesty rests, he has removed the only evidence upon which it is possible
for him to build a reputation for truth and honesty. So, if a man succeeds
in sinking the gospel of Christ, he succeeds, at the same time and by the
same means, in sinking himself. This is the philosophic and logical
conclusion, from which there is no escape.
Let us look around one of the Savior’s witnesses and see what we can
discover. First, we find Saul, a bold and fearless Jew, a Roman citizen by
birth, and a pharisee in the Jews religion; a legalist by profession;
laboring under all the prejudices of the straitest sect of the pharisees;
persecuting the Savior’s disciples to the death. He was a man of no mean
attainments. His worldly prospects were greater than those of any other
man known to be converted from among the Jews. The testimony which he
submits for our consideration is like the evidence of all the others. It
consists in simple facts about which there was no possibility of being
mistaken, for the facts were seen and heard. Allowing that Saul did
neither see nor hear the Savior, he was insincere. And if he was, then we
shall always be at a loss to know what constitutes the basis of an honest
reputation. Did he give his evidence, knowing that it was false, with the
intention of deceiving? If so, what were his motives? He could have had no
reasonable inducements. Christianity could not furnish him with temporal
power, credit, or interest during all his lifetime. So far as credit was
concerned, in the affair of his conversion, he knew that the world had
none to give. He knew that preaching Christ crucified was “to the Jews a
stumbling-block, and to the Greeks foolishness.” He knew that the Christ
himself had been crucified. Credit or reputation was lying upon the
anti-christian side of the gospel. He was already in high esteem among the
Jews; a “_ring-leader_,” pursuing the course of action calculated in the
very nature of things to advance him higher in their estimation. His
entire life demonstrated the fact that he expected nothing of the Jews,
for it was spent, with trifling exceptions, among the Gentiles. His
enterprise was with them, for he was sent to them.
The difficulties lying in the way of any worldly emoluments were many and
great. He had to contend with the authority and policy of the rulers; with
the interest, credit and clique of the priests; with the prejudices and
passions of the people; with the shrewdness and pride of the philosophers.
Every man acquainted with ancient history knows that the established
religion with which he would necessarily come in conflict, was interwoven
with their civil institution, and supported by the rulers as _an
essential_ part of their government. The Romans allowed a great many
religious systems to exist, but they allowed no such thing as a religion
destructive of the genius of paganism. The existing religions were many,
and embraced the system of many gods ruling under one “Master God,” as
“his members,” or representatives. The antagonism between Paganism and
Christianity may be seen at once, in the fact that the Gospel of Christ
was death to all the lower gods. On this account the first Christians
became at once the object of national hatred and scorn. This accounts for
the fact that bloody Rome baptized herself in Christian blood in spite of
all her tolerance of religion.
The apostle met with sufferings on all sides; and having perfect liberty
of recantation at any moment, how did it come to pass, if he was
insincere, that he did not recant? Was he rational? Let his writing
answer! They are admired by the best minds of earth. If he was irrational,
let us have many more insane writers! Was he honest? If not, who is
honest? Could he be deceived about the facts which he saw and heard? No!
If he was, who can’t be? He could not be mistaken, for he _saw_, and
_heard_, and _felt_—even to _blindness_, and, also, to the receiving of
his sight. He was sincere. He suffered long as a bold defender of the
Christian religion, and died a martyr’s death at last. Let us work on,
suffer on, hope on, “hope in death,” and live forever! So mote it be.
“BROAD-GAUGE RELIGION.”—SHALL THE CONFLICT CEASE?
First. “A portion of the Church of England, comprising those who claim to
hold a position, in respect to doctrine and fellowship, intermediate
between the old High Church party and the modern Low Church, or
evangelical party, a term of recent origin,” having originated in the last
half century, “which has been loosely applied to other bodies of men
holding liberal or comprehensive views of Christian doctrine and
fellowship.”—_Webster._
Side by side with these various shades of High and Low Church, another
party of a different character has always existed in the Church of
England. It is called by different names: Moderate, Catholic, or _Broad
Church_, by its friends: Latitudinarian or Indifferent, by its enemies.
Its distinctive character is the desire of comprehension. Its watchwords
are _charity_ and _toleration_.—_Conybeare._
_Broadgauge._ This word is connected, in its origin, with railroads. Its
radical idea is that of distance. It is credited by Webster to Simmonds in
these words, “A wide distance (usually six or seven feet) between the
rails on a railway, in contradistinction from the narrow gauge of four
feet eight inches and a half.” The watch-word, “charity,” is a term that
has been much abused. “Charity is a grace of heavenly mien.” It is the
“end of the commandment.” “The law was not made for a righteous man, but
for the lawless, and the disobedient, etc.” It is love, in the New
Testament sense of the term, as modified by all the essential elements of
the Christian religion, so it is “the fulfilling of the law.” It is not
passion, _but affection_. To my sensuous life all my passions belong. The
brute has also a sensuous life. But man has, in addition to this, an
intellectual life. Passion always passes away with its object, but
affection remains to soften the heart years after its object is gone.
My intellectual nature is the field of all legitimate gospel operations
with reference to the production of a Christian life and character. As a
divine affection, charity or love springs out of union with God, or being
made a “partaker of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that
is in the world through lusts.” Such being the height of its bed-rock, it
is said, “Every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth God.” And it is
also said, “He that saith I know him and keepeth not his commandments is a
liar.” This strong language correlates with the fact that charity
expresses the idea of love as an attribute of divine life, known as the
life of God. It is an attribute belonging to those who have made the high
attainment of a spiritual or mental condition which places them beyond the
need of penal laws to restrain them from crime. Its _measure_ is the _love
of God_. Its full import may be expressed in these words, _loving as God
loves_.
After enumerating many of the Christian graces an apostle said, Above all
these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness. So charity,
or rather its possessor, is no willful truth “butcherer,” for charity
believeth all things (_or all truth_); hopeth all things (_promised_);
rejoiceth, not in iniquity, but in the truth. It has no “stock” in known
error, for it “abounds in all knowledge and judgment,” and “approves
things that are excellent.” It is noble and right to let “love,” or
“charity have her perfect work,” to be, or rather try to be, as charitable
as God himself; but it is absurd and preposterous to go beyond or try to
be more charitable. “It is enough that the disciple be _as his master_.”
Men are guilty of this presumption when they, in feigned charity, go
beyond the word of the Lord, or beyond the truth in their expressions of
kindness.
There is a great deal of love in this world that lacks the elements of
_perfectness_. It is not the “love of God,” or loving as God loves. It is
not the attribute of a divine life. There is no charity in influencing a
person, willfully, to stop short or go beyond the truth in Christian faith
or obedience. There is no charity in giving a man money knowingly to
purchase whisky to get drunk upon. Charity never conflicts with truth or
right. On the contrary, it endeavors to bring all men to the standard of
truth and rectitude.
The phrase “Broad-gauge” seems to have been gotten up to express the idea
of an intelligent relaxation from “human creeds” as bonds of union and
fellowship. In this sense we all ought to be the advocates of “Broad-gauge
religion.” We should cultivate the spirit of gospel liberality until we
utterly disregard and put away all human creeds.
It is a trite saying, that one extreme begets another; against this error
we should guard with great caution. To succeed in religion, we must
remember, always, that we have in the word of God a standard of truth and
right that will always govern us according to heaven’s will. Many persons,
forgetting this truth, have been led to conclude that departures from the
word of truth, as a matter of “liberality,” or “broad-gauge religion,” are
justifiable. And, as “liberalists,” or “broad-gauge Christians,” they are
disposed to recognize all the existing divisions in faith and practice
that are known in Christendom. They even go further and allow that somehow
all are right, and will stand upon an equality in the righteous judgement
of God. This is not perfect love. Charity, over and above a kindly feeling
towards those who are in error, is unfaithfulness to the truth, to God,
and to the very best interests of our humanity. It is, in all such cases,
_love run mad_! A man should never get so broad in his religion as to be
unfaithful to truth.
The phraseology has also been appropriated by skeptics and semi-infidels
to popularize their own semi-infidel philosophy, which they love to
denominate “free thought.” Deists, Pantheists and Atheists have seized
upon the phrase and appropriated it to their ungodly speculations. It is
true that others, in getting away from their old creeds, have run past the
standard of truth and right. All this wildness in the _standardless_ field
of thought, where Hobbes and other infidels reveled, without any guide
save the civil law, has been denominated “Broad-gauge religion,” and
“Liberalism.”
We should always remember that going beyond the truth and the eternal laws
of right is _libertinism_ or _lawlessness_.
“Charity,” extending, or reaching out thus, is no longer “charity,” or
“perfect love.” Such expressions of love are misdirected, and, if
knowingly done, are blameworthy. Charity is governed by the perfect law of
truth; when it is not destitute of its own divine nature it conducts us in
the “_straight and narrow way_.”
“Long as of life the joyous hours remain,
Let on this head unfading flowers reside,
There bloom the vernal rose’s earliest pride;
And when, our flames commissioned to destroy,
Age step ’twixt Love and me, and intercept the joy;
When my changed these locks no more shall know,
And all its petty honors turn to snow;
Then let me rightly spell of Nature’s ways;
To Providence, to him my thoughts I’d raise,
And love as he throughout remaining days.”
—_Gray._
We should cherish a kind feeling for all our fellows, and in doing this we
should not forget our duty to point them to truth in word and example, to
be ever faithful to truth.
There are two great fields of thought for the exercise of the Christian
intellect of the present times. One is the corruptions of Roman Catholic
religion, and the other is the corruptions of Protestant religions.
That both are great feeder-dams to infidelity and skepticism is
demonstrated by the infidel productions of the day. The dogma of
ecclesiastic authority set up in opposition to reason and scientific
discovery is the _infidel’s devil_, and a very poor devil at that. For,
when the Pope has interfered to settle a question it has often happened
that his decisions were wrong.
On March 5, 1616, the congregation of the Index published a decree
condemning as “false, unscriptural and destructive of Catholic truth,” the
opinion that the earth moves round the sun. It is denied by Roman
theologians that Paul IV., who set the Index at work and agreed with its
decisions, was responsible for this decree, but the preponderance of
evidence is against them. It is known that this Pope presided in a
congregation of the Inquisition on February 25, 1616, in which, after this
same opinion, that the sun is the center of our universe, had been
described as “absurd, philosophically false and formally heretical,
because expressly contrary to holy scripture;” and the opinion that the
earth is not the center of the universe, but moves, and that daily,
“absurd, philosophically false, and, theologically considered, at least
erroneous in faith;” Cardinal Bellamine was appointed to visit Galileo,
the astronomer, and order him to give up these false opinions under pain
of imprisonment for refusal. It was thus that the congregation of the
Index took action and published its decree a week later.
In 1633 Galileo, having continued to propagate his views, was called on by
the Inquisition to retract and abjure, and the formal notice to him to do
so states expressly that the declaration of 1616 was made by the Pope
himself, and that resistance to it was, therefore, heresy, contrary to the
doctrine of the Catholic and Apostolic Church. On being brought to trial,
Galileo made a formal abjuration, and on June 30th Pope Urban VIII.
ordered the publication of the sentence, thereby, according to Roman
ecclesiastical law, making Galileo’s compulsory denial of the earth’s
motion binding on all Christians as a theological doctrine. Infidels have
a vast deal to say about such an abominable manifestation of ecclesiastic
tyranny and unscientific and unscriptural nonsense. All intelligent Roman
Catholics of to-day reject the judgment of Popes Paul IV. and Urban VIII.
as absurd, and scientifically and scripturally false. There is not so much
as a hint at papal authority found in the three old creeds known as the
Apostles’, the Nicene and the Athanasian, nor in any ancient gloss upon
them. Neither can we find in them any of the distinguishing special
doctrines of the Church of Rome.
Christianity came from the hands of Christ and his apostles in all its
perfections, and as long as infidels stop short of the New Testament
itself, and short of Christ and his apostles, in their warfare, we may
well believe that all their efforts to blot out Christianity will be vain.
Protestants themselves have demurred as much as infidels against the
errors of the Roman Catholic Church, and fully as much against the errors
of each other as denominations. “Truth stands true to her God, man alone
deviates.”
The greatest difficulty that Christianity ever encountered is the
ignorance and imperfections of its own friends. Protestant errors are many
and serious. But why should the genuine be discarded on account of the
existence of the counterfeit? And why should we shut our eyes to the
importance of the great work of establishing truth, to the destruction of
all Catholic and Protestant errors of faith and practice by becoming the
advocates of false charity through the adoption of “broad-gauge religion,”
in a “broad-gauge church?” Infidels who, like Col. Ingersoll, assert that
“no man can control his belief,” had better look in a glass and see
themselves as others see them, before they _strive to_ conquer a victory
for the _black __ demon_ of despair, by fastening the absurd philosophy of
_fatalism_ upon all the world. If men can not help their belief, who is to
blame? Surely, neither Roman Catholics, nor Protestants, nor those who
managed “thumbscrews” and “hot irons,” and other condemned instruments of
the dark ages, nor yet those who now live to be the “butt” of Colonel
Ingersoll’s satire and ridicule. A kind feeling for all, and
unfaithfulness to the truth—never!