WHOEVER has an opinion of his own, and honestly expresses it, will be
guilty of heresy. Heresy is what the minority believe; it is the name
given by the powerful to the doctrine of the weak. This word was born of
the hatred, arrogance and cruelty of those who love their enemies, and
who, when smitten on one cheek, turn the other. This word was born of
intellectual slavery in the feudal ages of thought. It was an epithet
used in the place of argument. From the commencement of the Christian
era, every art has been exhausted and every conceivable punishment
inflicted to force all people to hold the same religious opinions. This
effort was born of the idea that a certain belief was necessary to the
salvation of the soul. Christ taught, and the Church still teaches,
that unbelief is the blackest of crimes. God is supposed to hate with
an infinite and implacable hatred, every heretic upon the earth, and the
heretics who have died are supposed at this moment to be suffering the
agonies of the damned. The Church persecutes the living and her God
burns the dead.
It is claimed that God wrote a book called the Bible, and it is
generally admitted that this book is somewhat difficult to understand.
As long as the Church had all the copies of this book, and the people
were not allowed to read it, there was comparatively little heresy in
the world; but when it was printed and read, people began honestly to
differ as to its meaning. A few were independent and brave enough to
give the world their real thoughts, and for the extermination of these
men the Church used all her power. Protestants and Catholics vied with
each other in the work of enslaving the human mind. For ages they were
rivals in the infamous effort to rid the earth of honest people. They
infested every country, every city, town, hamlet and family. They
appealed to the worst passions of the human heart. They sowed the seeds
of discord and hatred in every land. Brother denounced brother, wives
informed against their husbands, mothers accused their children,
dungeons were crowded with the innocent; the flesh of the good and true
rotted in the clasp of chains; the flames devoured the heroic, and in
the name of the most merciful God, his children were exterminated with
famine, sword, and fire. Over the wild waves of battle rose and fell
the banner of Jesus Christ. For sixteen hundred years the robes of the
Church were red with innocent blood. The ingenuity of Christians was
exhausted in devising punishment severe enough to be inflicted upon
other Christians who honestly and sincerely differed with them upon any
point whatever.
Give any orthodox church the power, and to-day they would punish heresy
with whip, and chain, and fire. As long as a church deems a certain
belief essential to salvation, just so long it will kill and burn if it
has the power. Why should the Church pity a man whom her God hates? Why
should she show mercy to a kind and noble heretic whom her God will burn
in eternal fire? Why should a Christian be better than his God? It is
impossible for the imagination to conceive of a greater atrocity than
has been perpetrated by the Church. Every nerve in the human body
capable of pain has been sought out and touched by the Church.
Let it be remembered that all churches have persecuted heretics to the
extent of their power. Toleration has increased only when and where the
power of the church has diminished. From Augustine until now the
spirit of the Christians has remained the same. There has been the same
intolerance, the same undying hatred of all who think for themselves,
and the same determination to crush out of the human brain all knowledge
inconsistent with an ignorant creed.
Every church pretends that it has a revelation from God, and that this
revelation must be given to the people through the Church; that the
Church acts through its priests, and that ordinary mortals must be
content with a revelation--not from God--but from the Church. Had
the people submitted to this preposterous claim, of course there could
have been but one church, and that church never could have advanced.
It might have retrograded, because it is not necessary to think or
investigate in order to forget. Without heresy there could have been no
progress.
The highest type of the orthodox Christian does not forget; neither
does he learn. He neither advances nor recedes. He is a living fossil
embedded in that rock called faith. He makes no effort to better his
condition, because all his strength is exhausted in keeping other people
from improving theirs. The supreme desire of his heart is to force all
others to adopt his creed, and in order to accomplish this object he
denounces free-thinking as a crime, and this crime he calls heresy. When
he had power, heresy was the most terrible and formidable of words. It
meant confiscation, exile, imprisonment, torture, and death.
In those days the cross and rack were inseparable companions. Across
the open bible lay the sword and fagot. Not content with burning such
heretics as were alive, they even tried the dead, in order that the
Church might rob their wives and children. The property of all heretics
was confiscated, and on this account they charged the dead with being
heretical--indicted, as it were, their dust--to the end that the
Church might clutch the bread of orphans. Learned divines discussed
the propriety of tearing out the tongues of heretics before they were
burned, and the general opinion was, that this ought to be done so that
the heretics should not be able, by uttering blasphemies, to shock
the Christians who were burning them. With a mixture of ferocity and
Christianity, the priests insisted that heretics ought to be burned at
a slow fire, giving as a reason that more time was given them for
repentance.
No wonder that Jesus Christ said, "I came not to bring peace, but a
sword."
Every priest regarded himself as the agent of God. He answered all
questions by authority, and to treat him with disrespect was an insult
offered to God. No one was asked to think, but all were commanded to
obey.
In 1208 the Inquisition was established. Seven years afterward, the
fourth council of the Lateran enjoined all kings and rulers to swear
an oath that they would exterminate heretics from their dominions. The
sword of the Church was unsheathed, and the world was at the mercy of
ignorant and infuriated priests, whose eyes feasted upon the agonies
they inflicted. Acting, as they believed, or pretended to believe, under
the command of God; stimulated by the hope of infinite reward in another
world--hating heretics with every drop of their bestial blood; savage
beyond description; merciless beyond conception,--these infamous
priests, in a kind of frenzied joy, leaped upon the helpless victims of
their rage. They crushed their bones in iron boots; tore their quivering
flesh with iron hooks and pincers; cut off their lips and eyelids;
pulled out their nails, and into the bleeding quick thrust needles; tore
out their tongues; extinguished their eyes; stretched them upon racks;
flayed them alive; crucified them with their heads downward; exposed
them to wild beasts; burned them at the stake; mocked their cries and
groans; ravished their wives; robbed their children, and then prayed God
to finish the holy work in hell.
Millions upon millions were sacrificed upon the altars of bigotry. The
Catholic burned the Lutheran, the Lutheran burned the Catholic, the
Episcopalian tortured the Presbyterian, the Presbyterian tortured the
Episcopalian. Every denomination killed all it could of every other; and
each Christian felt in duty bound to exterminate every other Christian
who denied the smallest fraction of his creed.
In the reign of Henry VIII--that pious and moral founder of the
apostolic Episcopal Church,--there was passed by the parliament of
England an act entitled "An act for abolishing of diversity of opinion."
And in this act was set forth what a good Christian was obliged to
believe:
First, That in the sacrament was the real body and blood of Jesus
Christ.
Second, That the body and blood of Jesus Christ was in the bread, and
the blood and body of Jesus Christ was in the wine.
Third, That priests should not marry.
Fourth, That vows of chastity were of perpetual obligation.
Fifth, That private masses ought to be continued; and,
Sixth, That auricular confession to a priest must be maintained.
This creed was made by law, in order that all men might know just what
to believe by simply reading the statute. The Church hated to see the
people wearing out their brains in thinking upon these subjects. It was
thought far better that a creed should be made by parliament, so that
whatever might be lacking in evidence might be made up in force. The
punishment for denying the first article was death by fire. For
the denial of any other article, imprisonment, and for the second
offense--death.
Your attention is called to these six articles, established during the
reign of Henry VIII, and by the Church of England, simply because not
one of these articles is believed by that church to-day. If the law then
made by the church could be enforced now, every Episcopalian would be
burned at the stake.
Similar laws were passed in most Christian countries, as all orthodox
churches firmly believed that mankind could be legislated into heaven.
According to the creed of every church, slavery leads to heaven, liberty
leads to hell. It was claimed that God had founded the Church, and that
to deny the authority of the Church was to be a traitor to God, and
consequently an ally of the devil. To torture and destroy one of the
soldiers of Satan was a duty no good Christian cared to neglect. Nothing
can be sweeter than to earn the gratitude of God by killing your own
enemies. Such a mingling of profit and revenge, of heaven for yourself
and damnation for those you dislike, is a temptation that your ordinary
Christian never resists.
According to the theologians, God, the Father of us all, wrote a letter
to his children. The children have always differed somewhat as to the
meaning of this letter. In consequence of these honest differences,
these brothers began to cut out each other's hearts. In every land,
where this letter from God has been read, the children to whom and for
whom it was written have been filled with hatred and malice. They have
imprisoned and murdered each other, and the wives and children of each
other. In the name of God every possible crime has been committed, every
conceivable outrage has been perpetrated. Brave men, tender and loving
women, beautiful girls, and prattling babes have been exterminated in
the name of Jesus Christ. For more than fifty generations the Church
has carried the black flag. Her vengeance has been measured only by
her power. During all these years of infamy no heretic has ever been
forgiven. With the heart of a fiend she has hated; with the clutch of
avarice she has grasped; with the jaws of a dragon she has devoured;
pitiless as famine, merciless as fire, with the conscience of a serpent:
such is the history of the Church of God.
I do not say, and I do not believe, that Christians are as bad as their
creeds. In spite of Church and dogma, there have been millions and
millions of men and women true to the loftiest and most generous
promptings of the human heart. They have been true to their convictions,
and, with a self-denial and fortitude excelled by none, have labored
and suffered for the salvation of men. Imbued with the spirit of
self-sacrifice, believing that by personal effort they could rescue at
least a few souls from the infinite shadow of hell, they have
cheerfully endured every hardship and scorned every danger. And yet,
notwithstanding all this, they believed that honest error was a crime.
They knew that the bible so declared, and they believed that all
unbelievers would be eternally lost. They believed that religion was
of God, and all heresy of the devil. They killed heretics in defense
of their own souls and the souls of their children. They killed them
because, according to their idea, they were the enemies of God, and
because the bible teaches that the blood of the unbeliever is a most
acceptable sacrifice to heaven.
Nature never prompted a loving mother to throw her child into the
Ganges. Nature never prompted men to exterminate each other for a
difference of opinion concerning the baptism of infants. These crimes
have been produced by religions filled with all that is illogical,
cruel and hideous. These religions were produced for the most part by
ignorance, tyranny and hypocrisy. Under the impression that the infinite
ruler and creator of the universe had commanded the destruction of
heretics and infidels, the Church perpetrated all these crimes.
Men and women have been burned for thinking there is but one God; that
there was none; that the Holy Ghost is younger than God; that God was
somewhat older than his son; for insisting that good works will save a
man without faith; that faith will do without good works; for declaring
that a sweet babe will not be burned eternally, because its parents
failed to have its head wet by a priest; for speaking of God as
though he had a nose; for denying that Christ was his own father; for
contending that three persons, rightly added together, make more than
one; for believing in purgatory; for denying the reality of hell; for
pretending that priests can forgive sins; for preaching that God is an
essence; for denying that witches rode through the air on sticks;
for doubting the total depravity of the human heart; for laughing
at irresistible grace, predestination and particular redemption; for
denying that good bread could be made of the body of a dead man; for
pretending that the pope was not managing this world for God, and in the
place of God; for disputing the efficacy of a vicarious atonement; for
thinking the Virgin Mary was born like other people; for thinking that a
man's rib was hardly sufficient to make a good-sized woman; for denying
that God used his finger for a pen; for asserting that prayers are not
answered, that diseases are not sent to punish unbelief; for denying
the authority of the bible; for having a bible in their possession; for
attending mass, and for refusing to attend; for wearing a surplice; for
carrying a cross, and for refusing; for being a Catholic, and for being
a Protestant; for being an Episcopalian, a Presbyterian, a Baptist, and
for being a Quaker. In short, every virtue has been a crime, and every
crime a virtue. The Church has burned honesty and rewarded hypocrisy.
And all this, because it was commanded by a book--a book that men had
been taught implicitly to believe, long before they knew one word that
was in it. They had been taught that to doubt the truth of this
book--to examine it, even--was a crime of such enormity that it could
not be forgiven, either in this world or in the next.
The bible was the real persecutor. The bible burned heretics, built
dungeons, founded the Inquisition, and trampled upon all the liberties
of men.
How long, O how long will mankind worship a book? How long will they
grovel in the dust before the ignorant legends of the barbaric past?
How long, O how long will they pursue phantoms in a darkness deeper than
death?
Unfortunately for the world, about the beginning of the sixteenth
century, a man by the name of Gerard Chauvin was married to Jeanne
Lefranc, and still more unfortunately for the world, the fruit of this
marriage was a son, called John Chauvin, who afterwards became famous as
John Calvin, the founder of the Presbyterian Church.
#This man forged five fetters for the brain. These fetters he called
points. That is to say, predestination, particular redemption, total
depravity, irresistible grace, and the perseverance of the saints. About
the neck of each follower he put a collar bristling with these five iron
points. The presence of all these points on the collar is still the test
of orthodoxy in the church he founded. This man, when in the flush of
youth, was elected to the office of preacher in Geneva. He at once,
in union with Farel, drew up a condensed statement of the Presbyterian
doctrine, and all the citizens of Geneva, on pain of banishment, were
compelled to take an oath that they believed this statement. Of this
proceeding Calvin very innocently remarked that it produced great
satisfaction. A man named Caroli had the audacity to dispute with
Calvin. For this outrage he was banished.
To show you what great subjects occupied the attention of Calvin, it is
only necessary to state that he furiously discussed the question as to
whether the sacramental bread should be leavened or unleavened. He drew
up laws regulating the cut of the citizens' clothes, and prescribing
their diet, and all those whose garments were not in the Calvin fashion
were refused the sacrament At last, the people becoming tired of this
petty theological tyranny, banished Calvin. In a few years, however,
he was recalled and received with great enthusiasm. After this he was
supreme, and the will of Calvin became the law of Geneva. Under his
benign administration, James Gruet was beheaded because he had written
some profane verses. The slightest word against Calvin or his absurd
doctrines was punished as a crime. In 1553 a man was tried at Vienne by
the Catholic Church for heresy. He was convicted and sentenced to death
by burning. It was apparently his good fortune to escape. Pursued by the
sleuth hounds of intolerance he fled to Geneva for protection. A dove
flying from hawks, sought safety in the nest of a vulture. This fugitive
from the cruelty of Rome asked shelter from John Calvin, who had written
a book in favor of religious toleration. Servetus had forgotten that
this book was written by Calvin when in the minority; that it was
written in weakness to be forgotten in power; that it was produced by
fear instead of principle. He did not know that Calvin had caused his
arrest at Vienne, in France, and had sent a copy of his work, which was
claimed to be blasphemous, to the archbishop, He did not then know
that the Protestant Calvin was acting as one of the detectives of the
Catholic Church, and had been instrumental in procuring his conviction
for heresy. Ignorant of all this unspeakable infamy, he put himself
in the power of this very Calvin. The maker of the Presbyterian creed
caused the fugitive Serve-tus to be arrested for blasphemy. He was
tried. Calvin was his accuser. He was convicted and condemned to death
by fire. On the morning of the fatal day, Calvin saw him, and Servetus,
the victim, asked forgiveness of Calvin, the murderer. Servetus was
bound to the stake, and the fagots were lighted. The wind carried the
flames somewhat away from his body, so that he slowly roasted for hours.
Vainly he implored a speedy death. At last the flames climbed round his
form; through smoke and fire his murderers saw a white heroic face.
And there they watched until a man became a charred and shriveled mass.
Liberty was banished from Geneva, and nothing but Presbyterianism was
left. Honor, justice, mercy, reason and charity were all exiled; but
the five points of predestination, particular redemption, irresistible
grace, total depravity, and the certain perseverance of the saints
remained instead.
Calvin founded a little theocracy, modeled after the Old Testament, and
succeeded in erect-ing the most detestable government that ever existed,
except the one from which it was copied.
Against all this intolerance, one man, a minister, raised his voice. The
name of this man should never be forgotten. It was Castellio. This brave
man had the goodness and the courage to declare the innocence of honest
error. He was the first of the so-called reformers to take this noble
ground. I wish I had the genius to pay a fitting tribute to his memory.
Perhaps it would be impossible to pay him a grander compliment than to
say, Castellio was in all things the opposite of Calvin. To plead for
the right of individual judgment was considered a crime, and Castellio
was driven from Geneva by John Calvin. By him he was denounced as a
child of the devil, as a dog of Satan, as a beast from hell, and as
one who, by this horrid blasphemy of the innocence of honest error,
crucified Christ afresh, and by him he was pursued until rescued by the
hand of death.
Upon the name of Castellio, Calvin heaped every epithet, until his
malice was nearly satisfied and his imagination entirely exhausted. It
is impossible to conceive how human nature can become so frightfully
perverted as to pursue a fellow man with the malignity of a fiend,
simply because he is good, just, and generous Calvin was of a pallid,
bloodless complexion, thin, sickly, irritable, gloomy, impatient,
egotistic, tyrannical, heartless, and infamous. He was a strange
compound of revengeful morality, malicious forgiveness, ferocious
charity, egotistic humility, and a kind of hellish justice. In other
words, he was as near like the God of the Old Testament as his health
permitted.
The best thing, however, about the Presbyterians of Geneva was, that
they denied the power of the Pope, and the best thing about the Pope
was, that he was not a Presbyterian.
The doctrines of Calvin spread rapidly, and were eagerly accepted by
multitudes on the continent; but Scotland, in a few years, became the
real fortress of Presbyterianism. The Scotch succeeded in establishing
the same kind of theocracy that flourished in Geneva. The clergy took
possession and control of everybody and everything. It is impossible to
exaggerate the mental degradation, the abject superstition of the people
of Scotland during the reign of Presbyterianism. Heretics were hunted
and devoured as though they had been wild beasts. The gloomy insanity of
Presbyterianism took possession of a great majority of the people. They
regarded their ministers as the Jews did Moses and Aaron. They believed
that they were the especial agents of God, and that whatsoever they
bound in Scotland would be bound in heaven. There was not one particle
of intellectual freedom. No man was allowed to differ with the Church,
or to even contradict a priest. Had Presbyterianism maintained its
ascendency, Scotland would have been peopled by savages to-day.
The revengeful spirit of Calvin took possession of the Puritans, and
caused them to redden the soil of the New World with the brave blood of
honest men. Clinging to the five points of Calvin, they too established
governments in accordance with the teachings of the Old Testament. They
too attached the penalty of death to the expression of honest thought.
They too believed their church supreme, and exerted all their power to
curse this continent with a spiritual despotism as infamous as it was
absurd. They believed with Luther that universal toleration is universal
error, and universal error is universal hell. Toleration was denounced
as a crime.
Fortunately for us, civilization has had a softening effect even upon
the Presbyterian Church. To the ennobling influence of the arts and
sciences the savage spirit of Calvinism has, in some slight degree,
succumbed. True, the old creed remains substantially as it was written,
but by a kind of tacit understanding it has come to be regarded as a
relic of the past. The cry of "heresy" has been growing fainter and
fainter, and, as a consequence, the ministers of that denomination
have ventured, now and then, to express doubts as to the damnation of
infants, and the doctrine of total depravity. The fact is, the old ideas
became a little monotonous to the people. The fall of man, the scheme of
redemption and irresistible grace, began to have a familiar sound. The
preachers told the old stories while the congregations slept. Some of
the ministers became tired of these stories themselves. The five points
grew dull, and they felt that nothing short of irresistible grace could
bear this endless repetition. The outside world was full of progress,
and in every direction men advanced, while this church, anchored to a
creed, idly rotted at the shore. Other denominations, imbued some little
with the spirit of investigation, were springing up on every side, while
the old Presbyterian ark rested on the Ararat of the past, filled with
the theological monsters of another age.
Lured by the splendors of the outer world, tempted by the achievements
of science, longing to feel the throb and beat of the mighty march of
the human race, a few of the ministers of this conservative denomination
were compelled, by irresistible sense, to say a few words in harmony
with the splendid ideas of to-day.
These utterances have upon several occasions so nearly wakened some of
the members that, rubbing their eyes, they have feebly inquired whether
these grand ideas were not somewhat heretical. These ministers found
that just in the proportion that their orthodoxy decreased, their
congregations increased. Those who dealt in the pure unadulterated
article found themselves demonstrating the five points to a less number
of hearers than they had points. Stung to madness by this bitter truth,
this galling contrast, this harassing fact, the really orthodox have
raised the cry of heresy, and expect with this cry to seal the lips
of honest men. One of the Presbyterian ministers, and one who has been
enjoying the luxury of a little honest thought, and the real rapture of
expressing it, has already been indicted, and is about to be tried by
the Presbytery of Illinois. He is charged--
First. With having neglected to preach that most comforting and
consoling truth, the eternal damnation of the soul.
Surely, that man must be a monster who could wish to blot this blessed
doctrine out and rob earth's wretched children of this blissful hope!
Who can estimate the misery that has been caused by this most infamous
doctrine of eternal punishment? Think of the lives it has blighted--of
the tears it has caused--of the agony it has produced. Think of the
millions who have been driven to insanity by this most terrible of
dogmas. This doctrine renders God the basest and most cruel being in
the universe. Compared with him, the most frightful deities of the most
barbarous and degraded tribes are miracles of goodness and mercy. There
is nothing more degrading than to worship such a god. Lower than this
the soul can never sink. If the doctrine of eternal damnation is true,
let me share the fate of the unconverted; let me have my portion in
hell, rather than in heaven with a god infamous enough to inflict
eternal misery upon any of the sons of men.
Second. With having spoken a few kind words of Robert Collyer and John
Stuart Mill.
I have the honor of a slight acquaintance with Robert Collyer. I have
read with pleasure some of his exquisite productions. He has a brain
full of the dawn, the head of a philosopher, the imagination of a poet
and the sincere heart of a child.
Is a minister to be silenced because he speaks fairly of a noble and
candid adversary? Is it a crime to compliment a lover of justice, an
advocate of liberty; one who devotes his life to the elevation of man,
the discovery of truth, and the promulgation of what he believes to be
right?
Can that tongue be palsied by a presbytery that praises a self-denying
and heroic life? Is it a sin to speak a charitable word over the grave
of John Stuart Mill? Is it heretical to pay a just and graceful tribute
to departed worth? Must the true Presbyterian violate the sanctity of
the tomb, dig open the grave and ask his God to curse the silent dust?
Is Presbyterianism so narrow that it conceives of no excellence, of no
purity of intention, of no spiritual and moral grandeur outside of its
barbaric creed? Does it still retain within its stony heart all the
malice of its founder? Is it still warming its fleshless hands at the
flames that consumed Servetus? Does it still glory in the damnation of
infants, and does it still persist in emptying the cradle in order that
perdition may be filled? Is it still starving the soul and famishing
the heart? Is it still trembling and shivering, crouching and crawling
before its ignorant Confession of Faith?
Had such men as Robert Collyer and John Stuart Mill been present at the
burning of Servetus, they would have extinguished the flames with their
tears. Had the presbytery of Chicago been there, they would have quietly
turned their backs, solemnly divided their coat tails, and warmed
themselves.
Third, With having spoken disparagingly of the doctrine of
predestination.
If there is any dogma that ought to be protected by law, predestination
is that doctrine. Surely it is a cheerful, joyous thing, to one who is
laboring, struggling, and suffering in this weary world, to think that
before he existed; before the earth was; before a star had glittered in
the heavens; before a ray of light had left the quiver of the sun, his
destiny had been irrevocably fixed, and that for an eternity before his
birth he had been doomed to bear eternal pain.