_“That those things which cannot be shaken may remain.”—Heb. 12: 27._
IN the preceding chapters we have shown that in our judgment the time
has fully come for the fearless proclamation of the whole truth,
regardless of temporary consequences.
We think that we have also shown that for many important reasons we
cannot expect the whole truth from the professional clergy.
We have shown that the Jews are not the very ancient and numerous people
that they have been supposed to have been, and that many of their claims
are purely fabulous; and that this is specially true of their
Pentateuch, which Moses, supposing such a man to have lived, could not
have written.
We have shown how extensively symbolism anciently prevailed in sacred
writings, how modern sacerdotalists have accepted as literal history and
matters of fact what was at first a romance or an allegory intended to
illustrate certain principles, and how the introduction of astral keys
can only explain many of the Old-Testament stories, which, taken
literally, are extremely absurd and foolish.
We think we have shown that the “fall” of the mythical Adam and Eve is
an allegory, and not an historical fact, and that it is extremely
unfortunate that the whole system of dogmatic theology is made to depend
upon a mythus.
We have gone in search of the “second Adam,” and have not found him,
except in the New Testament, and we have shown how utterly incomplete
and unsatisfactory that account is, not rising in any degree to the
character of evidence.
We have shown that the Gospels are highly dramatic; that the Christ is
largely ideal; that many other persons before the Christian era claimed
all that was claimed for Jesus; and that he, his conduct, and alleged
sayings (he wrote nothing) are widely open to criticism.
We have shown that the distinguishing feature of the New
Testament—blood-salvation—is not a special revelation, but that it has
been borrowed and modified and adapted from savages and from the most
ignorant and superstitious tribes; and that what is called the
“redemptive scheme” is full of absurdities and contradictions, and that
it is philosophically and naturally demoralizing in its tendency and
influence if its logical consequences are accepted.
We now come to the practical question, _What have we left?_ Is there
anything in religion worth preserving? Indeed, is there anything
condemned in this book that is essential to the purest religion and the
highest morality? After doubting and throwing discredit on so much, have
we anything left worth preserving? Having cast so much of the cargo
overboard to lighten the ship, is the vessel worth saving? Having cast
away the accretions and superstitions of religion, we are only now just
prepared to defend its essential and sublime principles. Let us see what
remains.
I. _Our Faith in God remains._—Not a God. The passage in the New
Testament (John 4: 24) admits that “a” is an interpolation.
There is no personality in God in a sense which implies
limitation. God is spirit, and so spirit is God. Even Professor
Hæckel, the German materialist, says: “This monistic idea of
God, which belongs to the future, has already been expressed by
Bruno in the following words: A spirit exists in all things,
and no body is so small but contains a part of the divine
substance within itself by which it is animated.” The words God
and religion have been so long associated with superstition and
priestcraft that many liberal thinkers have a repugnance to
both. But we must not let these perversions of sacerdotalism
rob us of good words. We can conceive of God as the _Over-all
and In-all Spirit of the Universe._ That spirit is causation,
and matter, its palpable form, is one of its manifestations. We
know that Nature’s method of making worlds and brutes and men
is by a uniform system of evolution, taking millions and
billions of years to carry on the work to the present time, and
that it is likely that it will take millions more to perfect
it. When asked what spirit is, we answer, We do not know;
neither do we know what electricity is, nor can we answer one
of a thousand questions that come up regarding the subtle and
occult qualities of matter. We see no difference between the
Unknowable of Herbert Spencer and the Unsearchable of Zophar in
the book of Job. The Unknown Power is the Noumenon, the
absolute Being in itself, the inner nature of force, motion,
and even of conscience.
We have said, in substance, elsewhere: It is a great mistake to think of
God as outside of and distinct from the universe. If there be a God at
all, he is in the universe and in every part of it. We cannot properly
localize him, and say that he is present in one place and not in
another, or that he is in one place more than another. He must be
everywhere and in everything. Anthropomorphic (man-like) views of God
are what make atheists and agnostics.
Men constantly talk of the laws of Nature, forgetting that law itself is
a product and cannot be a cause. The law of gravitation is not the cause
of gravitation. A self-originating and self-executing law is
unthinkable. The prevalence of law supposes the existence of a lawmaker
and a law-executor. We accept the law of evolution, but cannot conceive
of evolution independent of involution and an Evolver.
It may be said that this is “begging the question” by assuming the
existence of an infinite God. But we deny that it is an assumption in
its last analysis. What is known as the scientific method leads
logically to the conclusion that there must be something that theists
generally name God. You may call it “protoplasm,” “molecular force,” the
“potentiality of matter,” or even matter itself; and when you tell us
what these words mean we will tell you what we mean by “God.” Possibly
we all mean the same thing. We know of the existence of God, as we know
other things, by palpable manifestations.
Astronomers assumed the existence of Neptune from certain phenomena long
before its existence could be demonstrated; and if the discovery had
never been made the phenomena so long observed would have nevertheless
justified the conclusion that there must be some stupendous cause for
such unmistakable and marvellous perturbations.
When men talk of the eternity of matter we do not even profess to
understand them. The most advanced scientists do not attempt to explain
one of a thousand mysteries in which the phenomena of the material world
is enshrouded. Why, then, should we be expected to explain where and how
and when God came into existence, or how he could have had an eternal
existence or be self-existent? We affirm no more of God than
materialists imply of matter, and we endow him with no attributes that
they do not virtually ascribe to matter. So far as assumption is
concerned, both stand on the same ground. They, indeed, call things by
different names, but mean about the same thing. What theists prefer to
call “the works of God” materialists call “Nature,” “cosmic laws,”
“spontaneous generation,” “the potency of matter,” “conservation of
energy," “correlation of force," and “natural selection."
The fundamental error of modern scientists is that they limit their
investigations to the physical and palpable, while we have demonstrable
evidence of the existence of the spiritual and invisible. We know
nothing of matter but from its properties and manifestations, and we
have the same kind of evidence in regard to spirit, and know that it is
superior to gross matter, and therefore cannot be tested by the same
crucibles. In the very nature of things a great cause must ever be
imponderable and invisible. It cannot be weighed and measured, but must
ever remain intangible and incomprehensible. The spirit in physical man
in its relation to the Supreme Spirit is as the drop of water to the
ocean or the single glimmering ray to the full-orbed, refulgent sun. Men
may talk of “force correlation," and trace its progress and products,
but they must remain dumb as to the beginning or origin of force unless
they accept the doctrine of an _intelligent First Force_. There is no
way of accounting for the existence of spirit, of life, of intelligence,
but by premising the prior existence of spirit, life, and intelligence.
Like only causes like. An egg does not come from a stone, and the
ascidian did not come from a lifeless rock.
The logical conclusion from the facts and principles herein suggested is
that there must be an intelligent First Cause of all things—an
all-pervading, fecundating, animating Spirit of the universe; and we
prefer to call this God. Science has taught us the processes of his
work, and denominates them the “laws of Nature.” In point of fact, as
little is known of the origin and essence of matter as of spirit, and
there is as good ground for agnosticism in the former as in the latter.
There is therefore no necessary conflict between true science and a
rational theism or monism.
It is a rational proposition that something must have been before what
is called creation. There must have been an _intelligent potency_, and
that power theists call God. Materialism in its last analysis ascribes
to matter all that theists ascribe to God. It gives matter an eternal
self-existence—endows it with an inherent infinite intelligence and an
omnipotent potency. It spells “God” with six letters instead of three.
It makes a God of matter, and then denies his existence!
We now submit that it is more rational to postulate the existence of an
eternal Supreme Intelligence and Power, the Creator and Ruler of all
things visible and invisible, who is the Author and Executor of the laws
by which both mind and matter are governed. This Supreme Being is alone
the Self-existent One, and what are called the properties and modes of
inert matter are but the proofs and manifestations of his eternal power
and Godhead. There cannot be a poem without a poet, nor a picture
without an artist. There cannot be a watch or other complex machine
without an inventor and artisan. The universe is the sublimest of all
poems, and Cicero well said that it would be easier to conceive that
Homer’s Iliad came from the chance shaking together of the letters of
the alphabet than that the atoms should have produced the cosmos without
a marshalling agency. The visible and palpable compel us to acknowledge
their counterpart in the invisible and intangible, and we cannot
rationally account for the origin of man without postulating the
existence of an Intelligence and Power greater than humanity.
We are reproached for the inconsistency of believing in a Power we
cannot comprehend, and endowing him with attributes of which we can form
no just conceptions. Atheists do not seem to realize that they are
guilty of a greater inconsistency. They tell us that we believe in a
Being of whom we can form no conception, but they themselves must form
some conception of such a Being, else how could they deny his existence?
There is no difficulty in admitting the existence of a Supreme Power if
we do not attempt to comprehend and describe it. Matthew Arnold says:
“We too would say ’God’ if the moment we said ’God, you would not
pretend that you know all about him.” His definition of God is indeed
vague, but vastly suggestive: “An enduring Power not ourselves that
makes for righteousness.” This suggests the moral element in the unknown
Power. There is not only a spiritual sense in man which recognizes the
supersensuous, but there is an indwelling witness to the eternal
principle of rightfulness. The sentiment of oughtness is inherent and
ineradicable. Every man who is not a moral idiot has a feeling that
certain things ought and ought not to be—that there is an essential
right and wrong. Human intuition sees and feels this mysterious Power
that answers to our Ego, and from which it proceeds; and this inward
conviction cannot be eradicated from the average mind by the pretensions
of science. The patient watcher in the dark room at the terminus of the
ocean cable sees in his suspended mirror the reflection of an electric
spark, and he at once recognizes it as a message from the operator three
thousand miles away. So God is seen by the aspiring and contemplative in
the concave mirror of man’s own spirit, and, though it is a mere
reflection, a spark, a flash, it clearly proves the existence of the
Central Magnet. It is this recognition of the moral element that forms
the basis of moral government and of that worshipfulness which has
manifested itself among all nations, barbarian and civilized.
It is safe to assume that the average Atheism is disbelief in the God of
the dominant theology, and not in the Ultimate Power that makes for
righteousness. Vulgar, anthropomorphic conceptions of God, which endow
him with certain speculative attributes, are condemned by reason and
science; but nevertheless phenomena have something behind them, and
energy has something beneath it, and all things have something in them
which is the source of all phenomena and energy; and this enduring,
all-pervading Power is our sure guarantee of the order of the universe.
And this Power theists persist in calling God. Theologians may call this
Pantheism, but it is only seemingly so. There is a vast difference
between saying that everything is God, and that God is in everything.
The old watchmaker-mechanician idea, a God separate and outside of the
universe, has become obsolete, and science and reason and the law of
progressive development now compel men to reshape their conceptions of
God as identical with the Cosmos, plus the Eternal Power.
Herbert Spencer has beautifully said: “But amid the mysteries, which
become the more mysterious the more they are thought about, there will
remain the one absolute certainty that man is ever in presence of an
Infinite and Eternal Energy, from which all things proceed.” The felt
and the seen have their fulness in the unseen and intangible, and the
visible impels us to seek its counterpart and complement in the
invisible.
II. _Our Faith in Religion remains_.—And here the question comes
up, What is religion? The commonly-accepted meaning of the word
is as derived from the Latin _religare_, which means “to bind
back or to bind fast.” We do not accept the definition, because
it is suggestive of _bondage_. It implies a previous harmonious
relation with God which had been lost. It favors the dogmas of
the fall of Adam and man’s alleged reinstatement and “binding
back” to the divine allegiance, through what is called, in
theological parlance, a “redemptive scheme.” It is a
significant fact that Lactantius, a theologian of the early
part of the fourth century, was the first to apply the word
religion to “the bond of piety by which we are bound to God.”
Augustine of the fifth century followed his example, and so did
Servius about the same time; and their example has been
followed by theologians ever since, presumably because it
favors the dogmas of the fall of Adam and the redemption by
Christ. But the highest classical authorities derive the word
religion from _relegere_ or _religere_, signifying “to go
through or over and over again in reading, speech, or
thought—to review carefully and faithfully to ponder and
reflect with conscientious fidelity.”
Cicero must have understood the original meaning and origin of the Latin
word, and he took this view of the subject. He lived more than three
hundred years before Lactantius, and he said: “But they who carefully
meditated, and as it were considered and reconsidered all those things
which pertained to the worship of the gods, were called religious, from
religere.” The word _religio_ was in common use in ancient Rome in the
sense of _scruple_, implying the consciousness of a natural obligation
wholly irrespective of the gods. The oldest popular meanings of the word
_religion_ were _faithfulness, sincerity, veracity, honor,
punctiliousness, and conscientiousness_.*(1) Religion, then, in its true
meaning, is the great fact of _duty_, of _oughtness_ or _right-fulness_, of
_conscience_ and _moral sense_. Its great business is to seek conformity to
one’s highest ideal. It consists in an _honest and persistent effort by
all appropriate means to realize ideal excellence and to transform into
actual character and practical life._
(1) See _A Study of Religion_, by Francis E. Abbot.
Religion in this sense is universally approved. It is false religion
which is condemned. It is what some men would require you to believe in
spite of history, science, and self-consciousness. It is superstition,
bigotry, credulity, creed, sectarianism, that men detest. Religion is
innate and ineradicable in man, and there is a natural religion
concerning which man cannot be skeptical if he would. Bishop Butler has
well said that the morality of the gospel is “the republication of
natural religion and it would be easy to show the evolution of religion
from very small beginnings and how this work is going on to-day.
Regarding religion as an evolution, a development, and not as something
as inflexible as a demonstrated proposition in mathematics, we are all
the while expecting an improvement. We have a right to expect that
Christianity should be better than more ancient religions, because it is
the latest; and so it is in many respects. But we have a right to expect
that this improvement will go on with the lapse of time. The religion of
the nineteenth century is an improvement on the religion of the first
century, but we are reaching forward to greater perfection. Even the
system of morals taught in the New Testament is defective. We want
something purer and better, and it is rapidly coming. All true religion
is natural, and its morality relates to the mutual and reciprocal claims
of men arising from organized society. If we are right in our dealings
with our fellow-men, we cannot be out of harmonious relations with God.
All happiness here and hereafter depends upon our knowledge of the order
of the universe and the conformation of our lives to it. It is
impossible to divorce true religion from real science, and the more we
know of the latter the more we shall have of the former. Whatever tends
to promote pure religion ought to be encouraged, and no man has any more
reason to be ashamed of his religion than he has to be ashamed of his
appetite. We sum up our ideas of religion by saying: Do all the good you
can to all the persons you can by all the means you can, and as long as
you can.
III. _The Scriptures remain for just What they are._—Portions of the
Bible command our most profound reverence and our most
unqualified admiration. We respond heartily to some of the
truly excellent moral maxims of the Bible, and read with
rapture some of the selections of poetry from the Hebrew
prophets. But right in close connection we often find stories
of uncleanness, fornications, adulteries, and incests that the
vilest newspaper of to-day would not dare publish. Jael meanly
murders Sisera, and is praised for it, while the deceit and
treachery of Rahab are commended in the New Testament. The
story of Boaz and Ruth is only fit for a dime novel. Solomon’s
Song is full of lasciviousness. Abram lies. Moses gets mad.
David commits adultery and murders Uriah. Jacob is deceitful
and a trickster; and so on to the end. Polygamy is shown to
have been the rule, and not the exception, among Jehovah’s
favorites. War is everywhere tacitly justified, and slavery is
practised and not an abolitionist opens his mouth. We go to the
New Testament, and He who is called the “Perfect One” curses a
fig tree for not bearing fruit out of season, drives out with
small cords men engaged in legitimate business, upsets their
tables, and uses the most violent and reproachful language
toward them. He shows want of respect for his mother, and is
ambiguous and evasive in his conversation with the woman of
Canaan—says he does not know whether he is going to the feast
at Jerusalem or not, and then straightway sets out for the Holy
City, and makes believe by his actions that he is going to one
place, when he is actually going to another.
We want a higher morality than is taught in the Bible. We want higher
and more noble conceptions than are given in the parable of the “Unjust
Judge,” and more just and equitable principles than are taught in the
parable of the “Unjust Steward” or the “Laborers in the Vineyard” or the
“Ten Talents.” We want a morality that relates to this life rather than
to the next We do not want the possession of property held up as a
crime, and poverty represented as a virtue entitling one to a seat in
the future kingdom. We want good homes to live in now, rather than
“mansions in the skies.” We do not want a morality that appeals to
selfishness only, that discriminates in favor of celibacy, and that only
tolerates marriage as a remedy for lust, as taught in the seventh
chapter of First Corinthians. We want a higher morality than the
morality of even the New Testament.
It is difficult to speak to ears polite of the obscenity of the Bible.
There are more than one hundred passages of the most coarse and vulgar
description. To print these in a book and send it through the United
States mails, if law were impartially administered, would put a man in
the penitentiary. There are entire chapters that reek with obscenity
from beginning to end. We cannot tell you about Onan, and Tamar, and Lot
and his two daughters, and scores of other obscene matters. There are
passages even in the New Testament that cannot be mentioned in the
presence of a virtuous woman. When we enter a lady’s parlor and see the
richly-gilded Bible upon the centre-table, we shudder as we remember the
obscenity that is contained between its costly lids. When we see a young
girl tripping along our streets, Bible in hand, we wonder if she knows
that she carries more obscenity than Byron ever wrote, than Shelley ever
dreamed of, than the vilest French novelist ever dared to print.
We have very grave doubts about putting the Bible into the hands of
children. They are, through it, made familiar with much that is
demoralizing. We have many reasons for rejecting the dogma of the
plenary inspiration of the Scriptures and of their infallibility. These
fragmentary writings must be judged by their merits—by what they are. It
has been shown by the author of Supernatural Religion that we gain more
than we lose by taking this rational view of the Bible. An illusion is
lost, but a reality is gained which is full of hope and peace. The
unknown men who mostly wrote the little pamphlets which make up the
Bible probably did the best they knew—that is, they wrote according to
the degree of their development—but some of the writers were on a very
low plane. We should read these books and all other sacred writings of
all nations just as we study geology—as showing what was in the mind of
man when the books were written, ‘just as we learn from the earth’s
strata the history and order of the various periodic formations. The
bibles of the ages are accessible to every man who can read. All of them
contain much that is valuable, with much that is frivolous,
superstitious, and false. But these books belong to our race, and happy
is the man who knows how to use them wisely. He who rejects all makes as
great a mistake as he who accepts all. The true position is that the
Bible contains the best thoughts of many of the best men that have lived
in the ages of the past, expressed according to their light; and, while
their obvious errors should be rejected, whatever commends itself to our
reason, according to the best light of to-day, and to which each man’s
own inspiration and spiritual discernment responds, should be reverently
studied and highly esteemed. Religion is not a product of the Bible, but
the Bible is a product of religion—natural religion—though often
misunderstood and perverted. We do not throw aside the bibles, but
accept them for just what we find them to be worth. We eat the kernel
and throw away the shell.
IV. Our most Implicit Faith in the Continuity of Life remains.—We
have no more confidence in Materialism than we have in Atheism.
We believe that some men at least are immortal—that the
intellectual and moral giants should be blotted out at death is
unthinkable. We find in this doctrine of a future state much
that has a moral tendency. It inspires self-respect and esteem.
It leads to a proper appreciation of humanity. It inspires hope
for the future. It affords comfort in bereavement. It furnishes
a proper motive for aspiration and progress.
When we consider the millions of years that have been employed in
bringing man to his present high estate, it is rational to assume that a
capacity for such immense progress is good ground for faith in still
greater progress, so that there shall be no end to the advancement and
attainments of humanity. If primitive man was not immortal, there may
have been a time when he became immortal, just as there is a time when
the embryo becomes a conscious, breathing babe, and when the undeveloped
child begins to exercise the functions of rationality and becomes an
accountable being. It is not true that even the extreme Darwinian
doctrine is necessarily opposed to the doctrine of a future life for
man. On the contrary, its fundamental principles suggest the hypothesis
of immortality.
If the “conservation of energy” is a true principle of science, it
favors the faith of man in the doctrine of a future life. Greatness and
goodness developed in man must be “conserved,” and how can it be done if
death is a destroyer? The “persistency of force” in the human
personality must at least be equal to the primary elements which environ
that personality. Is it rational to suppose that the sweep of evolution
which has brought man from such unfathomable depths will not carry him
up to still more illimitable heights? Are these vast achievements of
Nature to be so un-thriftily wasted? Do not the products of a past
eternity point unmistakably to still greater things in an eternity to
come?
And, then, does not the scientific doctrine of the “indestructibility of
matter” favor the belief in life after death?
The theory of “natural selection” also favors the doctrine of a future
life, and never appears so real and so beautiful as when we realize that
as man progresses in everything that is grand and good he voluntarily
falls in with this natural law, and of choice not only selects that
which is most to be desired, but by self-denial and almost superhuman
exertions strives to attain the highest ideal of his heavenly
aspirations. The unwearied effort of the most highly-developed men to
reach a higher perfection and a more exalted excellence is evidence that
Nature is true to herself, and that man will not be blotted out of
conscious existence just as he first clearly perceives the essential
difference between good and evil. Having tasted the fruit of the tree of
life, he is destined to live for ever.
It is certainly a significant fact that the faith of man in, and a
desire for, a future life are strongest in his moments of greatest
mental and spiritual exaltation. If this is an illusion, it is strange
that it should be particularly vivid when he is in his most god-like
moods and when he is most in love with the beautiful, the true, and the
good. Is it possible for Nature to thus trifle with and deceive and
disappoint man when he is most serious and truthful, and when all the
elements of his better nature are in the ascendant and predominate over
everything that is gross and perishable?
A future life and an immortal one must exist to enable man to reach that
perfection to which he aspires, and feels himself bound to attain as the
only end worthy of his being, and which, during the brief span of mortal
life, is never reached even by the most virtuous. Nature cannot be so
blind, so stupidly improvident, as to throw away her most precious
treasures, gathered by so much labor and suffering, and not permit man
to carry forward the great work, in which he has just began to succeed,
to that perfection to which all his aspirations unmistakably converge.
Then every cultivated man realizes as age increases that his attainments
and successes in this ephemeral life fall far short of, and are
absolutely inadequate and disproportionate to, his inherent powers; and
it is irrational to conclude that his very existence is to be blotted
out and life itself become utterly extinct just as he has learned how to
live, and what life is, and what is his " being’s end and aim." We do
not desire to argue this question here: we only make a profession of our
faith.
V. Our Faith in the Doctrine of Present and Future Rewards and
Punishments remains.—While it is irrational to accept the horrible
dogmas of sacerdotalism as to the eternal torments of the wicked,
it is equally unreasonable to believe that all men enter upon a
state of perfect happiness without regard to moral character.
The doctrine of rewards and punishments after death is clearly suggested
by the principles of natural religion which have been recognized by all
men, pagan and Christian. That virtue brings its own reward and vice its
own punishment is a fact in the experience of men in this life. It must
be so in the life to come, as the order of the universe cannot be
changed by time or place. No valid objection can be made to the
principle of future punishment. But its nature and object must be taken
into the account. True punishment is never arbitrary nor vindictive. It
is remedial, reformatory, disciplinary, and has respect to the
constitution of moral government and the best interests and welfare of
its subjects. Suffering is a consequence of sin, not a judicial penalty,
and happiness is not a favor conferred by grace, but a legitimate
product of right being rather than of right doing. Men are rewarded or
punished, both in this life and the life to come, not so much for what
they have done or not done as for what they are. Suffering is intended
to put an end to that which causes suffering, and is for the good of the
sufferer. In this world and in all possible worlds sin must be a source
of suffering, and goodness a fountain of happiness. The degree of
happiness or misery of man after death must be in proportion to the
degree of his perfection or imperfection in character evolved during
life that will constitute his “meetness.”
The same penal code must prevail in the next life that prevails here,
and it may be thus summarized: (1) Suffering is a consequence of
imperfection and wrong-doing. (2) Imperfection and wrong-doing will meet
their appropriate punishment in the future life as in this world. (3)
The effect will only continue so long as the cause exists. (4) Men will
for ever make their own heaven or hell, and there is good reason for
believing that the sufferings of many persons after death will be,
beyond all conception, awful in the extreme. (5) But the “immortal hope”
justifies the conclusion that all men will, sooner or later, be
established in holiness and happiness.
In response to the question, _After death—what?_ the proper answer to
the interrogative is, _In life—what?_ Death is transition, not
transmutation. It is emigration, not Pythagorean transmigration. Change
of place does not make change of character. It is therefore reasonable
to conclude that a man after death is just what he was before death.
Every man will gravitate to his own place. There will be as many grades
of moral character after death as in this life, and therefore as many
heavens and hells. Misers and drunkards and libertines will still be
such. Those who love the pure and beautiful, the true, the right, the
unselfish, and the humane will still have the same desires and tastes
after death as before death, and will naturally gravitate to kindred
spirits.
After mature reflection the conclusion must be reached that the greatest
happiness of which man is capable arises from three sources: (1) The
perception of new truth; (2) Its impartation to others; (3) Doing good
to others. A more rational conception of future blessedness than this is
impossible.
If these views are correct, it is the highest wisdom to cherish and
cultivate on earth and during life the tastes, the desires, the
affections, the principles which in themselves constitute the highest
bliss of saints and angels in all possible worlds. And as to hell after
death, we have nothing to fear but the hell we may carry with us—the
hell of unholy lust, the hell of unsanctified passion, the hell of
selfishness, the hell which follows wrong living and wrong doing.
But we must bring this book to a close. The writer is a firm believer in
God, in religion, and in morality; he accepts the Bible for just what it
is. He believes in the continuity of life after death and in future
rewards and punishments. If he believed that he had written anything in
this book to weaken faith in these doctrines, he would commit the
manuscript to the flames instead of to the printer.
INDEX
*A*
Abraham a myth, 149 and his servant, 131 and phallic emblems, 131 and
Saturn, 150 offering Isaac—Parallels, 151- 154
Abrahamie Covenant, 155
Abydos and Bunsen’s Egyptian tables, 96
Adams, Dr., on forty-two children and the she-bears, 162 Capt. R. C.,
how to dispense with ministers, 40
Admission of Albertus, 180 of Ambrose, 179 of Augustine, 321 of
Clemens Alexandrinus, 364 of Tertullian, 179
Alexandria, systems of religion prevalent in, 347
Anno Domini, invented in the sixth century, generally adopt-1 ed in the
tenth, 299
Aristotle, maxims of, disapproved, 24
Arnold, Matthew, his definition of God, 421
Assyrian cuneiform tablets, discovery 1873–74, 97
Athens and Sparta, date 1550 B.C., 108
Avatars, all announced by celestial signs, 309- 312
*B*
Bagster’s Comprehensive Bible on the phallic oath, 132
Barlow on tree-worship, 125
Beatty, Hon. James, his opposition to salaried ministers, 40
Berosus on Chaldean history, 98
Blackstone on witches, 118
Blauvelt, Dr. A., 16 17
British Museum, manuscripts, 74
Brooks, Bishop, on insincerity in the pulpit, 43
Brotherhood of man, 342 343
Buckland on May music in Magdalen Church, 137
Buddha, died 377 years before Christ, 104
Budge, Dr., manuscripts classified by, 75
Burnet, Bishop, on the story of the creation, 146
Dr., on concealing the truth, 44
Burr, W. H., on area of Palestine and its population, 63-70.
*C*
Cardinal Cajetan’s admission, 178
Chaldean history, date of, 109
Child, Lydia Maria, and women at Ocean Grove, 136
Christ, doubts as to his existence, 367- 369
Christus and Christianus, evidence of modern fabrication, 207
Chrysostom on the 25th of December, 243
Cicero on symbolism, 122
Cicero’s definition of religion, 12 424
Circumcision originated in phallic-ism, more ancient than Judaism, 130
Clark, Dr. Adam, points ont thirty-five parallels to Philo in John’s
Gospels, 219
Clement, admission of, 179
Colenso, Bishop, collates from Pen-tateucn, 85
Confucius’s Golden Rule, 22
Constantine a pagan priest, 29
Cross very ancient, 318
*D*
David’s nude dance, 132
Davidson, Prof., on “Catholic canon,” 227
Deluge, The, Jews obtained the account from Babylon, 156
Doketæ, 266
Draper on Pentateuch, 103
Driver, Prof., and Philadelphia editor, 155
*E*
Edwards, Miss Amelia B., on date of Egyptian monarchy, 96
Elisha and she-bears explained, 162
Epistles, silence of, concerning the Gospels, 372
Essenes existed before Christianity, 230 identical with Mithraism, 232
profound regard for the sun, 239
Eusebius regarded the Essenes as Christians, 229
Eusebius’s History a probable forgery, 206
*F*
Farrar, Canon, on priestcraft, 48
Fisher, Prof., on decline of clerical authority, 42
Fisk, John, on glacial period, 95
Forlong, Gen., on Jews, 55
on area of Judea and Samaria, 59
Forlong, Gen., on prevalence of phallicism, 130 133 on the fall, 170
*G*
Gnosticism, 355- 362
Gnostics, what they held, 267
Gerald Massey on, 280- 294
Gibbon on, 294
Golden Rule used by Confucius, Isocrates, Aristotle, Sixtus, Pittacus,
Thales, from three to six centuries before Christ, 327
Gospel in the Stars, 144 145
Grecian Argos, date of, 108
Gregory on ignorance and devotion, 44
*H*
Hale, Dr., on insincerity in the pulpit, 42
Sir Matthew, condemns a witch to death, 118
Harmonies of the Gospels, 347
Herod died before Jesus was born, 315
Heyne on myths and philosophy, 123
Hindoo laws quoted, 105- 108
Hirsch, Rabbi, on Pentateuch, 119 120
Holmes, O. W., Rector and Doctor, 25
Huxley on clerical opposition to progress, 48 on the deluge, 157 158
on the fall, 187 188
*I*
I H S, numerals which stand for 308 explained, 298 Inman, Dr., on Adam
and Eve, 169 Irenœus the real founder of the Roman hierarchy, 220
*J*
Jacob and Joseph, 121
Jefferson to Pickering, 46 to Dr. Cooper, 47
Jeoud, son of Saturn, origin of the name of Jew, 150
Jesus, Essenism personified, 264
Jesuses, many, 197
Jews, mongrels, 54 origin of, 55 real cause of exodus, 78
John’s Gospel first mentioned by Theophilus of Antioch in A. d. 176
219
Johnson, Rev. Samuel, on the ideal Christ, 276- 281 also 305 306 323
324
Jonah and the fish, with its parallel myths, 159
Jones, Sir William, on antiquity of the Vedas, 105
Josephus, forgery of passages relating to Jesus, numerous authorities
quoted, 200- 203].
joins the Essenes, 229 on the “burning bush,” 126
Joshua, and the sun standing still, 162
Justinian Code, origin of, 105
*K*
Kaffirs celebrate the cataménial period, 381
Keys of Peter, an interpolation, 246
Knight, Richard Payne, on the “Worship of Priapus,” 130
*L*
Lactantius, admissions of, 323 Lardner, Dr., on deceit, 44 admissions
of, 177 concerning fall, 173 Lenormant’s admission, 98
Le Renouf on origin of Egyptian civilization, 104
Lesley, Prof., on phallicism, 131
Lord’s Prayer very ancient, 327
Luther on Copernicus, 144
Lyell on delta of Mississippi, 95
*M*
Mahaffy, Prof., on the identity of the Egyptian and Christian religions,
321 322
Manetheo on date of Egyptian monarchy, 97
Manning, Archbishop, consecration of, suggestive, 133
Manu, laws of 2680 _slocas_, 104 105
Maomonide8, admission as to the fall being allegorical, 178
Marius, story of, 24
Martyr’s, Justin, comparison of Christianity and other religions, 319-
321
Massey on the ideal Christ, 284 288
on symbolism, 123
Matthew, Gospel of, written in Hebrew according to Irenœus, Origen, and
Jerome, 217
Menes, date of reign, 96
Merrell, Rev. Geo. E., gap of three, centuries in MSS., 212
Miller, Dr., on examination of ministers, 33
Milman on deceit, 44
Mitchell, Prof., on mummy coffin, 143
Mithraism, its prevalence, 233 238
Moses, strange coincidences in the life of, 109- 112 a myth; horns,
147 and the Midianites and witches, 115 118
Mosheim on deceit, 43
MSS., date of, 213
Müller, Max, on dates, 104
Mutilation, bodily, 335
*N*
Neander’s concession, 308
Neo-Platonists, what they taught, 237
Newton, Sir Isaac, what he perceived, 238
Nineveh not three days’ journey from the coast, 159
Noah and the deluge; Chaldean and other nations, 156
*O*
Origen on the fall, 178
Orphic and other dramas, 235
Oswald, Dr. Felix L., quoted, 336
Oxley, William, accounts of Jesus from Egyptian sources, 296
concerning Egyptian statuettes, 296 301 on the Jews, 79
*P*
Pagan contemporaneous with Jesus; authorities quoted, 204.
Papius and Polycarp, not instructed by John the son of Zebedee, but
probably by John, a Presbyter of Asia Minor, 219
Paul’s genuine Epistles, 214 215
Paxson, Chief-Justice, open letter to, 121
Peck, Bishop, on blood, 277
Pentateuch, date of, 97 98 100 101
Peter’s name of Chaldaic origin, 248
Phallicism not necessarily obscene, 129 135
Philo, admission of, 178
Phœnicians, date of, 109
Plato on Homer’s poems, 122
Presbyterian serpent symbolism, 128
Proclus on Plato, 122
Prometheus, the god-man, 303
*R*
Rachel sitting on the wedges, 132
Rameses II., Pharaoh of the captivity, 96
Reber exposes a fraud, 220
Religion, definition of, 12
Renan on religion, 12
Roberts, Dr. Alexander, Version 1881, 210
Roscoe, William, description of the consecration of Pope Alexander VI.,
134
Ryan,’Bishop, installed, 31 163
*S*
Sabbath observed 1100 years before the Hebrews existed, 113
Sacrifices, human, beasts, 397 398
Samson story and the twelve labors of Hercules; the foxes, 160 161
Sethi II., Egyptian king, his good old age, 96
Shedd, Prof., admission, 409
Smith, Dr. Robertson, on the Gospels, 215 on sacrifice, 398 etc.
Spencer, Herbert, on infinite and eternal energy, 423
St. Patrick and the snakes, 128
Stanley on blood-friendship, 389
Stuart, Moses, on the “indefinite-period” theory, 175
*T*
Tacitus, Annala of, forged, 205
Talmage on blood, 377
Talmud, Babylonian, 22
“wilderness of speculations/’ 196
Taylor, Jeremy, on blood, 377
Tertullian, fanatical expression of, 273
"Testimony," hint as to the origin of the word, 132
Theodosius, Emperor, ordered books burned, 244 294
Toldoth Jethu, 265
Trumbull on blood covenant, 382-389
Tyndall on religion, 11
*U*
Ussher, Archbishop, his chronology, 95
*V*
Vedio prophecies, 194
Virgin-born gods, 369 371
Von Martins, conversion of, 183
*W*
Wake, C. Staniland, on Pentateuch, 101
Whately, Archbishop, converted by Sir John Lubbock and Taylor, 183
White, Andrew D., shows how science contradicts theology, 183
Winchell, Dr. Alexander, and the Methodists, 184
Witches executed, modern examples, 118
*Z*
Zodiac, 140 141 age estimated, 143
Zoroaster prophesied of virgins, 194
THE END.