Yes, we shall make more progress in learning our duties, in learning
"what we must do in order to be saved," if we would look about us
and forward, and endeavor to read the great Bible or book of
nature illuminated by the rules of science, in which there are no
contradictions, no confusion, and where we may learn of, and, in our
finite measure, grow into and partake of the attributes of the Infinite
Father, instead of looking backward and searching amongst the jarring
contradictious, the creeds, dogmas, myths, and traditions of the past,
covered as they are with the mold and dust of ages.
"Without the shedding of blood there can be no remission for sin."
The doctrine of this text constitutes the basis of all the plans of
salvation which various ages and nations have founded on dead Gods and
living devils. Nearly every religious nation known to history cherished
the belief that God is an irritable, irascible, and vindictive being,
subject to fits or paroxysms of anger; and, when in this furious and
unbalanced and ungovernable state of mind, he frequently poured out his
vengeance upon his disobedient children, often subjecting them to the
most terrible penalties in this life, and then threatened them with a
still worse doom in the next. To avert this direful calamity,--at least
so far as it appertained to the life beyond the grave,--most religious
nations invented schemes which came to be known as systems or plans
of salvation. The original model seems to have been furnished by the
Hindoos, and borrowed from them by the Egyptians, and thence transmitted
to the Persians and Grecians, and was finally incorporated into the
Christian system, and now constitutes what is known as "the Christian
plan of salvation." Each system was composed of three cardinal
principles: 1. The primeval innocency and moral perfection of man. 2.
His temptation and downfall into a state of moral depravity. 3. His
restoration to the divine favor by the voluntary sacrifice and atoning
offering of a God (one of the three members of the trinity). These three
cardinal doctrines constitute what Christians denominate "the great and
glorious plan of salvation," and on which a thousand volumes have
been written, and ten thousand sermons are preached every year. As it
professes to point out the road, and the only road, to heaven, it merits
a somewhat critical examination. We will therefore analyze and examine
its several principles, to see whether it has a true moral basis, or is
in strict accordance with the principles of natural justice. The first
proposition assumes that man primordially occupied the highest plane
of moral perfection, and that all his animal propensities were held in
strict abeyance to his moral convictions, and that he consequently led a
morally pure, perfect, and holy life. The first and most important query
to which this proposition or assumption gives rise is, Can it be shown
to be true? Can it be sustained by either the principles of natural or
moral science, or by the facts of history comprised in man's practical
life? Now, it so happens that facts have been accumulating for thousands
of years, gathered from almost every department of science and
history, to prove and demonstrate that the proposition is entirety
untenable,--that it is not true. Geology alone demonstrates its falsity.
It has written its negative verdict upon a thousand rocks beneath our
feet.
These rocks contain the fossiliferous and organic remains of the early
and primitive inhabitants of the earth, and indicate the order of man's
moral and intellectual development; for as each successive layer or
stratum of fossiliferous rocks, in which the organic remains of man are
found, marks a distinct period in his history, and the growth of his
moral and intellectual brain is found in all cases to correspond to
the age and growth of these strata, the question is thus settled and
demonstrate! by the facts of geological science. As, the older the
rocks, the more remote period they mark in man's history; and, the more
remote the period to which it is thus traced, the lower the position
in the scale of moral and intellectual development his organic remains
prove him to have occupied. The question is thus reduced to a scientific
problem, which admits of no disproof or refutation. It is, then, a
settled scientific truth, that, the further we trace the past history of
man by the footprints of geological science, the nearer he approaches
to the condition of an animal,--when he was almost totally devoid of
intellectual perceptions and moral feelings, and was consequently a
victim to his lusts and animal propensities. Where, then, was his moral
purity and perfection, or his angelic holiness? The doctrine is thus
shown to be false and fabulous. All the skulls of the primitive races
that have been found by geological research show that man, in his first
rude type, had scarcely any moral brain; and the history of the race
at that period shows that he possessed a correspondingly low, weak,
defective moral character, so much so that he could scarcely be
considered a moral, accountable being. To talk, then, of his occupying a
high moral plane at that early period, is to contradict every principle
of science and every page of history. His animal propensities and
selfish feelings must have held complete sway over the whole empire of
mind for thousands, if not for millions, of years; so that his moral
status was but little above that of the brute. The facts of science and
history to prove this proposition are abundant; but, as we are compelled
to constantly observe the most rigid rules of brevity, we can only find
space for one or two proof-illustrations. Human skulls have been
found embedded in the rocks of Gibraltar with retreating foreheads,
prognathous jaws, and frontal bones an inch thick, and the receptacles
for both the moral and intellectual brain very small,--all of which
denote very weak moral and intellectual minds, and a preponderance
of the animal feelings; and geologists have decided that sixty-five
thousand years must have elapsed since those bones and skulls were
deposited in those rocks. Hundreds of similar facts have been
gathered by geologists, and might be cited: but this one case is amply
sufficient, and furnishes as conclusive proof as a thousand could do
that the primitive inhabitants of the earth were on a low mental status,
and that they were greatly inferior in morals and intellect to the
least-developed minds of the present age; and consequently man's course
has been upward, and not downward. There has been no falling, but a
gradual rising, in both the moral and intellectual scale. It shows that
man was at the very foot of the ladder at the commencement of his moral
and intellectual career,--that he was flat on his back in the ditch;
and, consequently, there was no lower place to fall to. The first
proposition, then, is shown to be false,--that man originally occupied
a high moral position, and that he was in a state of moral purity and
perfection.
The second proposition--that of man's fall and moral degeneracy--is
likewise shown to be false by the same facts; for, if he was never in a
state of moral purity and perfection, then it is evident he never could
have fallen from such a state. It would be superfluous, then, to attempt
to show that man never fell, after having shown that he never occupied
a high moral position to fall from. He could only fall in the sense the
Scotchman did, who stated he fell up a well sixty feet in a bucket. It
is settled, then, geologically, scientifically, and demonstrably, that
man never fell in a moral sense.
We will now proceed to present what is presumed and assumed to be the
scriptural exposition of man's original condition and fall.
We are told in the first chapter of Genesis, that, when God had
completed the work of creation, he pronounced it all, not only good, but
"very good," which indicates a state of perfection; but it appears
the words were hardly out of his mouth till a very bad being, called a
serpent, came crawling into the garden on his back, to furnish practical
evidence that Moses' God was mistaken in having pronounced every
thing so very "good." We have to assume that he came into the garden
of paradise on his back, because the reverse mode of traveling was not
adopted until after the fall; that is, till after he was doomed to that
mode of travel as a punishment for having tempted and beguiled Mother
Eve to try her new molars and incisors on some fruit (supposed to be
pippins) hanging on a tree, which, it appears, underwent the rapid
process of blossoming, and bearing fruit that ripened in a few hours
after it was planted. And thus the serpent, although a senseless
reptile, committed the first sin,--the first violation of moral law.
The first question that naturally arises here is, Why was not the
fence around the garden of paradise made snake-proof, so as to keep his
snakeship out? Or shall we presume the gate was left open, and that
he entered in that way? This, however, would indicate a blundering
carelessness on the part of Jehovah, which we dare not assume. Another
question arising here is, Why was not the angel with the flaming sword,
which, we are told, was placed over the door or gateway to guard it from
intruders,--why was he not placed there sooner? Why was he not placed
there before the fall, instead of after, so as to bruise the serpent's
head, or behead him, on his attempting to enter? To place a guard over
the gate after the Devil had entered, and caused the effectual downfall
and ruin of the human race, and thus perpetrated all the mischief he
could, looks very much like "locking the stable-door after the horse
is stolen." And the query also arises here, Are we not compelled to
conclude that Moses' God was a little short-sighted, and rather hasty
in his conclusion that every thing was so "very good" when the serpent
proved to be so very bad? The only way to escape this dilemma is to
assume that God did not make him, and that consequently he was not
included in the original invoice of goods and chattels which were
pronounced "very good;" but, in adopting this expedient, we only leap
"from the frying-pan into the fire:" for the assumption does not do away
with the difficulty, because it is declared that God made every thing
that was made.
Hence it is evident that, if he were made at all, the God of Moses made
him; and, if he were not made, then it follows that he is a self-created
or self-existent being, and invested with all the attributes, powers,
and prerogatives of God Almighty himself. And thus we would place two
omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent beings on the throne of
the universe; which is not only a moral contradiction, but a moral
impossibility. We will assume, then, for the sake of the argument, that
God did create the Devil,--an assumption, however, which brings us into
still greater difficulty. Christ says, by way of illustrating human
character, that "a tree is known by its fruit. A good tree can not bring
forth evil fruit; neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit." In
this case God the Creator is the tree, and the Devil the fruit; and one
is good, and the other evil. Here, then, is a good tree bearing evil
fruit, which seems to furnish the most positive proof that Christ's
moral axiom, "A good tree can not bear evil fruit," is false. There is
evidently something wrong somewhere in this moral picture. Either Christ
was mistaken, or the Christian world is wrong in assuming the existence
of this omnipotent and independent being of an opposite character. It
presents us with a moral paradox which no theologian in Christendom has
yet been able to solve. We are compelled to assume that both beings are
good, or both evil, and that they co-operate and act in harmony; or that
a good God made a wicked Devil,--i.e., "a good tree brought forth evil
fruit;" or else we must reject the Christian system of salvation, and
assume the existence of but one invisible and Almighty Being, who orders
every thing for the best. The absurdity we have just noticed is but one
of many, both of a moral and of a scientific nature, equally senseless
and foolish, which we find involved in the Christian plan of salvation.
We will notice a few others. According to Christian theology and
Christian logic, all evil or sin that is committed is prompted by an
evil tempter. Scientists and Harmonialists account for such actions by
tracing them to the abnormal or perverted action of natural faculties,
powers, and propensities, which, in their healthy state, are productive
of good alone, and not evil; and thus making them the product of the
mind itself in its unhealthy condition. But Christian theologians tell
us it is a separate, evil genius operating in the "inner man" which does
all the mischief, and prompts the possessor to the commission of sin.
But this assumption gives rise to endless difficulties, some of which
we will state in the form of questions. We would ask, then, in the first
place, if all sin or evil is prompted by an evil tempter, how came the
original tempter himself to fall victim to sin? Who put him up to it,
seeing there was no tempter in existence but himself? In such a dilemma,
we must either assume that Divine Goodness was his tempter, or that
he tempted himself. To make him his own tempter would involve us in an
egregious absurdity, equal to that of Guy Faux lifting himself by the
straps of his boots; and to make God the tempter would relieve his
Satanic Majesty of all responsibility in the case, and make God alone
accountable for the sin, and also the author of sin. This, however,
they do by other assumptions. Books enough have been written to form a
library by orthodox writers in the attempt to rescue their God from the
odium and responsibility' of being the author of sin; but, under
their system of theology, he can not escape the stigma. No sensible
construction of any orthodox system can save God from the authorship
and responsibility of sin. They all teach that God created man, and
man committed sin. This makes God the author of sin, either directly or
indirectly, in spite of all the logic and lore that ever has been, or
ever can be, made use of to escape the conclusion; for even if it could
be successfully shown that God did not implant in man the desire or
inclination to commit sin, and he derived this inclination from the
Devil, it can not be denied that God is responsible for allowing the
Devil to exist, or, if this could be denied, would still be responsible
for leaving man so morally weak as to be overcome by the Devil. If he is
infinite in goodness and infinite in power, as they teach, then, if
he did not fortify man with sufficient moral strength to resist all
temptation to sin, the act of sinning becomes his own. No logic and no
sophistry can resist this conclusion. It is now a settled principle in
moral ethics, that what any being does through an agent he does himself,
and is as responsible for it as if he performed the act with his own
hands _de facto_. If, then, God created the Devil, and he turned out to
be the agent of evil or sin, it was only a roundabout and indirect mode
of performing the act himself. This is a logical syllogism which defies
the ingenuity of the orthodox world to overturn. The most plausible plea
in the case is, that the Devil was originally a good being, but fell
from grace. According to several Bibles, he is a fallen angel; but it is
evident that he could not fall unless he possessed some inherent moral
weakness that caused him to fall. A perfect being could not fall. It is,
then, self-evident that inherent moral weakness was implanted in him
by his Creator. This would make his Creator responsible for his moral
weakness, which caused him to fall. And thus the question is settled
logically, philosophically, and morally.
We will now proceed to examine the nature of the diabolical act which
caused the downfall of the human race,--"the original sin," as it is
called. We are told it consisted in eating some fruit which grew on a
tree God himself had planted in the Garden of Eden, and forbidden to be
used. Why it was interdicted from use is not explained in the Christian
Bible; but it is rendered plain by the relation of the same story in
other Bibles. In the Persian version it is stated that the tree bore
the twelve apples of immortality, and that the Devil, in the shape of a
monkey, guarded the tree, to prevent the _genus homo_ from partaking of
the fruit; as tradition had taught them, that, by so doing, man
would become immortal like the Gods, and live forever. This the Gods
deprecated, as they allowed no other beings to become equal to them, and
hence had the tree guarded to save the immortal fruit. But the Christian
Bible is entirely silent as to the purpose of planting the tree, or
forbidding its fruit to be eaten. It cuts short many stories which we
find more amplified and in fuller detail in older Bibles. No reflecting
or unbiased mind can see any wisdom or any sense in permitting or
causing a tree to bear fruit, and then decreeing that it shall all go to
waste by interdicting it from being used, as Jehovah is represented as
having done. Certainly no sensible God would act thus. And if Adam and
Eve were "very good," as he himself declared them to be, must we not
consider it an ungodly and a tantalizing act to place fruit within their
reach, and then forbid them to touch or taste it? It looks more like the
act of a fiend than that of a kind and loving father, who we would
naturally suppose, would be so pleased with his newly made children that
he would do every thing possible to please them and make them happy. If
the fruit was an improper article of diet, it should have been placed
out of sight, or rendered unpalatable, so that they should not desire to
eat it. If Adam and Eve were very good beings, and God both infinitely
good and infinitely wise, he could and should have placed them in a
condition from which they could not fall, and in which they would have
possessed no inclination to do any thing wrong. I can see no possible
benefit to arise from surrounding them with temptations to commit an act
that would ruin them eternally, and their posterity after them. The plea
is sometimes urged that it was morally necessary for the original
progenitors of the race to possess the power and liability to sin, in
order to make them free agents. Free agents, indeed! That is certainly a
novel kind of free agency, which not only makes a man free to commit an
act which it is known will lead to his own destruction and the ruin of
the entire human race, but implants in him the inclination to do it.
This is free agency run mad.
We will illustrate the principle. A mother sees her little child
approaching an open well, and turns heedlessly away, and lets the child
rush into the jaws of death; and, when reproved for the act, she raises
the plea, "Oh, I did not want to interfere with its free agency!"
Here is the Christian logic of free agency put in practice. God is
represented as setting traps around the human family, knowing they will
be caught; and this is called moral freedom or free agency. The rat
enjoys the same kind of moral freedom when he creeps beneath the
deadfall in quest of food, and takes the chance of misplacing the
triggers. There is no free agency in any rational sense in furnishing a
man with a rope to hang himself, knowing that it would be used for that
purpose; and this the orthodox God has done for the whole human family,
so that we are all now suspended on the gallows of total depravity and
moral death.
THE FALL AND CURSE.
We will now notice some of the awful consequences said to have resulted
from eating the forbidden fruit,--"the _worldwide curse_" pronounced
upon the human race as the penalty for that act. Several distinct
effects are enumerated as consequences of the deed. But a critical
investigation of the matter in the light of the present age will show,
that instead of being curses, they are blessings, and have added greatly
to the enjoyment and happiness of the human family; and, consequently,
we should now be in a more deplorable condition than we are if "our
primitive parents" had heeded the divine interdiction, and let the fruit
alone. We will look briefly at some of the consequences, and observe
whether they have really turned out to be curses, or not. The first
effect produced by the act of Father Adam and Mother Eve eating the
forbidden fruit appears to have been that of opening their eyes so that
they could see and distinguish objects around them. It certainly was
a very singular way of cursing human beings to grant them the glorious
boon of vision, and thus relieve them from the necessity of groping
their way through life. As to the gift of sight being a curse, there are
thousands of human beings now in the world who would like to be cursed
in that way--those who were born blind, or have lost their sight. "The
rest of mankind" would consider it to be a great misfortune or curse to
be placed in the original condition of Adam and Eve in this respect. We
must admit, then, that this curse turned out to be a blessing, and
that we are indebted to the serpent-devil for it; and, consequently, he
should not have been doomed to dine on dust as a penalty for conferring
this blessing upon the human race.
The second consequence growing out of the act of eating the interdicted
fruit appears to have been the acquisition of a knowledge of good and
evil; that is, the power of distinguishing between good and evil. But
this, so far from being a curse, was an inestimable and indispensable
blessing; for, without the attainment of this knowledge, they could not
have known that any act was evil, and hence would have been liable to
plunge into all manner of crime, pillage, debauchery, murder, &c., until
they effected the entire extinction of the human race. The acquisition,
then, of the knowledge of the moral difference between good and evil was
an invaluable blessing, and no curse at all; and, having been brought
about through the agency of the serpent-devil, he should have the credit
of it.
The third effect produced by plucking and eating the prescribed fruit
was the discovery that they were naked. Why they had not made the
discovery before is a mystery of godliness. The people of the present
age, although presumed to be in a state of degeneracy, if not total
depravity, do not require the use of their eyes to know when they
are naked; but it seems, that, before the fall in a state of moral
perfection, such knowledge could only be acquired through the optic
nerves. Hence "the perfection of our first parents," so often spoken of
and lauded by the orthodox world, must simply have been the perfection
of ignorance; and it is true, if their history is true, that they were
most consummately ignorant until they were enlightened by the serpent.
They were too ignorant to clothe themselves. God Almighty had to forsake
the throne of heaven, and come down to earth, to make garments of
goatskins for them, before they could be sufficiently habilitated to go
abroad, or admit company. Their two sons, however, were the only company
they were permitted to enjoy at that time. And one of these turned out
to be a murderer; and, having killed his only brother, he fled to the
land of Nod, and married a wife, although, according to the "inspired
account," his mother was the only woman then living. It seems strange,
under such circumstances, that he should marry a wife when there were no
women to make wives of. After he had killed his brother, and repented of
it, a mark was set upon him, that "whosoever found him should not slay
him." But how could this "whosoever" know what the mark meant? And who
was this "whosoever," when he himself had killed off the whole human
race, excepting his father and mother? And we presume they would not be
likely to slay their own and only son if there were no mark set upon him
to prevent it. Up to this period the conduct of the serpent-devil had
been very respectful, and every act performed had resulted in a direct
benefit to the human family. Even his conduct towards Mother
Eve seems to have been marked by politeness; for he served her with
fruit before partaking of it himself. For these good acts he deserved
the use of his legs, which, we must presume, he lost by the fall,
when he transgressed, fell, and was cursed; and a part of this curse
consisted in taking his legs from him, and compelling him to crawl. But
it appears his legs were afterwards restored to him; for, when he came
with the sons of God to attend a picnic at the house of Job, and was
asked where he came from, replied, "From walking to and fro in the
earth." This feat of walking he could not very well have performed
without legs. Hence we naturally conclude they had grown out again,
or had been restored to him in some way, notwithstanding it had been
decreed he should "crawl on his belly all the days of his life." The
whole story of the serpent, as presented in Genesis, is a borrowed and
laughable fiction; and the reader will excuse us for presenting it in
that light.
We have shown that the violation of the command of Jehovah to Adam and
Eve not to partake of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, so far from
being attended with any evil result, gave rise to several important
benefits, and was therefore a praiseworthy act. And if they had carried
the act of disobedience a little further, and plucked and eaten of the
fruit from the "tree of life" also, it would, according to the
context, have produced results still more important, as it would have
immortalized their physical bodies, and prevented the ingress of death
into the world; and we should have been spared that dreadful calamity.
But a worse calamity would have overtaken us; for it is easily seen,
that, in the course of a few centuries, our planet would be overstocked
with inhabitants. And, as a part of Adam's curse consisted in being
doomed to eat the ground (see Gen. iii. 17), it follows, that, if none
of his posterity had died, they would have become so numerous in the
course of time as to have eaten up all the ground (there being nothing
else for them to eat), and leave not a mole-hill of _terra firma_ for a
living being to stand upon. The conception is really ludicrous, and yet
a legitimate inference from the story which presents us with a series of
laughable ideas from beginning to end.
We will now notice the sentence pronounced upon the several participants
in this fabled rebellion against the divine government, and observe how,
or to what extent, they were realized. Adam, Eve, and the snake were
the culprits arraigned at the bar under charge of being rebels; and, all
being found guilty, a sentence was pronounced upon each separately.
We will examine them in their order. The first part of Adam's curse
consisted in being doomed to die,--"The day thou eatest thereof, thou
shalt surely die" (Gen. ii. 17). The serpent, however, took the liberty
to contradict and counteract the sentence, and told him he should not
die, but that partaking of the fruit would make him "wise as the Gods,
knowing good and evil." Now, the first question which arises here is,
Who told the truth in the case,--Jehovah, or "the father of lies"? In
the eighth chapter of Genesis we read, "All the days of Adam were nine
hundred and thirty years, and he begat sons and daughters." It will
be seen, then, that he did not die in "the day thereof," nor the year
thereof, nor the century thereof; so it appears the serpent told the
truth and Moses' God told the falsehood, or was mistaken. Hundreds of
Christian writers and commentators have racked their brains to find some
plausible mode of disposing of these difficulties. The most specious
one they have resorted to is that of assigning the text a spiritual
signification, and alleging that it was a spiritual death that was
intended in this case. But the text does not say so; and the context
shows it was not so: for it is declared, "Dust thou art, and unto dust
shalt thou return" (Gen. iii. 19), which shows it was not spiritual but
physical death that was meant; and this did not take place for more than
nine hundred years after the sentence was pronounced.
The second part of Adam's curse consisted in being driven out of the
garden, and compelled to engage in agricultural pursuits; that is, he
was sentenced to earn his bread by the sweat of his face. (See Gen. iii.
23). But the experience of nearly the whole human race, from that period
to the present time, proves that the sweating part of the operation is
no curse at all, but a real blessing; for no person in warm climates
can enjoy good health without perspiring occasionally; and as for
labor being a curse, because said to have been pronounced upon
Adam as a penalty for transgression, the experience of all who have
tried it, and the present condition of the civilized world, proclaim it
to be untrue. Indeed, we must consider it a very fortunate circumstance
that he was driven out of the garden, and compelled to embark in
agricultural pursuits, not only on account of such employments being
conducive to health, but because the very existence of human life
depends upon it in all civilized countries. It is the source whence we
derive all our food, all our clothing, and nearly all the comforts of
life. No: it is laziness, not labor, that curses the race; and the most
accursed set of beings are the drones, the soft-handed gentry, who are
almost as afraid of a hoe, axe, or spade, as they are of the measles or
small-pox, having been erroneously taught that labor is a curse.
The third item in Adam's curse consisted in being doomed to eat the
ground,--"Cursed is the ground for thy sake, and in sorrow shalt thou
eat of it all the days of thy life" (Gen. iii. 17); but we have never
seen any report of either Adam or any of his posterity eating the
ground, or making it an article of diet. It will be observed, then, that
no part of the sentence pronounced upon Adam turned out to be a curse,
but, when realized at all, was realized as a blessing.
The sentence pronounced upon the woman was also of a threefold
character. In the first place, she was doomed to "Bring forth children
in sorrow" (Gen. iii. 16). And her posterity, we are told, inherited the
curse, and must suffer in this same way; but the history of the human
family shows that many individuals, and whole nations in some cases,
have never suffered this affliction. It is well known that the mothers
of some of the African tribes, also some of the tribes of Americans,
never suffer in childbirth. Hence it will be seen that the curse in the
general sense implied by the text is a failure in this case also.
The second punishment to which woman was to be subjected was that of
being ruled over by her husband. This portion of her curse, we must
confess, has not been an entire failure. Many women, even in civilized
countries, are not only ruled over, but tyrannized over, by their
husbands. Yet this state of things has by no means been universal. On
the contrary, in many cases, woman has been the ruling party; and, in
some instances, they have not merely ruled their own husbands, but all
the husbands in the nation. Queen Mary, Queen Anne, and Queen Victoria,
and many others, are examples of this kind; and then there have been
thousands of women in all ages and countries who never had any husbands.
Consequently the curse is a failure in their cases. The curse of
husband-dominion, then, has not fallen upon woman as a sex.
There was to be enmity between the seed of the woman and the seed of the
serpent (i.e., their offspring) as the third part of woman's curse; but
we find no evidence that this part of the curse has ever been fulfilled.
We observe no more enmity between men and serpents than between men
and other noxious reptiles and ravenous beasts. How much enmity exists
between the Hindoo juggler and the serpent that twines around his arm
and neck, and crawls through his bosom? We may be told in reply that
it is not the common serpent that is referred to here, but the
serpent-devil that beguiled Eve; but we do not learn that his Devilish
Majesty ever had any offspring. So this part of the curse, in a general
sense, is a failure also.
THE CURSE OF THE SERPENT.
The curse pronounced upon the serpent was of a twofold character.
He was doomed to crawl upon his belly. How he traveled previous to that
period we have no means of knowing, as revelation is silent on this
momentous subject. He must have crawled on his back, or hopped on his
head or tail,--either of which we should consider a much more difficult
mode of traveling than that inflicted on him by the curse. I can see
no curse or punishment in an animal or reptile traveling in its natural
way, and by the easiest mode known in the whole animal kingdom. To make
a curse of his mode of travel, he should have been turned the other side
up, so that, while wiggling or wriggling along on his back, his eyes
and mouth would get full of dust and mud. This would have been much more
like a punishment,--a more real and sensible curse than his present mode
of traveling.
The second mode of punishing the serpent was to compel him to eat
dust as an article of diet; but some difficulty must have arisen in
attempting to comply with the injunction. When the ground is saturated
with water, he would have to take a meal occasionally of mud, which
would not be more nutritious than dust, and would not be fulfilling the
law. But it is needless to speculate. It is evident he does not subsist
in that way, but, like the other culprits, escaped the penalties or
punishments due to his crime.
I have now examined all the items of the curse--eight in number--said to
have been visited upon Adam, Eve, and the serpent; and what do they all
amount to? Not one of them has been realized as such; but most of those
which were practically realized turned out to be real blessings. And yet
they have been proclaimed to the world by the clergy as the missiles of
wrath hurled upon a guilty world for the sin of rebellion against the
divine government; and, whether any of these so-called "visitations of
divine displeasure" were designed as penalties for disobedience or not,
it is evident they have not in a moral sense been realized, or had any
beneficial effect whatever. And we must conclude that it was rather
short-sighted in Moses' God to attempt to bring his children into
obedience by pronouncing curses upon them. He himself virtually
acknowledges it; for, after having tried these expedients and found they
availed nothing, he became so discouraged, that he said, "It grieved him
to the heart" (see Gen. vi. 6) that he had made so rebellious a creature
as man.
THE SECOND SCHEME OF REDEMPTION.
The God of Moses, after having tried the expedient of cursing his
children,--the cunning workmanship of his hands,--and grieved over the
failure for more than a thousand years,--he (the God of Moses) came to
the conclusion to try another expedient. He concluded to select a few
of the choicest specimens of the _genus homo_, in order to preserve the
race and start anew with some of the best stock or material that could
be found. Accordingly, old drunken Noah--the most righteous man
that could be found amongst the millions of the inhabit ants of the
globe--was chosen to build a schooner, yacht, canoe, or some kind of a
vessel, called an arc into which he stowed millions of birds, bipeds, and
insects of all species and all sizes, from the ostrich and condor down
to fleas, flies, mosquitoes, spiders, and bed-bugs; and millions of
animals and reptiles of all kinds and all sizes, from the mammoth and
the mastodon down to skunks, lizards, snakes, gophers, and grasshoppers;
together with himself and family of eight persons, and food sufficient
to last them ten months while in the ark, and several years afterwards,
as we must presume was done from the fact that it is declared that the
waters destroyed every living thing upon the face of the earth. And it
must have required several years to restock it with grass and animals to
serve as food for the granivorous, herbivorous, and carnivorous species;
and this would make a bulk sufficient to fill forty such vessels, and
a weight sufficient to sink the whole British navy. And all this living
mass of respiring and perspiring animals were dependent upon one little
window twelve inches by fifteen for light and air, and which had to
be kept shut most of the time to keep out the rain. If some giraffe or
cameleopard had been disposed to monopolize the window by thrusting
his head out, we can easily imagine what would have been the fatal
consequence to this living, breathing cargo. And then we have to
entertain the thought that lions and lambs, wolves and sheep, dogs
and skunks, hawks and chickens, owls and doves, cats and mice, men and
monkeys, all ate and slept together in immediate juxtaposition like a
band of brothers. Perhaps more glorious times never were realized since
"the sons of God shouted for joy." But it appears the whole thing turned
out to be a failure. The drowning process was no more effectual in
producing the desired reformation than the first scheme that had been
tried; for, only a few hundred years after the culmination of this
world-drowning experiment, Moses' God is represented as crying out
in despair, "The imagination of man's heart is evil, and only evil
continually." This was certainly a deplorable and disheartening state
of things witnessed so soon after it had been presumed that all the bad
folks had been drowned; but it appears, that, if all that class had been
drowned, there would have been no human beings left. David, therefore,
was probably right when he exclaims, "There is none that doeth good, no
not one" (Ps. xiv. 3).
THE THIRD AND LAST PLAN OF SALVATION.
The atonement was the third and last resort. The third experiment in any
case generally ends the siege whether successful or unsuccessful.
After a few thousand years more had elapsed of grief, anger, and
disappointment in the practical history of Moses' God, he ventured to
try one more experiment in the effort to get his people in the right
track,--not so much, however, to get them in the right way, as to have
his own wrath appeased. In this way he sanctions the greatest crime ever
perpetrated by the hand of man,--that of murder. God the "Father," in
order to cancel the sins of his disobedient and rebellious children,
and mitigate his own wrath, is represented as proposing to have his
"only-begotten son" killed,--at least, as consenting to the act. This
looks like "doing evil that good may come of it;" which is a very
objectionable principle of moral ethics, according to Paul. How
the commission of the greatest of all sins can do any thing towards
reforming other sins, or how the punishment of an innocent being can do
any thing towards atoning for the sins of the guilty, presents us with
a moral problem, shocking both to our common sense and common reason.
If the Father's anger could not be appeased or his vengeance satisfied
without the perpetration of a horrible murder, and the knowledge that
some victim had died a slow and agonizing death, we are forced to the
conclusion that he is a cruel and revengeful God, and that his passions
overrule his love of justice and his paternal regard for his son. But it
appears that this last experiment, whether right or wrong, was attended
with as complete a failure as the two preceding ones; and yet it assumes
to be the best that "Infinite Wisdom" could devise. And the resources
of divine knowledge and skill were apparently exhausted when this scheme
culminated. And yet it also failed, according to the admission of its
own friends and ardent supporters (the clergy); for they tell us, that,
notwithstanding all the schemes and systems that Omniscience and
Infinite Prescience could devise to save man, he does not get saved: at
least but few are saved, and they have to "work out, their own salvation
with fear and trembling." Nineteen-twentieths of the human family, the
clergy tell us, are still traveling "the broad road," and are finally
lost, notwithstanding all the labored experiments and expedients of
omniscient or Jehovahistic wisdom to save them. With this view of the
case, the thought is suggested that it was hardly worth while to have
gone to the trouble and expense of fitting up a heaven for the few that
are saved. It certainly "doesn't pay." And this conclusion is the more
forcible in view of the fact that it must be rather a lonesome place,
and consequently not a very desirable home or situation to live in; for
we are told it is "a house of many mansions," "and yet few there be that
find the strait and narrow road" leading to it. Hence we may conclude
that many of the rooms or mansions are empty. Such a lonesome heaven
could not be congenial or adapted to any class of saints but monks and
hermits.
We have now briefly examined the three plans of salvation which lie at
the foundation of the Christian religion, and shown that they are all
failures according to their own witnesses. In view of this fact, we can
not wonder that Moses' God is represented as saying that he repented for
having made man, and that it grieved him to the heart (Gen. vi. 6). Such
a series of signal failures is enough to discourage even a saint or a
God.
True religion sees God in every thing, reads his scriptures on every
page of Nature's open Bible, and feels him in the inspiration of the
soul. It calls God father, not king; Christ a brother, not a redeemer.
It loves all men, but fears no God. Its God is not a tyrant, but a
loving father. It looks upon Jesus Christ as a truly good man, but not
a God; as a noble, loving, benevolent being, but endowed with human
frailties. It considers him a martyr to truth and right, but not a just
victim to his father's wrath, or the just object of a bloody sacrifice.
It regards the laws of nature as sufficient, if diligently studied and
strictly observed, to serve as a guide for man's earthly life without
any special revelation. It holds that man's natural love of goodness,
justice, mercy, and honesty is capable of endless expansion and
augmentation. It walks by the light of science. The many grand truths
of the age, developed by the onward march of mind, form its infallible
laws, and constitute its living virtues. It uses reason for a lamp, and
an enlightened intellect for a guide. It ties no martyr to the stake,
piles the faggots around no heretics. It issues no dogmas, no bulls,
no canons, and hangs man's salvation upon no infallible revelation.
Christians say, Give us a better revelation; Christ said, "Cease to do
evil, and [then] learn to do well." All wrong and hurtful institutions
should be pulled down or abandoned, and trust to finding better ones.
Remove the weeds from the soil, and a healthy and useful vegetation will
spring up in their place. The true religion grants perfect freedom to
all human beings; leaves human thought as free and unfettered as the
wind, as free as the rays of sunlight which fall upon every hill and
every valley, and rest upon the bosom of the deep.