NOW, upon these gospels that I have read the churches rest; and out of
these things, mistakes and interpolations, they have made their
creeds. And the first church to make a creed, so far as I know, was the
Catholic. It was the first church that had any power. That is the church
that has preserved all these miracles for us. That is the church that
preserved the manuscripts for us. That is the church whose word we have
to take. That church is the first witness that Protestantism brought to
the bar of history to prove miracles that took place eighteen hundred
years ago; and while the witness is there Protestantism takes pains to
say: "You cannot believe one word that witness says, _now_."
That church is the only one that keeps up a constant communication with
heaven through the instrumentality of a large number of decayed saints.
That church has an agent of God on earth, has a person who stands in
the place of deity; and that church is infallible. That church has
persecuted to the exact extent of her power--and always will. In Spain
that church stands erect, and is arrogant. In the United States that
church crawls; but the object in both countries is the same--and that is
the destruction of intellectual liberty. That church teaches us that we
can make God happy by being miserable ourselves; that a nun is holier in
the sight of God than a loving mother with her child in her thrilled and
thrilling arms; that a priest is better than a father; that celibacy is
better than that passion of love that has made everything of beauty in
this world. That church tells the girl of sixteen or eighteen years of
age, with eyes like dew and light; that girl with the red of health in
the white of her beautiful cheeks--tells that girl, "Put on the veil,
woven of death and night, kneel upon stones, and you will please God."
I tell you that, by law, no girl should be allowed to take the veil and
renounce the joys and beauties of this life.
I am opposed to allowing these spider-like priests to weave webs
to catch the loving maidens of the world. There ought to be a law
appointing commissioners to visit such places twice a year and release
every person who expresses a desire to be released. I do not believe in
keeping the penitentiaries of God. No doubt they are honest about it.
That is not the question. These ignorant superstitions fill millions of
lives with weariness and pain, with agony and tears.
This church, after a few centuries of thought, made a creed, and that
creed is the foundation of the orthodox religion. Let me read it to you:
"Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he
hold the Catholic faith; which faith except every one do keep entire and
inviolate, without doubt, he shall everlastingly perish." Now the faith
is this: "That we worship one God in trinity and trinity in unity."
Of course you understand how that is done, and there is no need of
my explaining it. "Neither confounding the persons nor dividing the
substance." You see what a predicament that would leave the deity in if
you divided the substance.
"For one is the person of the Father, another of the Son, and another
of the Holy Ghost; but the Godhead of the Father, and of the Son, and of
the Holy Ghost is all one"--you know what I mean by Godhead. "In glory
equal, and in majesty coeternal. Such as the Father is, such is the Son,
such is the Holy Ghost. The Father is uncreated, the Son uncreated,
the Holy Ghost uncreated. The Father incomprehensible, the Son
incomprehensible, the Holy Ghost incomprehensible." And that is the
reason we know so much about the thing. "The Father is eternal, the Son
eternal, the Holy Ghost eternal, and yet there are not three eternals,
only one eternal, as also there are not three uncreated, nor three
incomprehensibles, only one uncreated, one incomprehensible."
"In like manner, the Father is almighty, the Son almighty, the Holy
Ghost almighty. Yet there are not three almighties, only one Almighty.
So the Father is God, the Son God, the Holy Ghost God, and yet not three
Gods; and so, likewise, the Father is Lord, the Son is Lord, the Holy
Ghost is Lord, yet there are not three Lords, for as we are compelled by
the Christian truth to acknowledge every person by himself to be God and
Lord, so we are all forbidden by the Catholic religion to say there are
three Gods, or three Lords. The Father is made of no one; not created or
begotten. The Son is from the Father alone, not made, not created, but
begotten. The Holy Ghost is from the Father and the Son, not made nor
begotten, but proceeding."
You know what proceeding is.
"So there is one Father, not three Fathers." Why should there be three
fathers, and only one Son? "One Son, and not three Sons; one Holy Ghost,
not three Holy Ghosts; and in this Trinity there is nothing before or
afterward, nothing greater or less, but the whole three persons are
coeternal with one another and coequal, so that in all things the unity
is to be worshiped in Trinity, and the Trinity is to be worshiped
in unity. Those who will be saved must thus think of the Trinity.
Furthermore, it is necessary to everlasting salvation that he also
believe rightly the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now the right
of this thing is this: That we believe and confess that our Lord Jesus
Christ, the Son of God, is both God and man. He is God of the substance
of his Father begotten before the world was."
That was a good while before his mother lived. "And he is man of the
substance of his mother, born in this world, perfect God and perfect
man, and the rational soul in human flesh, subsisting equal to the
Father according to his Godhead, but less than the Father according to
his manhood, who being both God and man is not two but one, one not
by conversion of God into flesh, but by the taking of the manhood into
God." You see that is a great deal easier than the other way would be.
"One altogether, not by a confusion of substance but by unity of person,
for as the rational soul and the flesh is one man, so God and man is one
Christ, who suffered for our salvation, descended into hell, rose again
the third day from the dead, ascended into heaven, and he sitteth at the
right hand of God, the Father Almighty, and He shall come to judge the
living and the dead." In order to be saved it is necessary to believe
this. What a blessing that we do not have to understand it. And in order
to compel the human intellect to get upon its knees before that infinite
absurdity, thousands and millions have suffered agonies; thousands and
thousands have perished in dungeons and in fire; and if all the bones
of all the victims of the Catholic Church could be gathered together,
a monument higher than all the pyramids would rise, in the presence of
which the eyes even of priests would be wet with tears.
That church covered Europe with cathedrals and dungeons, and robbed men
of the jewel of the soul. That church had ignorance upon its knees. That
church went in partnership with the tyrants of the throne, and between
those two vultures, the altar and the throne, the heart of man was
devoured.
Of course I have met, and cheerfully admit that there are thousands
of good Catholics; but Catholicism is contrary to human liberty.
Catholicism bases salvation upon belief. Catholicism teaches man to
trample his reason under foot. And for that reason it is wrong.
Thousands of volumes could not contain the crimes of the Catholic
Church. They could not contain even the names of her victims. With sword
and fire, with rack and chain, with dungeon and whip she endeavored to
convert the world. In weakness a beggar--in power a highwayman,--alms
dish or dagger--tramp or tyrant.