Surely it is a kind of bliss to feel that every woman and child in the wide world, with the exception of those who believe the five points, or some other equally cruel creed, and such children as have been baptized, ought at this very moment to be dashed down to the lowest glowing gulf of h.e.l.l.
Take from the Christian the history of his own church--leave that entirely out of the question--and he has no argument left with which to substantiate the total depravity of man.
_Eleventh_. With having doubted the "perseverance of the saints."
I suppose the real meaning of this doctrine is, that Presbyterians are just as sure of going to heaven as all other folks are of going to h.e.l.l.
The real idea being, that it all depends upon the will of G.o.d, and not upon the character of the person to be d.a.m.ned or saved; that G.o.d has the weakness to send Presbyterians to Paradise, and the justice to doom the rest of mankind to eternal fire.
It is admitted that no unconverted brain can see the least particle of sense in this doctrine; that it is abhorrent to all who have not been the recipients of a "new heart;" that only the perfectly good can justify the perfectly infamous.
It is contended that the saints do not persevere of their own free will--that they are ent.i.tled to no credit for persevering; but that G.o.d forces them to persevere, while on the other hand, every crime is committed in accordance with the secret will of G.o.d, who does all things for his own glory.
Compared with this doctrine, there is no other idea, that has ever been believed by man, that can properly be called absurd.
_Twelfth_. With having spoken and written somewhat lightly of the idea of converting the heathen with doctrinal sermons.
Of all the failures of which we have any history or knowledge, the missionary effort is the most conspicuous. The whole question has been decided here, in our own country, and conclusively settled. We have nearly exterminated the Indians, but we have converted none. From the days of John Eliot to the execution of the last Modoc, not one Indian has been the subject of irresistible grace or particular redemption.
The few red men who roam the western wilderness have no thought or care concerning the five points of Calvin. They are utterly oblivious to the great and vital truths contained in the Thirty-nine Articles, the Saybrook platform, and the resolutions of the Evangelical Alliance. No Indian has ever scalped another on account of his religious belief. This of itself shows conclusively that the missionaries have had no effect Why should we convert the heathen of China and kill our own? Why should we send missionaries across the seas, and soldiers over the plains?
Why should we send Bibles to the east and muskets to the west? If it is impossible to convert Indians who have no religion of their own; no prejudice for or against the "eternal procession of the Holy Ghost," how can we expect to convert a heathen who has a religion; who has plenty of G.o.ds and Bibles and prophets and Christs, and who has a religious literature far grander than our own? Can we hope with the story of Daniel in the lions" den to rival the stupendous miracles of India? Is there anything in our Bible as lofty and loving as the prayer of the Buddhist? Compare your "Confession of Faith" with the following: "Never will I seek nor receive private individual salvation--never enter into final peace alone; but forever and everywhere will I live and strive for the universal redemption of every creature throughout all worlds. Until all are delivered, never will I leave the world of sin, sorrow, and struggle, but will remain where I am."
Think of sending an average Presbyterian to convert a man who daily offers this tender, this infinitely generous, this incomparable prayer.
Think of reading the 109th Psalm to a heathen who has a Bible of his own in which is found this pa.s.sage: "Blessed is that man and beloved of all the G.o.ds, who is afraid of no man, and of whom no man is afraid."
Why should you read even the New Testament to a Hindu, when his own Chrishna has said, "If a man strike thee, and in striking drop his staff, pick it up and hand it to him again"? Why send a Presbyterian to a Sufi, who says, "Better one moment of silent contemplation and inward love, than seventy thousand years of outward worship"? "Whoso would carelessly tread one worm that crawls on earth, that heartless one is darkly alienate from G.o.d; but he that, living, embraceth all things in his love, to live with him G.o.d bursts all bounds above, below." Why should we endeavor to thrust our cruel and heartless theology upon one who prays this prayer: "O G.o.d, show pity toward the wicked; for on the good thou hast already bestowed thy mercy by having created them virtuous"?
Compare this prayer with the curses and cruelties of the Old Testament--with the infamies commanded and approved by the being whom we are taught to worship as a G.o.d--and with the following tender product of Presbyterianism: "It may seem absurd to human wisdom that G.o.d should harden, blind, and deliver up some men to a reprobate sense; that he should first deliver them over to evil, and then condemn them for that evil; but the believing spiritual man sees no absurdity in all this, knowing that G.o.d would be never a whit less good even though he should destroy all men."
Of all the religions that have been produced by the egotism, the malice, the ignorance and ambition of man, Presbyterianism is the most hideous.
But what shall I say more, for the time would fail me to tell of Sabellianism, of a "Modal Trinity," and the "Eternal Procession of the Holy Ghost"?
Upon these charges, a minister is to be tried, here in Chicago; in this city of pluck and progress--this marvel of energy--this miracle of nerve. The cry of "heresy," here, sounds like a wail from the Dark Ages--a shriek from the Inquisition, or a groan from the grave of Calvin.
Another effort is being made to enslave a man.
It is claimed that every member of the church has solemnly agreed never to outgrow the creed; that he has pledged himself to remain an intellectual dwarf. Upon this condition the church agrees to save his soul, and he hands over his brains to bind the bargain. Should a fact be found inconsistent with the creed, he binds himself to deny the fact and curse the finder. With sc.r.a.ps of dogmas and crumbs of doctrine, he agrees that his soul shall be satisfied forever. What an intellectual feast the Confession of Faith must be! It reminds one of the dinner described by Sydney Smith, where everything was cold except the water, and everything sour except the vinegar.
Every member of a church promises to remain orthodox, that is to say--stationary. Growth is heresy. Orthodox ideas are the feathers that have been moulted by the eagle of progress. They are the dead leaves under the majestic palm, while heresy is the bud and blossom at the top.
Imagine a vine that grows at one end and decays at the other. The end that grows is heresy, the end that rots is orthodox The dead are orthodox, and your cemetery is the most perfect type of a well regulated church. No thought, no progress, no heresy there. Slowly and silently, side by side, the satisfied members peacefully decay. There is only this difference--the dead do not persecute.
And what does a trial for heresy mean? It means that the church says to a heretic, "Believe as I do, or I will withdraw my support. I will not employ you. I will pursue you until your garments are rags; until your children cry for bread; until your cheeks are furrowed with tears. I will hunt you to the very portals of the tomb, and then my G.o.d will do the rest I will not imprison you. I will not burn you. The law prevents my doing that. I helped make the law, not however to protect you, nor to deprive me of the right to exterminate you but in order to keep other churches from exterminating me." A trial for heresy means that the spirit of persecution still lingers in the church; that it still denies the right of private judgment; that it still thinks more of creed than truth, and that it is still determined to prevent the intellectual growth of man. It means that churches are shambles in which are bought and sold the souls of men. It means that the church is still guilty of the barbarity of opposing thought with force. It means that if it had the power, the mental horizon would be bounded by a creed; that it would bring again the whips and chains and dungeon keys, the rack and f.a.got of the past.
But let me tell the church it lacks the power. There have been, and still are, too many men who own themselves--too much thought, too much knowledge for the church to grasp again the sword of power. The church must abdicate. For the Eglon of superst.i.tion Science has a message from Truth.
The heretics have not thought and suffered and died in vain. Every heretic has been, and is, a ray of light. Not in vain did Voltaire, that great man, point from the foot of the Alps the finger of scorn at every hypocrite in Europe. Not in vain were the splendid utterances of the infidels, while beyond all price are the discoveries of science.
The church has impeded, but it has not and it cannot stop the onward march of the human race. Heresy cannot be burned, nor imprisoned, nor starved. It laughs at presbyteries and synods, at ec.u.menical councils and the impotent thunders of Sinai. Heresy is the eternal dawn, the morning star, the glittering herald of the day. Heresy is the last and best thought. It is the perpetual New World, the unknown sea, toward which the brave all sail. It is the eternal horizon of progress.
Heresy extends the hospitalities of the brain to a new thought.
Heresy is a cradle; orthodoxy, a coffin.
Why should man be afraid to think, and why should he fear to express his thoughts?
Is it possible that an infinite Deity is unwilling that a man should investigate the phenomena by which he is surrounded? Is it possible that a G.o.d delights in threatening and terrifying men? What glory, what honor and renown a G.o.d must win on such a field! The ocean raving at a drop; a star envious of a candle; the sun jealous of a fire-fly.
Go on, presbyteries and synods, go on! Thrust the heretics out of the church--that is to say, throw away your brains,--put out your eyes. The infidels will thank you. They are willing to adopt your exiles. Every deserter from your camp is a recruit for the army of progress. Cling to the ignorant dogmas of the past; read the 109th Psalm; gloat over the slaughter of mothers and babes; thank G.o.d for total depravity; shower your honors upon hypocrites, and silence every minister who is touched with that heresy called genius.
Be true to your history. Turn out the astronomers, the geologists, the naturalists, the chemists, and all the honest scientists. With a whip of scorpions, drive them all out. We want them all. Keep the ignorant, the superst.i.tious, the bigoted, and the writers of charges and specifications.
Keep them, and keep them all. Repeat your pious plat.i.tudes in the drowsy ears of the faithful, and read your Bible to heretics, as kings read some forgotten riot-act to stop and stay the waves of revolution.
You are too weak to excite anger. We forgive your efforts as the sun forgives a cloud--as the air forgives the breath you waste.
How long, O how long, will man listen to the threats of G.o.d, and shut his eyes to the splendid possibilities of Nature? How long, O how long will man remain the cringing slave of a false and cruel creed?
By this time the whole world should know that the real Bible has not yet been written, but is being written, and that it will never be finished until the race begins its downward march, or ceases to exist.
The real Bible is not the work of inspired men, nor prophets, nor apostles, nor evangelists, nor of Christs. Every man who finds a fact, adds, as it were, a word to this great book. It is not attested by prophecy, by miracles or signs. It makes no appeal to faith, to ignorance, to credulity or fear. It has no punishment for unbelief, and no reward for hypocrisy. It appeals to man in the name of demonstration.
It has nothing to conceal. It has no fear of being read, of being contradicted, of being investigated and understood. It does not pretend to be holy, or sacred; it simply claims to be true. It challenges the scrutiny of all, and implores every reader to verify every line for himself. It is incapable of being blasphemed. This book appeals to all the surroundings of man. Each thing that exists testifies of its perfection. The earth, with its heart of fire and crowns of snow; with its forests and plains, its rocks and seas; with its every wave and cloud; with its every leaf and bud and flower, confirms its every word, and the solemn stars, shining in the infinite abysses, are the eternal witnesses of its truth.
THE GHOSTS.
TO EBON C. INGERSOLL, MY BROTHER, FROM WHOSE LIPS I HEARD THE FIRST APPLAUSE, AND WITH WHOSE NAME I WISH MY OWN a.s.sOCIATED UNTIL BOTH ARE FORGOTTEN, THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED.
PREFACE
These lectures have been so maimed and mutilated by orthodox malice; have been made to appear so halt, crutched and decrepit by those who mistake the pleasures of calumny for the duties of religion, that in simple justice to myself I concluded to publish them.
Most of the clergy are, or seem to be, utterly incapable of discussing anything in a fair and catholic spirit. They appeal, not to reason, but to prejudice; not to facts, but to pa.s.sages of Scripture. They can conceive of no goodness, of no spiritual exaltation beyond the horizon of their creed. Whoever differs with them upon what they are pleased to call "fundamental truths," is, in their opinion, a base and infamous man. To re-enact the tragedies of the sixteenth century, they lack only the power. Bigotry in all ages has been the same. Christianity simply transferred the brutality of the Colosseum to the Inquisition. For the murderous combat of the gladiators, the saints subst.i.tuted the _auto de fe_. What has been called religion is, after all, but the organization of the wild beast in man. The perfumed blossom of arrogance is heaven.
h.e.l.l is the consummation of revenge.
The chief business of the clergy has always been to destroy the joy of life, and multiply and magnify the terrors and tortures of death and perdition. They have polluted the heart and paralyzed the brain; and upon the ignorant altars of the Past and the Dead, they have endeavored to sacrifice the Present and the Living.
Nothing can exceed the mendacity of the religious press. I have had some little experience with political editors, and am forced to say, that until I read the religious papers, I did not know what malicious and slimy falsehoods could be constructed from ordinary words. The ingenuity with which the real and apparent meaning can be tortured out of language, is simply amazing. The average religious editor is intolerant and insolent; he knows nothing of affairs; he has the envy of failure, the malice of impotence, and always accounts for the brave and generous actions of unbelievers, by low, base and unworthy motives.
By this time, even the clergy should know that the intellect of the nineteenth century needs no guardian. They should cease to regard themselves as shepherds defending flocks of weak, silly and fearful sheep from the claws and teeth of ravening wolves. By this time they should know that the religion of the ignorant and brutal Past no longer satisfies the heart and brain; that the miracles have become contemptible; that the "evidences" have ceased to convince; that the spirit of investigation cannot be stopped nor stayed; that the church is losing her power; that the young are holding in a kind of tender contempt the sacred follies of the old; that the pulpit and pews no longer represent the culture and morality of the world, and that the brand of intellectual inferiority is upon the orthodox brain.
Men should be liberated from the aristocracy of the air. Every chain of superst.i.tion should be broken. The rights of men and women should be equal and sacred--marriage should be a perfect partnership--children should be governed by kindness,--every family should be a republic--every fireside a democracy.
It seems almost impossible for religious people to really grasp the idea of intellectual freedom. They seem to think that man is responsible for his honest thoughts; that unbelief is a crime; that investigation is sinful; that credulity is a virtue, and that reason is a dangerous guide. They cannot divest themselves of the idea that in the realm of thought there must be government--authority and obedience--laws and penalties--rewards and punishments, and that somewhere in the universe there is a penitentiary for the soul.
In the republic of mind, _one_ is a majority. There, all are monarchs, and all are equals. The tyranny of a majority even is unknown. Each one is crowned, sceptered and throned. Upon every brow is the tiara, and around every form is the imperial purple. Only those are good citizens who express their honest thoughts, and those who persecute for opinion"s sake, are the only traitors. There, nothing is considered infamous except an appeal to brute force, and nothing sacred but love, liberty, and joy. The church contemplates this republic with a sneer. From the teeth of hatred she draws back the lips of scorn. She is filled with the spite and spleen born of intellectual weakness. Once she was egotistic; now she is envious.