If God had been the author of the Christian religion, it would, like all his works, have been so arranged, and the means so wisely adapted, that the intention or end would be fully answered. But the religion of the Bible, both the Old and New Testament, is a continual trial of experiments on man. And what has religion made of him? Is he generally fit to be trusted, in word or action? Is he generally humane and tender-hearted? No! very far from it. Society is, in its best state, very defective in humanity. The accumulation of riches is the Christian’s object. Gold is the god he adores.
It is impossible for Christians to deny that the persecutions and burnings, the cruel torture, and every infliction of cruelty practised by one sect towards others, who honestly differed from the most powerful, were all in consequence of the different sects embracing and maintaining opposite doctrines; all of which were founded on the teaching of Jesus. Can we, then, believe that the Almighty Ruler of all worlds would have sent his Son to teach mankind something that should involve the human race in a never-ending quarrel, by teaching so obscurely that two persons, equally honest and intelligent, should form opposite opinions; knowing, as the Almighty must, that such teaching would engender hatred and malice, and be the cause of producing unheard of cruelty and torture?
How dreadful it is to reflect on the mad fury of religious zeal, when the persecutor and the persecuted are equally sincere! The first, believing he ought to put to death those who differ from him, for the glory of God; and the latter, considering that his crown of glory can be obtained only by sufferings death the most horrid to bear! Poor, unfortunate creatures! Both parties are objects of pity. The evils resulting from the different doctrines collected from the teaching of Jesus, have, for eighteen hundred years, converted the otherwise happy world into a pious mad-house. The doctrine of human depravity, although it may not have been so productive of evil as some others, is a libel on human nature. It is taught by Jesus; the preachers repeat it weekly from the pulpit; and the necessity of a new birth results from it. A thousand pulpits thunder forth vengeance against man because of the hardness of his heart. We are told that he has rebelled against his God; that he is at enmity with him, and that he has turned his back to his Maker.
All this is done to humble man, and to bring about his conversion. The Scriptures also represent the Almighty as angry with poor, feeble man, and that he will eventually pour out his wrath in never-ending torments! These doctrines, so earnestly taught, and so fully credited, constitute a principal part of what comes from ten thousand preachers; and if we examine the truth of them, none can we find. As it respects man’s rebelling, and turning his back on his Creator, man’s error and misfortune has ever been in trying to find out something about his Maker.
This curiosity, no doubt, originated in a state of ignorance. And even in the present day, man has yet to learn the inutility of every attempt to discover any thing as to the being and nature of a Supreme Power that is supposed to govern the universe. We are lost in wonder and admiration when we contemplate the mighty universe! but of the Grand Regulator of all, we are, and no doubt shall ever remain, in total ignorance. It is a libel on man, then, to teach that human beings are at enmity against God. I ask my readers, both male and female, whether they ever had those feelings of hatred against the unknown Governor of the grand and sublime universe? But Christian priests proclaim it; and to those who believe it, it is a source of lamentation; and being under the belief that man is the natural enemy of God, the minds of such persons become prostrated, and then this otherwise happy world is despised and neglected for a future state of supposed bliss.
Let any one attend a Protracted Meeting, where there may be some hundreds of persons, and among the number, many youths of both sexes; both young and old are appealed to by the speakers, who describe them as enemies of God, and as having turned their backs on the God of goodness. They become alarmed, not having before conceived that they could have been so wicked. I have seen upwards of fifty, at one time, sobbing and crying and imploring mercy, who, poor, weak mortals, until this foolishness of being at enmity with God was preached to them, had no conception of their dreadful enormities and danger. By exciting the feelings with falsehood, this process is called conversion and the work of the Holy Ghost. At the same time that the most virtuous females are denounced as deserving damnation for their wickedness, and told that, without repentance, their future state will be wretched to all eternity, should one word derogatory to the character of these females, thus represented by the priests, be spoken by any body else, an action for slander would be instituted.
But as long as people will give up their reason, and be hoodwinked with the nonsense that God is angry, and that they are every moment in danger of falling into hell, so long will the Christian priesthood riot in profusion and plenty, by dealing out damnation to those whose only crime is enmity against God. So completely hoodwinked is man, that he attends weekly, and pays well into the bargain, to hear the priest deal out endless damnation to nine-tenths of the human race; and it is ten chances to one that he also is included among the subjects of the Devil! Should an Orthodox preacher, for a few Sundays, preach on moral subjects, and consider that morality was the one thing needful in the Christian Church, the congregation would complain that their souls required more substantial nourishment. The preacher must return to the old mode of teaching, and again shake them over the lake of fire! And hence it follows, that, as the people, are not satisfied without having the wrath of God the constant theme, the preacher gives it as they wish to have it. An angry God; a cunning, crafty and tempting Devil; and the enmity of man’s wicked heart: this is the set of tools by which the Christian teacher carries on his theological trade. The discordancy of religious opinions, and all of them taken from the doctrines as taught by Jesus and the apostles, each preacher referring to the favorite passages which support his views, is and will be, a never-ending theme of disputation; and at some future period, may renew the practice of burning each other alive for God’s glory.
Nothing but the spread of Infidelity can completely stop this dreadful evil. We have only to suppose, that, at some future time, the savages who have been what is called converted by preachers of opposite sects, such as the Calvinist and the Universalist, or the Trinitarians and Unitarians, should, by some cause not now foreseen, be left by the missionaries to support the Christian church; then the savage converts of different sects would be very likely to fall on each other, and the fires of Smithfield, which Infidelity, the companion of humanity, has extinguished, may again blaze on the Islands of the Pacific Ocean. This is a very probable case; for, in the present day, the same Bible is the text book of all denominations, and all of them would persecute if they had but the power. Christianity is now what it ever has been, and what it ever will be, a persecuting religion; and, although the fires of martyrdom cease to torment the human race, the embers are still emitting smoke, and may again be rekindled. Nothing short of unbelief in all divine revelation, openly and fearlessly avowed, can guarantee the human family against a renewal of the religious butchery of past ages.
[CHAPTER V.]
TAKING the Orthodox views of Christianity, there are four personages connected with divine revelation, and each has a different department to act out. The first three are the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Leaving, for the present, the first three, our attention will, in this chapter, be directed to the fourth and last, namely, the Devil. And so much consequence do Christian sects attach to the existence of the Devil, that, to deny it, or even to doubt it, would be enough to separate a member from the church. Religious people must have a Devil; for, as the Devil, by his incessant cunning and temptation, is the indirect author of men’s sins, so, on the other hand, the Saviour stands ready to ransom the guilty. It then follows, that the sinner, after all, stands on pretty good ground; for, if the Devil tempts him to commit one-half of his crimes, and the Saviour pardons the other half, man is not in much danger of being condemned.