And the voice of God, or nature, calls to every rational being in language which, but for false religion, all would understand. Mortals! attend to what is done for your permanent happiness. Ignorance and neglect are the causes of most of the evils which, torment you. You are made to love happiness; you are also made to shrink from and hate pain. Every human being is subject to the same laws; only attend to the moral this contains. You have no excuse for inflicting pain on any living creature, because you know that every being possessing life is governed by the same feelings as yourself. God, or nature, has so arranged things as to induce mortals to practise virtue, and to be kind to every thing that possesses life and feeling; because, by acting agreeably to the laws of your own organization, you become happy in yourself, and have the additional pleasure of making others happy also. What excuse, then, can men have for neglecting the duties they owe to every thing that has life and feeling? Do they need a revelation to inform them that they ought to be just and humane? Do they require information from heaven to inform them that cruelty to man or animals is wicked? Let them but consult their own feelings; full information is at hand calling on them to practise kindness and compassion.
Do men and women need the Bible to learn the duty incumbent on them toward their offspring? Must we read the pretended word of God in order to discover that the husband ought to be kind and in every way faithful to his wife, (making allowance for her weakness, either of body or mind,) and perform every duty connected with her permanent happiness? Man requires no Divine aid, beyond the exercise of his reason, to inform him that, in order to be happy in this life, he must be just, peaceable, sober, and temperate in all things; chaste, a lover of truth, kind, and humane to all beings who possess life. Let every human being, then, turn to the laws of his own organization, namely, to his love of happiness, and aversion to pain. These laws will give him unerring instruction as to the duties which he has to perform, and also as to what evils he is to avoid.
This is indeed a Divine revelation, which will never deceive or lead astray. Man carries it within himself. It differs from all pretended Divine revelation. It is suitable at all times, and in all places. It requires no priest to explain it. It changes not with times and circumstances. These laws of our nature (the love of happiness and aversion to pain) are a never-failing revelation, to which we can always refer with entire confidence, as a true revelation of God or nature. Away, then, with the childish question, “If you take away the Bible, what will you give us in its stead”? The short and final answer to which is, study the laws of your organization, and direct your reason to their interpretation, and let the priest read his Bible, and exclaim against unbelief. The reader will now understand the views the Infidels have of moral rectitude; and if the principles are faithfully carried out in our journey through life, the end of all will be peace. These moral principles were enforced (for upwards of eight years) in Tammany Hall. They are now spreading far and wide, and instead of producing evil in society, they are calculated to ensure “peace on earth and good-will towards men.”
It is because the Christian world have been taught to depend on a Saviour for the pardon of the worst of crimes, believing that the price was paid by Christ as a ransom from the captivity of the Devil, that it is destructive of pure morality. The apostles maintained this doctrine; and from them, till now, the true and Orthodox faith is, that moral rectitude has nothing to do, abstractly considered, with the salvation of the soul, but faith in what Christ has done and suffered. This doctrine is not only unfavorable to virtue, but it places the basest of mankind in a superior point of view to those whose whole lives have been distinguished by the practice of correct moral actions. That divines view and act on the vicarious sacrifice of Christ as being alone sufficient in the last hour to save sinners, we need but to refer to the attention paid by them to criminals up to the last moments of their lives. It is faith in the Redeemer, which gives a passport to glory to a wretch, who but a few days before had murdered perhaps a good father and mother. No matter what his crimes, or how large the number, only let him believe in the Saviour, and, although the guilty criminal is considered unworthy to live one hour longer on earth, yet according to the Gospel plan of salvation, he is promised, and induced to believe that he will in the evening of the same day join in the song of angels and chant the praises of the Great Eternal.
If the doctrine of saving faith be true, the thief or murderer, if the law lays hold of him, and the fear of the gallows induces him to rely on Jesus, goes directly to heaven; whereas, if he had been honest and virtuous, but had not faith in Christ, he might have died in his sins and gone to hell! Oh! how consistent is Orthodox salvation with justice and truth! In one case, the Orthodox Christian is in truth consistent. It is this: that in this life, even in New York, a man will not be admitted as a church member, however virtuous. He must be a sinner, or he cannot be admitted. So, also, in heaven, a good man must not enter. It would be no injustice to say that every religious society should have it written in large capitals over the door-way of its building—“No honest men admitted as members here—sinners are always welcome.” The same should be posted at the gate of heaven. Although this statement may to some appear wicked and untrue, it is correct in the Christian spirit, and also true to the letter. Honest men have no business in Christian churches, as they will also be rejected in heaven. The worst of characters make the best Christians, if they can bring one grain of mustard-seed faith to the altar of Jehovah.
The Christian who depends for salvation and acceptance, in a future life, is never at rest in this. He has no correct standard whereby to judge whether he has saving faith. His hopes and his fears are regulated by his feelings, not by his conduct. If, for instance, his animal spirits are depressed, he desponds, and considers that the Lord has withdrawn from him the light of his countenance. He trembles, and in the agony of his mind, cries out, “I believe, O Lord, help thou mine unbelief.” Let him become cheerful, and his mind become buoyant, he then considers himself sure that he has, what is called, an interest in Christ.
Moral rectitude is out of the question. All the moral virtues combined, and brought into action, are as nothing, in the sight of the Christian’s God. The sinner’s debt is paid, by the sufferings of Jesus on the cross. So that, according to the plan of human redemption, if Jesus had been acquitted on his trial, the whole human race would die (as the Scripture phrase is) in their sins. It then follows, that, as man’s acceptance with God, and the salvation of his soul, is in consequence of the sacrifice made by Christ on the cross, his moral rectitude is of little consequence. The all-important state of the believer is, not the soundness of his morals, but the relying by faith on Jesus for what he has done by his suffering on the “accursed tree.” This doctrine is the consolation of the murderer at the gallows; and the same reliance on what Jesus has suffered for the human race, was what consoled and supported Andrew Jackson in his last moments, as reported by the newspapers.
The Christian religion, by teaching believers to trust in a Saviour for the pardon of crimes of the worst description, has been an obstacle in the way of attaining to that moral excellence which is calculated to dignify human nature.. Faith, the “pearl of great price,” has, ever since the introduction of Christian theology, obscured the path of virtue, and invested its haughty possessor with an intolerant disposition, accountable only to the tribunal of faith; and, having broken loose from the restraints of moral obligation, has, as it were, laughed to scorn the principles of justice, of chastity and humanity. And yet, one and all, who profess Christianity, charge those who consider moral worth superior to faith, with demoralizing youth, and corrupting the manners of the age in which they live.
Before concluding this chapter, it will be useful to inquire, in what way the world has been benefitted by propagating the heaven-born doctrine of faith in the Redeemer’s kingdom? The page of history bears witness, that, for eighteen hundred years, with but short intervals of rest, a large portion of the earth has been the theatre of crime and war, cruelty and murder; and this state of things has been brought about by the uncertainty of what Christianity is. When the reputed Founder of the Christian faith was about to leave this world, to sit at the right hand of his Father, he told them that his absence would be to his followers a real blessing; for it is recorded, that he said to them that “the Comforter” would abundantly supply his place—that is, or was to be, the Holy Ghost, who would “lead them into alt truth, and bring to their remembrance all things which he had told them.” But this promise, if ever made, proved a total failure; for soon after Christ, their Divine Master, left this earth, upwards of forty different sects arose, and began to dispute and quarrel about what Jesus, while on earth, taught, concerning the kingdom of heaven. Sect opposed sect, party opposed party, and Christianity became involved in mystery. Conventions were formed, and the worst passions soon gave proof that the multitude of angels, who, at the birth of Christ proclaimed, that “peace on earth, and good-will towards men” would be realized, were sadly mistaken. Nothing but one continual scene of war, destruction, and slaughter, between Christian nations, and in society, and and even in families, ensued; peace and harmony were unknown. The Holy Ghost, that was to be the comforter, soon made them any thing but comfortable!
This good news, or Gospel, proved to be most unfortunate news to the inhabitants of this world. Thousands and tens of thousands of human beings came to a premature or violent death by rack and torture; the fires of martyrdom were lighted up, and millions of madmen gave glory to God. This is but a mere outline of the horrors arising from faith in the glorious plan of human redemption; and thus mortals when they became believers in the Redeemer’s kingdom, ceased to act as men, and became downright devils. If, instead of teaching him the doctrines of the Christian religion, the laws which God or nature had stamped on every human being (which are always present, and which, at every moment of his existence, call on him to attend to the lessons which they teach) had been pointed out to him, man would have learned how to live in peace and happiness, in a society of beings organized like himself, and governed by the same laws, always loving happiness and dreading pain.