If however this first step was right, was a second step wrong? When I further discerned that the two genealogies in Matthew and Luke were at variance, utterly irreconcilable,—and both moreover nugatory, because they are genealogies of Joseph, who is denied to be the father of Jesus,—on what ground of righteousness, which I could approve to God and my conscience, could I shut my eyes to this second fact?
When forced, against all my prepossessions, to admit that the two first chapters of Matthew and the two first chapters of Luke are mutually destructive,[1] would it have been faithfulness to the God of Truth, or a self-willed love of my own prejudices, if I had said, "I will not inquire further, for fear it should unsettle my faith?" The reader's conscience will witness to me, that, on the contrary, I was bound to say, what I did say: "I must inquire further in order that I may plant the foundations of my faith more deeply on the rock of Truth."'
Having discovered, that not all that is within the canon of the Scripture is infallibly correct, and that the human understanding is competent to arraign and convict at least some kinds of error therein contained;—where was I to stop? and if I am guilty, where did my guilt begin? The further I inquired, the more errors crowded upon me, in History, in Chronology, in Geography, in Physiology, in Geology.[2] Did it then at last become a duty to close my eyes to the painful light? and if I had done so, ought I to have flattered myself that I was one of those, who being of the truth, come to the lights that their deeds may be reproved?
Moreover, when I had clearly perceived, that since all evidence for Christianity must involve moral considerations, to undervalue the moral faculties of mankind is to make Christian evidence an impossibility and to propagate universal scepticism;—was I then so to distrust the common conscience, as to believe that the Spirit of God pronounced Jael blessed, for perfidiously murdering her husband's trusting friend? Does any Protestant reader feel disgust and horror, at the sophistical defences set up for the massacre of St. Bartholomew and other atrocities of the wicked Church of Rome? Let him stop his mouth, and hide his face, if he dares to justify the foul crime of Jael.
Or when I was thus forced to admit, that the Old Testament praised immorality, as well as enunciated error; and found nevertheless in the writers of the New Testament no indication that they were aware of either; but that, on the contrary, "the Scripture" (as the book was vaguely called) is habitually identified with the infallible "word of God;"—was it wrong in me to suspect that the writers of the New Testament were themselves open to mistake?
When I farther found, that Luke not only claims no infallibility and no inspiration, but distinctly assigns human sources as his means of knowledge;—when the same Luke had already been discovered to be in irreconcilable variance with Matthew concerning the infancy of Jesus;—was I sinful in feeling that I had no longer any guarantee against other possible error in these writers? or ought I to have persisted in obtruding on the two evangelists on infallibility of which Luke shows himself unconscious, which Matthew nowhere claims, and which I had demonstrative proof that they did not both possess? A thorough-going Bibliolater will have to impeach me as a sinner on this count.
After Luke and Matthew stood before me as human writers, liable to and convicted of human error, was there any reason why I should look on Mark as more sacred? And having perceived all three to participate in the common superstition, derived from Babylon and the East, traceable in history to its human source, existing still in Turkey and Abyssinia,—the superstition which mistakes mania, epilepsy, and other forms of disease, for possession by devils;—should I have shown love of truth, or obstinacy in error, had I refused to judge freely of these three writers, as of any others who tell similar marvels? or was it my duty to resolve, at any rate and against evidence, to acquit them of the charge of superstition and misrepresentation?
I will not trouble the reader with any further queries. If he has justified me in his conscience thus far, he will justify my proceeding to abandon myself to the results of inquiry. He will feel, that the Will cannot, may not, dare not dictate, whereto the inquiries of the Understanding shall lead; and that to allege that it ought, is to plant the root of Insincerity, Falsehood, Bigotry, Cruelty, and universal Rottenness of Soul.
The vice of Bigotry has been so indiscriminately imputed to the religious, that they seem apt to forget that it is a real sin;—a sin which in Christendom has been and is of all sins most fruitful, most poisonous: nay, grief of griefs! it infects many of the purest and most lovely hearts, which want strength of understanding, or are entangled by a sham theology, with its false facts and fraudulent canons. But upon all who mourn for the miseries which Bigotry has perpetrated from the day when Christians first learned to curse; upon all who groan over the persecutions and wars stirred up by Romanism; upon all who blush at the overbearing conduct of Protestants in their successive moments of brief authority,—a sacred duty rests in this nineteenth century of protesting against Bigotry, not from a love of ease, but from a spirit of earnest justice.
Like the first Christians, they must become confessors of the Truth; not obtrusively, boastfully, dogmatically, or harshly; but, "speaking the truth in love," not be ashamed to avow, if they do not believe all that others profess, and that they abhor the unrighteous principle of judging men by an authoritative creed. The evil of Bigotry which has been most observed, is its untameable injustice, which converted the law of love into licensed murder or gratuitous hatred. But I believe a worse evil still has been, the intense reaction of the human mind against Religion for Bigotry's sake. To the millions of Europe, bigotry has been a confutation of all pious feeling. So unlovely has religion been made by it,