Dr. Farrar, like other Protestants, talks about the right of private judgment. But this is only fine and futile verbiage, unless he admits the sinlessness of intellectual error. If judgment depends on the will, it is through the will amenable to motives; consequently, the way to pro-mote correct opinions is to promise rewards and threaten punishments. But if judgment does not depend on the will; if it is necessarily determined by the laws of reason and evidence; then it is an absurdity to bribe and intimidate. Now there is no third alternative. One of these two theories must be right, and the other must be wrong. Dr. Farrar is logically bound to take his choice. If he believes that judgment depends on the will, he has no right to denounce persecution. If he believes that judgment does not depend on the will, he has no right to censure the most absolute freethought.
There are but two camps—the camp of Faith and the camp of Reason. Dr. Farrar belongs to the former. But he does not find his position comfortable. He casts a longing eye on the other camp. He wants to be in both. He therefore tries to form an alliance between them, if not to amalgamate them under one banner.
Reason, said Bishop Butler, is the only faculty wherewith we can judge of anything, even of revelation itself. Dr. Farrar quotes this statement with approval. He quotes similar sentences from other Protestant writers. Then he turns upon the Roman Church for keeping the Bible out of the hands of the people, and denounces it for this with ultra-Protestant vigor. He imagines that this is a vindication of Protestantism, at any rate relatively, as a champion of reason in opposition to blind faith and absolute authority. But private judgment and free judgment are not identical. When the Protestant puts an open Bible into your hands, and tells you to read it and judge of it for yourself, he is acting like a Freethinker; but when he proceeds to say that if you do not find it to be a divine book, and believe all its teaching about God, and Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost, and heaven and hell, you will infallibly be damned, he is acting like a Papist. His right of private judgment, at the finish, always means the right to differ from him on trivial points, and the duty of agreeing with him on every point which he chooses to regard as essential. If this is denied by Dr. Farrar, let him honestly answer this question—Is a Freethinker who has examined the Bible, and rejected it as a divine revelation, liable to any sort of penalty for his disbelief? The answer to this question will decide whether Dr. Farrar is really maintaining the rights of reason, or is merely maintaining the Protestant theory of faith against that of the Catholics, and standing up for the authority of the Book instead of the authority of the Church.
Meanwhile we venture to suggest that the Bible texts referred to by Dr. Farrar, as requiring us to exercise the right of private judgment, are very little to the point. "The spirit of man is the candle of the Lord" is a pretty text, but it does not seem to have much bearing on the issue. "Try the spirits" is all right in its way; but what if you find that all the spirits are illusions? "Prove all things" is good, but it must be taken with the context. Jesus indeed is reported to have said, "Why even of yourselves judge ye not what is right?" But he is also reported to have said, "He that believeth and is baptised shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned."
By a judicious selection of texts you can prove anything from the Bible, and disprove anything—as Catholics have often reminded Protestants. To pick out passages that to some extent are favorable to a certain view, and to ignore much stronger passages that are clearly opposed to it, may be an exercise of private judgment, and may satisfy the conscience of neo-Protestants of the school of Dr. Farrar; but it invites a contemptuous smile from Freethinkers who believe that Reason ought not to suffer such a prostitution.
We have to point out, finally, that Protestantism, with its open Bible, has everywhere maintained laws against blasphemy and heresy. The laws against heresy have fallen into desuetude in England, but while they lasted they were simply ferocious. We heard the late Lord Coleridge say from his seat in the Court of Queen's Bench, as Lord Chief Justice, that the Protestant laws against Roman Catholics, particularly in Ireland, where they were executed with remorseless ferocity, are without a parallel in the history of the world. Catholicism, however, is no longer under a ban. Even the Jews have been admitted to equal rights with their fellow citizens. But laws still remain in existence, and are occasionally put into operation, against "blasphemers." According to the language of common law indictments, it is a crime to bring the Holy Scripture or the Christian Religion into disbelief and contempt. It is true that many Christians are ready to profess a certain aversion to such laws, but they make no effort to repeal them. Many others contend that "blasphemy" is a question of manner, that the feelings of Christians should be protected, and that while men should not be punished for being Freethinkers, they should be punished for wounding orthodox susceptibilities. It is not proposed, however, that any limitations of taste or temper should be imposed upon Christian controversialists; and this contention may therefore be regarded as a subterfuge of bigotry. On the whole, it may be said that Catholics without the Bible, and Protestants with the Bible, persecute unbelief to the full extent of their opportunities; and it is only as toleration grows from other roots, and is nourished by other causes, that the Bibliolaters find out subtle interpretations of simple texts in favor of the prevailing tendency.
VI. MORALS AND MANNERS
Dr. Farrar takes the position that "the Bible is not homogeneous in its morality." There is a higher and a lower; and, to adopt the fine but paradoxical metaphor of Milton, within the lowest deep a lower deep still opens its dreadful abyss of crime and brutality. The same admission is made by Professor Bruce,* of the Free Church of Scotland; but this gentleman is more subtle than Dr. Farrar, and tries to save the reputation of the Bible by a notable piece of cauistical special-pleading. He does not allow, though he does not expressly deny, that the Bible contains any immorality. What he does is to draw a distinction between high morality and low morality. Immorality is sinning against your conscience. High morality is acting right up to its noblest dictates. Low morality is conduct in honest conformity to the low standard of a conscience but half-enlightened. When the prophetess Deborah sings triumphantly over the infamous exploit of Jael, who invited the fugitive Sisera into her tent, and assassinated him while he slept in the confidence of her hospitality, we must not say that either of these precious females was guilty of immorality. They were simply carrying out a low morality. And the same applies to Deborah's exclamation: "To every man a damsel or two"—meaning that the Jewish soldiers slew their male enemies and dragged home a brace of maidens each for themselves. Such conduct would be highly improper now, but it was all right then; at least it was as right as they knew; and we must not judge the actors by later ethical standards. So says Professor Bruce, and it would be true enough if the Bible were not put forward as a divine book, or if it ever reprehended the infamies of God's chosen people. But it does nothing of the kind; it mentions Jael and Deborah in terms of absolute approval.