Many of the most spiritually gifted Christians do not believe in these things any longer. The Saints, then, were mistaken. They were mistaken about these spiritual matters in which they are alleged to have been specially gifted.
We do not believe in sorcerers, in witches, in miracle-working relics, in devils, and eternal fire and brimstone. Why? Because science has killed those errors. What is science? It is reason applied to knowledge. The faculty of reason, then, has excelled this boasted faculty of spiritual discernment in its own religious sphere.
It would be easy to multiply examples.
Jeremy Taylor was one of the most brilliant and spiritual of our divines. But his spiritual perception, as evidenced in his works, was fearfully at fault. He believed in hell-fire, and in hell-fire for all outside the pale of the Christian Church. And he was afraid of God, and afraid of death.
Archdeacon Wilson denies to us this faculty of spiritual perception. Very well. But I have enough mental acuteness to see that the religion of Jeremy Taylor was cowardly, and gloomy, and untrue.
Luther and Wesley were spiritual geniuses. They both believed in witchcraft. Luther believed in burning heretics. Wesley said if we gave up belief in witchcraft we must give up belief in the Bible.
Luther and Wesley were mistaken: their spiritual discernment had led them wrong. Their superstition and cruelty were condemned by humanity and common sense.
To me it appears that these men of "spiritual discernment" are really men of abnormally credulous and emotional natures: men too weak to face the facts.
We cannot allow the Christians to hold this position unchallenged. I regard the religious plane as a lower one than our own. I think the Christian idea of God is even now, after two thousand years of evolution, a very mean and weak one.
I cannot love nor revere a "Heavenly Father" whose children have to pray to Him for what they need, or for pardon for their sins. My children do not need to pray to me for food or forgiveness; and I am a mere earthly father. Yet Christ, who came direct from God—who was God—to teach all men God's will, directed us to pray to God for our daily bread, for forgiveness of our trespasses against Him, and that He would not lead us into temptation! Imagine a father leading his children into temptation!