To a far greater extent this advance, this individual independence, is seen in the religious world. The religion of our day—that is to say, the creeds—at the time they were made, were in perfect harmony with the knowledge, or rather with the ignorance, of man in all other departments of human inquiry. All orthodox creeds agreed with the sciences of their day—with the astronomy and geology and biology and political conceptions of the Middle Ages. These creeds were declared to be the absolute and eternal truth. They could not be changed without abandoning the claim that made them authority. The priests, through a kind of unconscious self-defence, clung to every word. They denied the truth of all discovery. They measured every assertion in every other department by their creeds. At last the facts against them became so numerous—their congregations became so intelligent—that it was necessary to give new meanings to the old words. The cruel was softened—the absurd was partially explained, and they kept these old words, although the original meanings had fallen out. They became empty purses, but they retained them still.
Slowly but surely came the time when this course could not longer be pursued. The words must be thrown away—the creeds must be changed—they were no longer believed—only occasionally were they preached. The ministers became a little ashamed—they began to apologize. Apology is the prelude to retreat.
Of all the creeds, the Presbyterian, the old Congregational, were the most explicit, and for that reason the most absurd. When these creeds were written, those who wrote them had perfect confidence in their truth. They did not shrink because of their cruelty. They cared nothing for what others called absurdity. They failed not to declare what they believed to be "the whole counsel of God."
At that time, cruel punishments were inflicted by all governments. People were torn asunder, mutilated, burned. Every atrocity was perpetrated in the name of justice, and the limit of pain was the limit of endurance. These people imagined that God would do as they would do. If they had had it in their power to keep the victim alive for years in the flames, they would most cheerfully have supplied the fagots. They believed that God could keep the victim alive forever, and that therefore his punishment would be eternal. As man becomes civilized he becomes merciful, and the time came when civilized Presbyterians and Congregationalists read their own creeds with horror.
I am not saying that the Presbyterian creed is any worse than the Catholic. It is only a little more specific. Neither am I saying that it is more horrible than the Episcopal. It is not. All orthodox creeds are alike infamous. All of them have good things, and all of them have bad things. You will find in every creed the blossom of mercy and the oak of justice, but under the one and around the other are coiled the serpents of infinite cruelty.
The time came when orthodox Christians began dimly to perceive that God ought at least to be as good as they were. They felt that they were incapable of inflicting eternal pain, and they began to doubt the propriety of saying that God would do that which a civilized Christian would be incapable of.
We have improved in all directions for the same reasons. We have better laws now because we have a better sense of justice. We are believing more and more in the government of the people. Consequently we are believing more and more in the education of the people, and from that naturally results greater individuality and a greater desire to hear the honest opinions of all.
The moment the expression of opinion is allowed in any department, progress begins. We are using our knowledge in every direction. The tendency is to test all opinions by the facts we know. All claims are put in the crucible of investigation—the object being to separate the true from the false. He who objects to having his opinions thus tested is regarded as a bigot.
If the professors of all the sciences had claimed that the knowledge they had was given by inspiration—that it was absolutely true, and that there was no necessity of examining further, not only, but that it was a kind of blasphemy to doubt—all the sciences would have remained as stationary as religion has. Just to the extent that the Bible was appealed to in matters of science, science was retarded; and just to the extent that science has been appealed to in matters of religion, religion has advanced—so that now the object of intelligent religionists is to adopt a creed that will bear the test and criticism of science.
Another thing may be alluded to in this connection. All the countries of the world are now, and have been for years, open to us. The ideas of other people—their theories, their religions—are now known; and we have ascertained that the religions of all people have exactly the same foundation as our own—that they all arose in the same way, were substantiated in the same way, were maintained by the same means, having precisely the same objects in view.