That is true. The Bible says of God—"My anger burns to the lowest hell." And that is all that the defendant says. Every word of it is in the Bible. He simply does not believe it—and for that reason is a "blasphemer."
I say to you now, gentlemen,—and I shall argue to the Court,—that there is not in what I have read a solitary blasphemous word—not a word that has not been said in hundreds of pulpits in the Christian world. Theodore Parker, a Unitarian, speaking of this Bible-God said: "Vishnu with a necklace of skulls, Vishnu with bracelets of living, hissing serpents, is a figure of Love and Mercy compared to the God of the Old Testament." That, we might call "blasphemy," but not what I have read.
Let us read on:—
"He would destroy them all were it not that he feared the wrath of the enemy."
That is in the Bible—word for word. Then the defendant in astonishment says:
"The Almighty God afraid of his enemies!"
That is what the Bible says. What does it mean? If the Bible is true, God was afraid.
"Can the mind conceive of more horrid blasphemy?"
Is not that true? If God be infinitely good and wise and powerful, is it possible he is afraid of anything? If the defendant had said that God was afraid of his enemies, that might have been blasphemy—but this man says the Bible says that, and you are asked to say that it is blasphemy. Now, up to this point there is no blasphemy, even if you were to enforce this infamous statute—this savage law.
"The Old Testament records for our instruction in morals, the most foul and bestial instances of fornication, incest, and polygamy, perpetrated by God's own saints, and the New Testament indorses these lecherous wretches as examples for all good Christians to follow.".