The Reformation.
It is a common belief in Protestant countries that Protestantism has been the cause of all modern enlightenment, “overlooking,” says Mr. Buckle, “the important fact that until enlightenment had begun, there was no Protestantism required. Enlightenment was the cause of Protestantism. Many causes had been at work to bring up the public mind to a higher intelligence and a braver love of independence.”
The reformation broke out at least twenty times before Luther, and was put down. Arnold, of Brescia was put down; Fra Dolcino was put down; the Albigenses were put down; the Vaudois were put down; the Lollards were put down; the Hussites were put down.—Mill, on Liberty.
The reformation was therefore the result of previous enlightenment, a demand for larger liberty. It was the protest of reason against authority. Liberalism is the full protest against all forms of superstition and despotism. We have greatly over-estimated the work of the reformation. It did not greatly change the humanities of society, as the Protestants so fondly imagine. Protestants were found to be the persecutors when they had the power, just as the Romanists had been; circumstances, however, modified and restrained them from such atrocities as the latter had perpetrated.
Persecution for religious heterodoxy, in all its degrees, was in the sixteenth century, the principle as well as the practice of every church. (Hallam, “Middle Ages,” vol. 2, p. 48.)
Christianity Teaches Immorality.
The doctrine of the atonement has been the dry rot in our civilization. It has led millions to believe that they could escape the consequences of violated laws of nature. Millions of people believe to-day that they can go through life in utter disregard of all that is right and good, and at the last moment when they come to shuffle off this mortal coil, all they will then need to do will be simply to call upon Jesus and receive his approbation and permission to enter the shining courts above. “Jesus died and paid it all,” relieves the votary from the demands of morality, and, “the Devil tempted me and I sinned,” exonerates him from all guilt. This sort of teaching has filled our prisons with those who fully believe it—and they are behind the bars because they have lived according to their belief. The malignant and mendacious cry that Freethought leads the truthseeker always downward to a bad life is refuted by the fact that those who fill the prisons of our country are not Infidels, but believers in the divine revelation who have lived up to the advantages offered by the “gathering them in” doctrine of atonement.
The murderers who are hanged on Friday in the different states almost every week, nearly all Christians, are prepared to go to heaven and there join in the company and songs of innocent children and pure maids and matrons who, by their presence, make heaven worthy the name; but these fiends, if they should happen to be pardoned by the governor, there could not be found a reputable Christian who would want to take one of them home to live in his family of noble wife and lovely children, for a single day. And yet he is fit for heaven, fit for the company of angels and the purified of earth. The dying words of a good religious man were, “I am no Infidel,” and that man’s name is John D. Lee, of Utah, who, in cold blood, murdered innocent men, women, and children, and after eluding justice for twenty years or more was arrested, tried, found guilty and shot to death, with the words on his lips, “I am no Infidel.” But his confession was unnecessary, as Freethinkers do not die that way, and the reason they do not die in that manner is because they do not believe in the great bankrupt act—the atonement. They have no savior, and hence have to save themselves. They have no titles to mansions in the skies but have some claims on earth which they prefer to stay with as long as they can.