There are two extremes, however, which we must carefully avoid: First, that it is a matter of total indifference what religious principles a man adopts and what form of worship he prefers. The Bible contains essential principles—principles which constitute the essence of the gospel of Christ which must be received, loved and obeyed, in order to the enjoyment of the promises of salvation. The sentiment that it matters [pg 048] not what a man believes, is no part of the religious liberty which the Bible inculcates. Such a sentiment is everywhere discouraged and denounced. A forcible writer said: Keep clear of uncommon pretensions to charity. Believe the love of God, and be satisfied with his charity, and never dream of making an improvement upon his character.
The other extreme is to have no charity at all. There are many things about which men may safely differ, but they are neither precepts to be obeyed, nor facts to be believed. Differences may exist in opinions, but not in facts to be believed, nor in commands to be obeyed. Christians are such in virtue of faith in Christ and obedience to his commandments. Wherever the minds of men have been brought under the power of the Christian religion, there they have been the devoted friends of such liberty. Such were the adherents of Luther in Germany, the Lollards in England, and the adherents of Knox in Scotland. Such was the case with Holland when her republican virtues, learning and piety, moral and literary institutions made her famous throughout the earth. “Where the spirit of the Lord is there is liberty.” One of the most erroneous objections to Christianity is that it is calculated to subject the many to the few, but its spirit and tendency is to bring all, both the rich and poor, on one common level. It pronounces temporal circumstances matters of no consequence, all men creatures of God, made of one blood, having a common nature, subject to common sufferings, common dependence and responsibilities. It teaches us to “defraud no man,” to “corrupt no man,” to “love our enemies,” to “pray for those who despitefully use us,” to “disregard external distinctions.” In Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, bond nor free, male nor female, but all are one. The poor are exalted and the rich are humbled. Tholuck says: “The cultivated heathen were offended at Christianity because the higher classes could no longer have precedence of the common people.” A religion which teaches that all are upon one grand level under its influences will certainly teach us that all are equal in the presence of the law. Christianity is not only a stranger to despotism, [pg 049] but denounces it in the plainest terms. Its great founder said: “Whosoever will be great among you let him be your servant, and whosoever will be chief let him be your minister.” What greater calamity could we experience than the loss of the last copy of the New Testament? Who would bring over the world once more the darkness of Paganism? Who would have our Government put on Roman character? Who would have us foster the basest passions of men? Who would throw the human intellect back into a state of uncertainty respecting a future existence and the manner of securing its blessedness? Who would dry up the living fountains of joy which have been opened to us in the gospel? Who would destroy the motive power of our religion and wither its fruits of righteousness? Who would rob the bereaved heart of its consolations and provoke anew the tears of the mourner which have been wiped away? Who would go to the widow and say: Go and visit the grave of your loved one and weep without hope! Yes, weep with the terrible thought that this parting is to last forever! Weep with trembling, and at last step into the grave with awful uncertainty, to learn all there, and never bring back the secret. Who are they who would restore to death its sting and to the grave its victory? What victories have they ever achieved for our humanity? No calculations could measure the sacrifice it would cost to part with the Bible forever. Wicked men would toll its funeral, while the innocent ones of earth would bathe in tears and turn away in sorrow. Let us never persecute those unfortunate men who are opposing the truth of our religion on account of the errors of the creeds of our fathers. Let us always avoid a spirit of despotism and persecution, because it is dishonorable. If there must be persecution, let truth be the victim. Error is not worthy of the honor that martyrs bear.
It is better that we “suffer for well-doing than for ill-doing,” therefore let us criticise ourselves severely, but deal with others in love. The Bible is our authority in religion, and the civil arm is our protection in the state. Religious freedom is ours—may it long remain the glory of our country. In [pg 050] comparison with this freedom all else is mere illusion. You may enjoy all the freedom that this world can give, and if you are slaves to sin you are miserable slaves to a cruel master. The intellectual and moral condition of the soul, constituting its highest glory, is a liberty worthy of the name. Such an one, in a very important sense, is free indeed, free in solitude, free in poverty, free in abundance, free in life, free in death, free everywhere, and forever free.
The Orthodoxy Of Atheism And Ingersolism, By Rev. S. L. Tyrrell.
“Hail human liberty; there is no God!” Such is the exulting song of many a human heart when bewildering metaphysics or superficial science has crowded from its convictions faith in the Deity and his moral government. Few men have reached the pure, unclouded heights of religion and morality, where the unselfish love of the holy and the right, for their own inherent excellence, forms the controlling motive of their conduct, regardless of penalty or reward. Humanity is yet on the low moral plane, where penal laws, human or divine, are the most potent forces in regulating human life. Hence the sad fact appears that when theism seems most successfully assailed we hear from many quarters ill-concealed rustlings of exultation at the welcome loosening of the bonds of morality and religion. It seems to be overlooked that a very stern theological system may be quite rationally evolved from atheistic premises; and there is now a new and very tempting field inviting some bold Calvin or Luther in the ranks of positivism to write an immortal book, with the original and attractive title, Ethics of Atheism. The great offense of the scientific (sciolistic) atheist is his lofty arrogance. He complacently assumes the name of Infallible Wisdom. He “understands all mysteries;” his mental telescope sweeps eternity “from everlasting [pg 051] to everlasting;” his microscopic vision pierces the secrets of creation,—sees the beauty and order of all celestial worlds emerge from fiery chaotic dust,—by the fortunate contact of cooling cinders of the right chemical properties and temperature, he secretes and hatches into life an egg, or cell of throbbing protoplasm; to this pulsating mass of jelly there comes from the unconscious abyss at length a vague instinct, a drowsy awakening of desire; next a feeble gleam of definite thought; reason then faintly dawns, and lo! at last this fair universe burst into glorious light, clothed in surpassing loveliness, throbbing with love, tender sympathy and sublime aspiration, and all through the magic potency of blind matter and unconscious force, without an architect or guide. O, wondrous matter, could a God do more?
O, divine science (sciolist), we bless thy name; thou hast delivered us from the terrors of dogmatic fear! Man is but dust, and unto dust shall he return; “let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.” But ere we run riot in the intoxication of our new-born freedom from divine law, does not the skeptical, cautious, scientific spirit admonish us to pause a moment and look logically at another class of possible achievements of this wonder-working, material power. In philosophical researches, analogy is a recognized and legitimate guide to truth. Admitting, then, that pure matter has done all that materialism claims it has done in the past, let us look by the light of analogy at other and graver possibilities it may have wrought in its reckless, unrestrained creations. Time is a mighty attribute of evolutionary divinities; its power seems next to infinite. In a few millions of years Alexanders, Bonapartes, Bismarks, Miltons, Edisons and Ingersols have been evolved from thoughtless chaos; now, if in limited time (for what are millions of years to eternity) such majestic mental forces have been developed from the inexhaustible store-house of intellectual nothingness, why should bold mathematical science deem it a “thing incredible” that in an eternity of time, with an unlimited amount of matter for capital and infinite space for a theater of action, this mind-evolving force may not have generated [pg 052] beings of almost infinite capacities—even a monarch who sways a scepter over more worlds than one—even a God. Why should material philosophy cavil at the creeds which teach a righteous judgment to come? Have not the judicial elements of oxygen, carbon and hydrogen combined to organize on one planet at least courts of equity and judgment seats, and crystalized into prison walls and hand-cuffs the gallows and the hangman? Upon the established scientific principle that nature's laws are uniform, undeviating and universal in their action, does not the analogy of earthly tribunals logically necessitate the belief that our globe is but a province of the infinite empire governed by righteous laws, of which enlightened human laws are a partial revelation.
Modern science teaches the oneness of the universe and the identity and sameness of the matter composing it. What then can be more strictly scientific and demonstrable from materialistic premises than the vast conclusion that uniform passive matter, operated upon by the same undeviating laws, must in all worlds produce the same results and evolve, as it has on our planet, intelligence in which a sense of right and justice shall predominate, and everywhere and in all time, enact and execute laws discriminating between right and wrong? What astronomical prediction, then, can be more certain of fulfillment than this moral prophecy of the final eclipse of evil and ultimate triumph of the right? With no existing power to arrest or mitigate the sentence of this relentless, carboniferous judge, how fearful may be the possible fate of those who disregard the moral laws of protoplasm. Matter has evolved a Franklin and a Morse, who learned to wield the lightning's power. Why may there not have been evolved in the infinite past a more profound electrician, who, with his battery and etherial wires can shiver a planet with his touch? A marvelous power—the human spirit—has gained a vast control over the blind, stubborn substances and forces that created it, and by its immaterial, invisible will, can in a limited degree overrule the most imperious law of nature by throwing a stone into the air. Is it unscientific, then, or derogatory to the [pg 053] vaunted potency of matter to affirm that the eternal ages may have developed an intelligent will that can project a planet or sun, as the human will and muscle project the pebble? Scoff not, exalted sages, at the weak terrors of those who tremble at the dogma of a malignant devil; consider that pity and compassion are not the known chemical constituents of this soulless creator. Where, then, can we fix the limit of that unconscious, fiendish force that evolved a Nero, and incarnated in human bodies the myriads of demoniac spirits that walk the earth to-day? Egotistical scientist (sciolist) calm the cyclone, quiet the engulphing earthquake, blot from human history the records of war, pestilence, famine, the tales of St. Bartholomew and the Inquisition, and then deny by material philosophy the possibility of even a Calvinistic hell; deny the personality of man because your microscope and scalpel can not find a soul by dissecting the brain of the mathematician, and then deny a personal God because his spirit eludes the grasp of sealed crucibles and can not be detected by digging in the earth with the spade. Deny the existence of conscious life, and then in the light of reason and science deny that the forces that generate life must from necessary law work for its continuance and immortality. Extreme materialism confidently teaches the birth, death and resurrection of planetary universes; why should such grand faith stagger at the theory of the resurrection of a soul? Where is the scientific absurdity of Renan's distant hope, that this mighty resurrection of dead worlds will embrace in its infinite scope the awakening to consciousness; the universal past consciousness of the universe. May not both theist and atheist find in this line of thought a partial answer to the oft recurring modern prayer, “Help thou mine unbelief.”—From the Religio-Philosophic Journal.
Can you believe that all things are the result of blind, unintelligent forces, operating under mechanical laws?