The right of revolution is the one by which I justify my course, and surely no consistent Protestant Christian or American citizen will doubt the solidity of this ground; for Protestantism and Americanism had their origin in revolutions.
Our national declaration of independence contains this famous justification of political revolutions, and it is equally applicable to religious ones, for religion and politics are but the ideal and practical halves of the same social reality:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these, are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed: that, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established, should not be changed for light and transient causes; and, accordingly, all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But, when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right—and it is their duty—to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their security.
Jesus was nothing if he was not a revolutionist. Anyhow, his alleged mother is authoritatively represented as believing him to have been foreordained as one, for this song is put into her mouth:
He hath showed strength with his arm: he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
He hath put down the mighty from their seat: and hath exalted the humble and meek.
He hath filled the hungry with good things: and the rich he hath sent empty away.
This Christian socialism, like Bolshevik socialism, turns the idle rich empty away; but, whereas the Christian gives them no chance to get anything to eat, the Bolshevik allows them to have as much as the poor, if they will work as hard.
Assuming for the sake of argument, that there may have been an historical Jesus who taught some of the doctrines, in accordance with the representations of the gospel, which are attributed to him, I am nevertheless justified in claiming that he was quite as heretical touching the faith of orthodox Judaism as I am touching that of orthodox Christianism.
As to the Jewish faith he said, in effect, of himself what I say of myself: I have all of the potentialities of my own life within myself. I and my god are one. He dwells in me and I in him, and we are on the earth, not in the sky.