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CRITICAL CATECHISM.
BY
THOMAS LUMISDEN STRANGE,
DATE A JUDGE OF THE HIGH COURT OF MADRAS.
PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SCOTT,
MOUNT PLEASANT, RAMSGATE.
Price Threepence.
�Note.—The materials used in the following pages have
been taken from “The Eible; is it the Word of God?”
(N. Trubner & Co.), by the same author.
�A CRITICAL CATECHISM,
RESPECTFULLLY OFFERED TO THE CONSIDERATION
OF THE ORTHODOX.
Catechist.—Taking John to be the precursor of
Jesus the Messiah, did he fulfil his mission in “ turn
ing the hearts of the fathers to the children/’ and
“the disobedient to the wisdom of the just,”
“ making ready a people prepared for the Lord ” ?
(Luke i. 17.)
Disciple.—He effected nothing of the kind.
Though “the world ” was “made” by Jesus, “the
world knew him not.” “He came unto his own, and
his own received him not.” (John i. 10-11.) Jesus
was in effect rejected and put to an ignominious death.
C. —Was John “filled with the Holy Ghost, even
from his mother’s womb” 1 (Luke i. 15.)
D. —I should scarcely think so.
C. —Why ?
D. —Because his disciples “ had not so much as
heard whether there was any Holy Ghost,” (Acts
xix. 2.)
G.—Was Jesus of the lineage of David? (Luke i. 32.)
D.—No. His mother “was found with child of
the Holy Ghost ” (Matt. i. 18.)
C. —What certainty is there of the fact ?
D. —His mother Mary was told thereof by an angel.
C.—Did she communicate the information to her
affianced husband Joseph 1
�4
A Critical Catechism.
D.—No • as when he found out her condition, and
“thought on these things,” he was “minded to put
her away” (Matt. i. 19, 20.)
C. —Whom did she teach Jesus to look upon as his
father ?
D. —Joseph, to whom she adverted as such when
speaking to Jesus of him. “ Behold, thy father and
I have sought thee sorrowing ” (Luke ii. 48.)
C. —Does it appear, nevertheless, that Mary herself
apprehended that Jesus was of divine origin ?
D. —It would seem not. When she heard Simeon
in the temple proclaim the greatness of his mission,
she “marvelled at those things which were spoken
of him” (Luke ii. 33.) When at the age of twelve
she found him in discussion with the doctors in the
temple, she, with “ all that heard him,” was
“ astonished at his understanding and answers ” (Luke
ii. 47.) And when he said that he was then engaged
in his heavenly “ Father’s business,” she, and the
others, “ understood not the sayings which he spake
unto them ” (Luke ii. 49, 50).
C. —Supposing Joseph to have been the father of
Jesus, would that make him out to have been of the
lineage of David ?
D. —Matthew and Luke give genealogies to that
effect.
C. —Do these genealogies agree?
D. —They do not. Matthew (i. 6-16) traces Joseph
from the regal line of Solomon, through twenty-three
descents, to one Jacob, whose name is given as that
of his father, while Luke (ii. 23-31) derives him from
the unregal line of Nathan, Solomon’s brother,
through thirty-eight descents, to one Heli, who is
said to have been his father.
C. —For what purpose can these genealogies have
been introduced unless Joseph is to be looked upon
. as really the father of Jesus ?
D. —I am at a loss to understand.
�A Critical Catechism.
5
C. —Was not Joseph a carpenter 1
D. —He was (Matt. xiii. 55.)
C. —And yet lie came from a whole race of kings ?
D. —He did. Pursuant to Matthew all the reign
ing sovereigns of Judah were his direct ancestors,
numbering, according to the Old Testament, eighteen
rulers from David to Jehoiakim.
C. —Strange, is it not! To what calling did Joseph
bring up Jesus 1
D. —To his own. He made him a carpenter (Mark
vi. 3). The tradition, according to Justin Martyr
(a.d. 140), was that Jesus worked at the construction
of ploughs and other agricultural implements.
C. —And yet we are to believe that both Joseph
and Mary were well assured of his divine birth 1
D. —We are.
C. —Was Jesus, when an infant, in peril from
Herod, as stated by Matthew ? (ii. 13, 16).
D. —No ; for, according to Luke, he was taken
openly to the temple, and there proclaimed as the
expected redeemer or Messiah by Simeon and the
prophetess Anna (ii. 22, 27-38).
C. —Did not his parents, under divine instructions,
flee with him to Egypt, and thence return and take
up their abode in Nazareth ? (Matt. ii. 13-23).
D. —Not according to Luke. He shows that they
went direct from Jerusalem to Nazareth without going
near Egypt (ii. 39).
C. —Was Jesus, “immediately” after his baptism,
“driven into the wilderness” of Judea, where he
remained “forty days tempted of Satan ?” (Mark i.
12, 13).
D. —John has it that on “ the third day ” after
meeting with the Baptist, he was at Cana in Galilee,
some sixty miles off, where he turned water into
wine (ii. 1).
C.—So that if Jesus underwent his temptation, he
did not perform the miracle at Cana; and if he per
�6
A Critical Catechism.
formed the miracle at Cana, he did not undergo the
temptation ?
D.—Just so.
C. -—When did Jesus purify the temple ?
D. —Matthew says four days before his death (xxi.
1, 12, 18 ; xxvi. 2).
C. —Is that sustainable 1
D. —No. John says it happened at the beginning
of his ministry, at the first of three passovers with
which he associates him, or two years before his
death (ii. 13-16).
C. —Is John (ii. 13 ; vi. 4 ; xix. 14) supported in
his statement that the ministry of Jesus lasted over
three passovers ?
D. —No. The other evangelists limit it to a portion
of a year, embracing but one passover, namely that
occurring at the time of his death.
C. —Where was the ministry of Jesus carried on
during the last six months of his life according to
Matthew, Mark, and Luke ?
D. —Always in Galilee, till within three or four
days of his death, when he came to Judea.
C. —What does John say as to this 1
D. —He makes it appear that Jesus was all this time
in Judea. He shows him to have been at Jerusalem
at the feast of tabernacles (vii. 2, 10), which was held
in Tisri, or October; and at the feast of dedication
(x. 22), which was in Chisleu, or December; the
passover, when he suffered, occurring in Nisan, or
April.
C. —When Jesus left Galilee, pursuant to the
earlier evangelists, by what route did he go to
Judea1
D. —According to Matthew (xix. 1) and Mark
(x. 1), he crossed over the Jordan, and kept along its
eastern side, thus avoiding Samaria.
C. —What does Luke say 1
D. —According to him he did not cross over the
�A Critical Catechism.
1
Jordan, but “ passed through the midst of Samaria”
(ix. 51, 52 ; xvii. 11).
C.-—What support is there for John’s account of
the raising up of Lazarus from the dead 1
J),—None. The other evangelists show no knowledge
of such a person as Lazarus, and make it appear that
the event could not have occurred. John has it that
when Jesus was summoned to attend on Lazarus at
his illness, he was at Bethabara on the Jordan (x. 40);
that he remained there two days ; and that on going
to Bethany he found that Lazarus had been dead and
buried four days (xi. 6, 17); and at some interval
after the resurrection of Lazarus, he goes on to say
that it wanted six days to the passover (xii. 1).
Here we have Jesus occupied about Lazarus, at least
say a fortnight before his own death. But pursuant
to Matthew and Mark he was then in Galilee, not
arriving at Bethany until three, or at most four,
days before his death; and when he did arrive,
they describe his doings till his death without saying
a word about any such miraculous action.
C. —Is John upheld in his statement (xii. 1-3) that
Jesus was anointed at Bethany in the house of Lazarus 1
D. —No. Matthew (xxvi. 6) and Mark (xiv. 3) say
it occurred at the house of Simon the leper of Bethany.
C. —What does Luke say on the matter 1
D. —That it was at the house of Simon the phari
see, who was not of Bethany, which is in Judea, but
of Galilee (vii. 37, 40).
C. —Is John borne out in saying that it was Mary,
the pious sister of Lazarus, who anointed him ?
D. —No. Matthew and Mark describe her as an
unknown female who entered the house for the pur
pose ; while Luke says she was a well-known sinner.
G-—Did the woman, whoever she was, apply the
ointment to the head of Jesus, as related by Matthew
and Mark 1
D.—That is altogether uncertain. Luke and John
�8
A Critical Catechism.
declare she anointed his feet, and wiped them with
her hair.
C. —Did Judas Iscariot object to the act as waste
ful, as John states ?
D. —That cannot be relied on, for Luke says the
objector was Simon the host, and that the objection
taken was the contamination of the woman’s touch.
C. —Can it be said that Luke was describing a
different occasion from the others ?
D. -—It cannot. The four all agree that it occurred
while Jesus sat at meat, and was objected to; Luke
has it, in correspondence with Matthew and John,
that the host’s name was Simon, and that the oint
ment was in an alabaster box; the incident was of
an unusual character, having a special import, and
Matthew and Mark, who place the event at the latest
period, distinctly make it appear that such a thing
had not occurred before, saying that the act should
be cited, in memorial of the devotion to their lord
thus manifested, “ wheresoever this Gospel shall be
preached in the whole world.”
C. —Did Judas betray Jesus with a kiss as related
by Matthew, Mark, and Luke?
D. —John represents the matter otherwise, and
says that Jesus proclaimed himself; and with such
boldness and miraculous power, that the armed party,
who came to take him, retreated “backward and fell to
the ground” (xviii. 5, 6.)
C. —What did Judas do with the wages of his
treachery ?
D. —Matthew (xxvii. 3-8) says that he cast the
money down in the temple, whereupon the chief
priests and elders bought a field with it.
C. —May that be accepted?
D. —No ; in the Acts (i. 18) it is stated that Judas
himself bought the field.
C. —What became of Judas afterwards ?
D. —He went out of the temple, according to
Matthew, and hanged himself.
�A Critical Catechism.
9
C. —What is the statement in the Acts?
D. —That, after purchasing the field, he “ fell
headlong, and burst asunder in the midst,” apparently
coming to his end by some accident.
C. —Why was the field in question called “ The
field of blood ” ?
D. —The accounts differ. Matthew says it was
in commemoration of the blood of Jesus, with the
price of which it had been bought; while in the
Acts it is stated that it acquired its name “ inas
much ” as the blood of Judas, when he met with his
■accident, was shed there.
C. —How is John borne out in his statement that
Jesus suffered death on the day of the paschal
offering (xviii. 28 ; xix. 14) ?
D. —Not at all. The other evangelists declare
that he “ ate the passover ” with his disciples on
the evening before his death (Matt. xxvi. 17-19 ;
Mark xiv. 12-16 ; Luke xxii. 7-15), differing thus
with John’s allegation that this “ last supper” was
held the day “before the feast of the passover ” (xiii.
1, 2, 29).
G.—John (xix. 25-27) represents that when he
and Mary, the mother of Jesus, with Mary Magda
lene and another female, were standing by the cross,
Jesus committed him and Mary to each other. Is
this borne out by the other accounts ?
D.—It is not. None of the other evangelists
speak of the presence of the mother of Jesus on the
occasion of the crucifixion, and Matthew (xxvii.
55, 56) and Mark (xv. 40, 41) state that Mary
Magdalene and the other women, who were there,
were not near the cross, but were “looking on afar off.”
C.—John (xix. 31-34) says that Pilate, in order
that the bodies of Jesus and of the thieves who were
crucified with him might be taken down from the
crosses before the approaching sabbath-day, directed
the soldiers to put an end to them by breaking their
�IO
A Critical Catechism.
legs, but that Jesus being found already dead, one
of the soldiers contented himself with thrusting a
spear into his side. Do the other evangelists sup
port this representation ?
1).—They do not. They say nothing of such a
circumstance, which was of a character not possibly to
be overlooked. Luke (xxiv. 39, 40) has it that Jesus,
after his resurrection, pointed to the wounds on his
hands and feet, not indicating any on his side.
Mark (xv. 42-45) observes that when permission was
asked of Pilate, in the evening, to bury Jesus, he
was surprised to hear that he was already dead.
Pilate, consequently, could not have issued the order to
put the criminals to death by the violent means at
tributed to him by John, and on which he builds
his statement as to the wound on the side.
C. —Was it the case that three females visited the
tomb of Jesus, as stated by Mark (xvi. 1,2)*?
D. —No. Matthew (xxviii. 1) says there were but
two.
G.-—Can two then have been the number ?
D.—No. John (xx. 1) says there was but one.
C. —May we hold to this, that there was but one ?
D. —No; for Luke (xxiii. 55 ; xxiv. 10) declares
there were a considerable number.
C. —May it be believed that Jesus first showed him
self in resurrection life to two females, as represented
by Matthew (xxviii. 1,9)?
D. —No. Mark (xvi. 9) says that he showed him
self but to one.
C. —Is that believable ?
D. —No. Luke (xxiv. 23, 24) shows that the wo
men had merely had “ a vision of angels,” from whom
they heard that Jesus “ was alive.” On this some
men went to the tomb, “ but him they saw not.”
Up to this time, therefore, which was late in the day
(ver. 29), Jesus had been seen by no one.
�A Critical Catechism.
11
C. —If Jesus was not first seen by women, one or
more, to whom did he first reveal himself?
D. —Luke (xxiv. 13-15, 31) has it that his first ap
pearance was to two disciples at Emmaus.
C.—Is that clear ?
£).—-No. Paul (1 Cor. xv. 5) says he was first seen
by Cephas (Peter).
C. —Where is the account of that apparition ?
D. —Nowhere.
C. —-Is the apparition to the disciples at Emmaus,
described by Luke, supported by the other evange
lists 1
D. —It is not. Matthew (xxviii. 7, 10, 16, 17)
says that after the alleged apparition to the females,
the next manifestation was to be in Galilee, and there
took place. He says nothing of the occurrence at
Emmaus, for which, in fact, he gives no room.
Neither does Mark say anything of it. John speaks
of an apparition in Galilee, of which he says, “ this
is now the third time that Jesus showed himself to
his disciples, after that he was risen from the dead ”
(xxi. 14), the first to ten persons, and the second to
eleven, having occurred in Jerusalem (xx. 19, 24, 26).
This, therefore, excludes the alleged apparition to the
two at Emmaus.
C. —Is Matthew supported in his statement (xxviii.
7, 10) that the manifestation of Jesus to his disciples
was appointed to be in Galilee ?
D. Luke declares otherwise, saying that Jesus en
joined it on them to “ tarry in the city of Jerusalem,
until endued with power from on high ” (xxiv. 49).
The Acts supports this, saying that he “ com
manded them that they should not depart from Jeru
salem, but wait for the promise of the Father,” which
promise was fulfilled fifty days afterwards at Pente
cost (i. 4 ; ii. 1-4).
C.—Is it clear that the apostles were kept thus,
for such a period, without the gift of the Holy Ghost ?
�12
A Critical Catechism.
D.-—No. John assures us that it was imparted to
them on the evening of the day of the resurrection
(xx. 22).
C. —Allowing that it is uncertain which was the
first manifestation that Jesus made of himself after
death, is it apparent which was the last occasion on
which he so showed himself ?
D. —According to the Acts (i. 3) “ he showed him
self alive after his passion by many infallible proofs,
being seen of them (the apostles) forty days.”
C. —Is that supported elsewhere ?
D. —It is not. John implies that Jesus exhibited
himself to the apostles but three times, namely, on
the day of his resurrection, eight days later, and then
at some subsequent time in Galilee (xx. 19, 26;
xxi. 14).
C. —Is that representation corroborated 1
D. —It is not. Matthew declares that Jesus ap
peared to the apostles but once in Galilee, at a
spot “ where he had appointed them,” and there
parted with them after giving them his final instruc
tions (xxviii. 16-20). Matthew thus negatives the
appearances described in Mark, Luke, and John to
have taken place in Jerusalem, and where he speaks
of one in Galilee it is in a different locality to that
described by John. John says the occurrence was
“ at the sea of Tiberias,” and Matthew on a certain
“ mountain.”
C. —How does Matthew’s statement stand the test
of examination by those of Mark and Luke.
D. —Not at all. If Jesus enjoined it on the
apostles to remain in Jerusalem for a particular pur
pose, which was fulfilled only fifty days afterwards
at Pentecost, as stated by Luke and in the Acts,
then there could have been no such appointment to
meet in Galilee as Matthew describes. Moreover,
Mark and Luke declare that on the evening of the
day of his resurrection Jesus was “received up into
�A Critical Catechism.
13
heaven,” and there assumed his appointed seat “ on
the right hand of God” (Mark xvi. 19 ; Luke xxiv.
51); so that as Galilee is at least fifty miles from
Jerusalem, or at a distance of two or three day s
journey, there was no time for the apostles to have
gone there to meet with Jesus. This statement of
the ascension by Mark and Luke also negatives
John’s accounts of a second and third manifestation,
as also all those, enduring for forty days, spoken
of in the Acts.
C. —So that Matthew disallows the apparition at
Emmaus, described by Luke, the several appearances
in Jerusalem recounted by Mark, Luke, and John,
and the meeting in Galilee declared by John; while
Mark and Luke disallow the appearance in Galilee of
which Matthew speaks, and the second and third
appearances in Jerusalem and in Galilee which we
hear of from John !
D. —It is so. Each several representation is dis
tinctly negatived by some other representation.
C. —Is Paul’s statement that Jesus “was seen of
above five hundred brethren at once” (1 Cor. xv. 6)
in any way corroborated elsewhere 1
D. —On the contrary, it is shown that no such
manifestation occurred. Peter declares that Jesus
showed himself, “ not to all the people, but unto wit
nesses chosen before of God” (Acts x. 41); that is,
not to a large promiscuous multitude, but to a select
few, namely, the apostles. Nor were there so many
as five hundred brethren to whom he could have
shown himself, for when all were gathered together
in these early days, their number was but “ about an
hundred and twenty” (Acts i. 15).
C. —According to Mark and Luke the ascension
occurred at the close of the day of the resurrection.
How does the matter appear by the accounts else
where 1
D. —According to Matthew it could not have taken
�J4
A Critical Catechism.
place until several days later, so as to give time for
the appearance in Galilee he describes. According
to John it could not have happened until ten or
twelve days later, as he mentions a second appear
ance in Jerusalem eight days after the first, and then
one in Galilee. And according to the Acts it did not
occur for forty days.
C. —Where did this great event take place ?
D. —Pursuant to Matthew from a mountain in
Galilee (xxviii. 16-20); to Mark from a house in
Jerusalem, where Jesus met with the apostles at
meat (xvi. 14-19); to Luke at Bethany (xxiv. 50);
and to the Acts from the mount of Olives (i. 9-12).
John says nothing on the subject.
C. —And yet the fact of the resurrection is an
essential point of doctrine, is it not ?
D. —So essential, that it is absolutely fatal to ques
tion it. “ He that believeth not,” said Jesus at one
of these apparitions, “ shall be damned” (Mark xvi.
16). “ If Christ be not risen,” declares Paul, “ then
is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain.
Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; be
cause we have testified of God that he raised up
Christ. And if Christ be not raised, your faith is
vain; ye are yet in your sins. Then they also which
are fallen asleep in Christ are perished” (1 Cor.
xv. 14-18).
C. —What an advantage, is it not, that these histories
have been transmitted through inspired channels, and
may therefore be accepted, without hesitation, as re
liable, notwithstanding all these irreconcileable con
tradictions 1
D. —It is so. In that faith all Christendom have
stood for now above eighteen hundred years.
Any one is at liberty to reprint or translate this Catechism.
TUKNBULL AND SPEAKS, PKINTEKS, EDINBURGH.
�
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Title
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A critical catechism
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Strange, Thomas Lumisden
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: Ramsgate
Collation: 14 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Printed by Turnbull and Spears, Edinburgh. "The materials used in the following pages have been taken from 'The Bible; is it the Word of God?' (N. Trubner & Co.)" [Title page verso].
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Thomas Scott
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[1871?]
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Theology
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Bible-Criticism and Interpretation
Catechisms
Conway Tracts
Doctrinal
Theology
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1538bff2d27a31eb40369dbc38e97371
PDF Text
Text
IS THE BIBLE INDICTABLE?
DY
ANNIE
BESANT.
BEING AN ENQUIRY WHETHER THE BIBLE COMES
WITHIN THE RULING OF THE LORD CHIEF
TUSTICE AS TO OBSCENE LITERATURE.
LONDON:
FREETHOUGHT PUBLISHING COMPANY,
28, Stonecutter Street, E.C.
PRICE
%
TWOPENCE.
�LONDON :
TRINTED BY ANNIE BESANT AND CHARLES BRADLAUGH,
28, STONECUTTER STREET, E.C.
�IS THE BIBLE INDICTABLE?
AN enquiry whether the bible comes within
THE RULING OF THE LORD CHIEF JUSTICE
AS TO OBSCENE LITERATURE.
The ruling of Sir Alexander Cockburn in the late trial, the
'Queen against Bradlaugh and Besant, seems to involve
wider issues than the Lord Chief Justice intended, or than
the legal ally of Nature and Providence can desire. The
question of motive is entirely set on one side; the purest
motives are valueless if the information conveyed is such as
is capable of being turned to bad purposes by the evilminded and the corrupt. This view of the law would not
he enforced against expensive medical works ; provided that
the price set on a book be such as shall keep it out of reach
of the “ common people,” its teaching may be thoroughly
immoral but it is not obscene. Dr. Fleetwood Churchill,
for instance, is not committing an indictable offence by
;giving directions as to the simplest and easiest way of pro
curing abortion; he is not committing a misdemeanour,
although he points out means which any woman could
obtain and use for herself; he does not place himself within
Teach of the law, although he recommends the practice of
abortion in all cases where previous experience proves that
the birth of a living child is impossible. A check to popu
lation which„ destroys life is thus passed over as legal, per
haps because the destruction of life is the check so largely
employed by Nature and Providence, and would thus ensure
the approval of the Solicitor-General. But the real reason
why Dr. Churchill is left unmolested and Dr. Knowlton
is assailed, lies in the difference of the price at which
the two are severally published. If Dr. Knowlton was
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IS THE BIBLE INDICTABLE?
sold at ios. 6d. and Dr. Churchill at 6d., then
the vials of legal wrath would have descended on theadvocate of abortion and not on the teacher of prevention.
The obscenity lies, to a great extent, in the price of the book
sold. A vulgar little sixpence is obscene, a dainty halfsovereign is respectable. Poor people must be content toremain ignorant, or to buy the injurious quack treatises;
circulated in secret; wealthier people, who want knowledge
less, are to be protected by the law in their purchases of
medical works, but if poor people, in sore need, finding
“ an undoubted physician ” ready to aid them, venture to
ask for his work, written especially for them, the law strikes
down those who sell them health and happiness. They
must not complain; Nature and Providence have placed
them in a state of poverty, and have mercifully provided for
them effectual, if painful, checks to population. The same
element of price rules the decency or the indecency of
pictures. A picture painted in oils, life size, of the naked
human figure, such as Venus disrobed for the bath, or
Phryne before her judges, or Perseus and Andromeda,
exhibited to the upper classes, in a gallery, with a shilling
admission charge, is a perfectly decent and respectable work
of art. Photographs of those pictures, uncoloured, and
reduced in size, are obscene publications, and are seized as
such by thd police. Cheapness is, therefore, an essential
part of obscenity.
If a book be cheap, what constitutes it an obscene book ?
Lord Campbell, advocating in Parliament the Act against
obscene literature which bears his name, laid down very
clearly his view of what should, legally, be an obscene work.
It must be a work “written for the single purpose of
corrupting the morals of youth, and of a nature calculated
to shock the feelings of decency in any well-regulated
mind ” (Hansard, vol. 146, No. 2, p. 329). The law,,
according to him, was never to be levelled even against
works which might be considered immoral and indecent,,
such as some of those of Dryden, Congreve, or Rochester.
“The keeping, or the reading, or tve delighting in such
things must be left to taste, and was not a subject for legal
interference; ” the law was only to interpose where the motive
of the seller was bad; “ when there were people who
designedly and industriously manufactured books and prints
with the intention of corrupting the public morals, and when
they succeeded in their infamous purpose, he thought it was
�IS THE BIBLE INDICTABLE ?
5
►necessary for the legislature to interpose ” (Hansard, vol.
146, No. 4, p. 865).
The ruling of the present Lord Chief Justice in the late
■trial is in direct opposition to the view taken by Lord
Campbell. The chief says : “ Knowlton goes into physio
logical details connected with the functions of the genera
tion and procreation of'children. The principles of this
.pamphlet, with its details, are to be found in greater
abundance and distinctness in numerous works to which
your attention has been directed, and, having these details
before you, you must judge for yourselves whether there is
-anything in them which is calculated to excite the passions
of man and debase the public morals. If so, every medical work
is open to the same imputation” (Trial, p. 261). The Lord Chief
Justice then refers to the very species of book against which
Lord Campbell said that he directed his Act. “ There are
books,” the chief says, “ which have for their purpose the
■exciting of libidinous thoughts, and are intended to give to
persons who take pleasure in that sort of thing the impure
gratification which the contemplation of such thoughts is
calculated to give.” If the book were of that character it
4‘ would be condemnable,” and so far all are agreed as to the
law. But Sir Alexander Cockburn goes further, and here is
the danger of his interpretation of the law: “ Though the
■intention is not unduly to convey this knowledge, and gratify
prurient and libidinous thoughts, still, if its effect is to excite
and create thoughts of so demoralising a character to the
mind of the reader, the work is open to the condemnation
asked for at your hands ” (Trial, p. 261).. Its effect on what
reader? Suppose a person of prurient mind buys Dr.
Carpenter’s “Human Physiology,’’and reads the long chapter,
containing over 100 pages, wholly devoted to a minute des
cription of generation; the effect of the reading will be “ to
excite and create thoughts of” the “demoralising character”
spoken of. According to the Lord Chief Justice’s ruling, Dr,
Carpenter’s would then become an obscene book. The evil
motive is transferred from the buyer to the seller, and then
the seller is punished for the buyer’s bad intent; vicarious
punishment seems to have passed from the church into the
law court. There can be no doubt that every medical book
-now comes under the head of “ obscene literature,” for they
may all be read by impure people, and will infallibly have
the affect of arousing prurient thoughts ; that they are written
for a good purpose, that they are written to cure disease, is
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IS THE BIBLE INDICTABLE?
no excuse; the motive of the writer must not be considered
the law has decided that books whose intention is to*
convey physiological knowledge, and that not unduly, areobscene, if the reader’s passions chance to be aroused by
them; “ we must not listen to arguments upon moral obli
gations arising out of any motive, or out of any desire tobenefit humanity, or to do good to your species ” (Trial,
p. 237). The only protection of these, otherwise obscene,
books lies in their price; they are generally highly-priced,
and they do thus lack one essential element of obscenity.
For the useful book that bad people make harmful must be
cheap in order to be practically.obscene ; it must be within
reach of the poor, and be “ capable of being sold at the
corners of the streets, and at bookstalls, to every one who
has sixpence to spare” (Trial, p. 261).
The new ruling touches all the dramatists and writers that
Lord Campbell had no idea of attacking ; no one can doubt
that many of Congreve’s dramas are calculated to arousesexual passion; these are sold at a very low price, and they
have not even the defence of conveying any useful informa
tion ; they come most distinctly within the ruling of theLord Chief Justice ; why are they to be permitted freecirculation ? Sterne, Fielding, Smollett, Swift, must all be
flung into the dusthole after Congreve, Wycherley, Jonson ;
Dryden, of course, follows these without delay, andSpencer, with his “ Faerie Queene,” is the next victim.
Shakespeare can have no quarter shown him ; not only aremost gross passages scattered through his works, but the
motive of some of them is directly calculated to arouse thepassions ; for how many youthful love fevers is not “ Romeo
and Juliet ” answerable; what of “Cymbeline,” “Pericles,”
or “ Titus Andronicus ” ? Can “ Venus and Adonis ” tend
to anything except to the rousing of passion ? is “ Lucrece”
not obscene? Yet Macmillan’s Globe Edition of Shakes
peare is regarded as one of the most admirable publishing
efforts made by that eminent firm to put English master
pieces in the hands of the poor. Coming to our time, what
is to be done with Byron ? “ Don J uan ” is surely calculated
to corrupt, not to speak of other poems, such as “ Parisina.”
What of Shelley, with his “ Cenci ?” Swinburne, must of
course, be burned at once. Every one of these great
names is now branded as obscene, and under the ruling of
the Lord Chief Justice every one of them must be con
demned. Suppose some one should follow Hetherington’s-
�IS THE BIBLE INDICTABLE?
7
example ? Suppose that we should become the prosecutors
instead of the prosecuted ? Suppose that we should drag
Others to share our prison, and should bring the most hon
oured names of authors into the same condemnation that
has struck us? Why should we show to others a con
sideration that has not been shown to us ? If it is said
that we should not strike, we answer; “ Then leave tis
alone, and calculate the consequences before you touch
us again.” The law has been declared by the Lord Chief
Justice of England; why is not that law as binding on Mac
millan as on us ? The law has been narrowed in order to
enmesh Freethought: its net will catch other fishes as well,
or else break under the strain and let all go free. The
Christians desire to make two laws, and show their hands
too plainly : one law is to be strict, and is to apply wholly
to Freethinkers; cheating Christians, who sell even Knowl-.
ton, are to be winked at by the authorities, and are to be let
off scot free; but this is not all. Ritualists circulate a book
beside which Knowlton is said to be purity itself, and the
law does not touch them ; no warrants are issued for their
apprehension; no prosecution is paid for by a hidden
enemy ; no law-officer of the Crown is briefed against them.
Why is this ? because to attack Christians is to draw atten
tion to the foundation of Christianity ; because to attack the
“ Priest in Absolution ” is to attack Moses. The Christian
walls are made out of Bible-glass, and they fear to throw
stones lest they should break their own house. Listen to
Mr. Ridsdale, a brother of the Holy Cross : “ I wonder,”
he says, “ why some one does not stand up in the House of
Lords and bring a charge against the Bible (especially Levi
ticus) as an immoral book.” The Church Times, the organ
of the Ritualists, has a letter which runs thus : “ Suppose a
patrician and a pontifex in old Rome had with care and
deliberation extracted sentences from Holy Writ, separated
them from their context, suppressed the general nature
and character of the book, and then accused the bishop
and his clergy of deliberately preparing an obscene
book to contaminate the young (how readily he might
have made such extracts !), what should we have said of
such ruffians?” This, then, is the shield of the clergy;
the Bible is itself so obscene that Christians fear to prosecute
priests who circulate obscenity.
Does the Bible come within the ruling of the Lord Chief
Justice as to obscene literature ? Most decidedly it does,
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IS THE BIBLE INDICTABLE?
and if prosecuted as an obscene book, it must necessarily be
condemned, if the law is justly administered.
Every
Christian ought therefore to range himself on our side, and
demand a reversal of the present rule, for under it his own
sacred book is branded as obscene, and may be prosecuted
as such by any unbeliever.
First, the book is widely circulated at a low price. If the
Bible were restricted in its circulation by being sold at
ios. 6d. or a guinea, it might escape being placed in the
category of obscene literature under the present ruling.
But no such defence can be pleaded for it. It is sold at
8d. a copy, printed on cheap paper, and strongly bound, for
use in schools ; it is given away by thousands among the
“ common people,” whose morals are now so carefully looked
after in the matter of books ; it is presented to little chil
dren of both sexes, and they are told to read it carefully.
To such an extent is this carried, that some thousands of
children assembled together were actually told by Lord
Sandon, the Vice-President of the Committee of Council on
Education, to read the Bible right through from beginning
to end, and were bidden not to pick'and choose. The ele
ment of price is clearly against the Bible if it be proved to
have in it anything which is of a nature calculated to sug
gest impure thoughts.
As to the motives of the writers, we need not trouble
about them. The law now says that intention is nothing,
and no desire to do good is any excuse for obscenity (Trial,
P- 257)There remains the vital question : is the effect of some of
its passages to excite and create demoralising thoughts?
(Trial, p. 261).
The difficulty of dealing with this question is that
many of the quotations necessary to prove that the Bible
■ comes under the ruling of the Lord Chief Justice are
of such an extremely coarse and disgusting character, that
it is really impossible to reproduce them without intensi
fying the evil which they are calculated to do. While I
see no indecency in a plain statement of physiological
facts, written for people’s instruction, I do see indecency
in coarse and indelicate stories, the reading of which can do
no good to any human being, and can have no effect save
that of corrupting the mind and suggesting unclean
ideas. I therefore refuse to soil my pages with quotations,
and content myself with giving the references, so that any
�IS THE BIBLE INDICTABLE?
9
one who desires to use the ruling of the Lord Chief Justice
to suppress the Bible may see what certainty of success
awaits him if justice be done. I shall not trouble about
simple coarseness, such as Gen. iv. i, 17, 25; Gen. vi. 4;
or Matt. i. 18-20, 25. If mere coarseness of expression
were to be noted, my task would be endless. But let the
intending prosecutor read the following passages. A little
boy of 8 or 10 would scarcely be improved by reading Gen.
ix. 20-25 1 the drunkenness, indecency, and swearing in
these six verses is surely calculated to corrupt the boy’s
mind. The teaching of Gen. xvi. 1-5 is scarcely elevating
for the “ common people,” seeing the example set by the
“friend of God.” Gen. xvii. 10-14 and 23-27 is very coarse.
Would Gen. xix. 4-9 improve a young maiden, or would it
not suggest the most impure thoughts, verse 5 dealing with
an idea that should surely never be put into a girl’s
mind ? The same chapter, 30-38, is revolting; and Deut.
ii. 9 and 19 implies God’s approval of the unnatural
crime. The ignorance of physiology which is thought best
■for girls would receive a shock, when in reading the Bible
straight through, the day’s portion comprised Gen. xxv., 2126. Gen. xxvi., 8 is not nice, nor is Gen. xxix., 21-35, and
Gen. xxx. The story of Dinah, Gen. xxxiv.; of Reuben,
Gen. xxxv., 22 ; ofOnan, Gen. xxxviii., 8-10 ; of Judah and
Tamar, xxxviii., 13-26 ; of the birth of Tamar’s children,
xxxviii., 27-30, are all revolting in their foulness of phrase
ology. Why the Bible should be allowed to tell the story of
Onan seems very strange, and the “ righteousness ” of Tamar
(v. 26) wins approval. Is this thought purifying teaching for
the “ common people ” ? The story of Joseph and Potiphar’s
wife, Gen. xxxix., 7-18, I have heard read in church to the
manifest discomfort of some of the congregation, and the
amusement of others, while Joseph flying from temptation
and leaving his garment with Potiphar’s wife is a picture
often seen in Sunday schools. Thus twelve out of the fifty
chapters of Genesis are undeniably obscene, and if there is
any justice in England, Genesis ought to be suppressed.
We pass, to Exodus. Ex. i., 15-19 is surely indecent. I am
not dealing with immoral teaching, or God’s blessing on the
falsehood of the midwives (20, 21) would need comment.
Ex. iv., 24-26, is very coarse; so also Ex. xxii., 16, 17, 19.
Leviticus is coarse throughout, but.is especially so in chaps,
v., 3; xii.; xv.; xviii., 6-23; xx., 10-21; xxii., 3-5. The
trial of jealousy is most revolting in Numb, v., 12-29.
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IS THE BIBLE INDICTABLE?
Numb, xxv., 6-8 is hardly a nice story for a child, nor is that
of Numb, xxxi., 17,18. Deut. xxi., 10-14 is not pure teaching"
for soldiers. Deut. xxii,, 13-21 is extremely coarse; the re
mainder of the chapter comes also within the Chiefs ruling,
as do also chaps, xxiii., 1, 10, 11; xxv., 11, 12 ; xxvii., 20,.
22, 23 ; xxviii., 57. The fault of the book of Joshua lies
chiefly in its exceeding brutality and bloodthirstiness, but it,
also, does not quite escape the charge of obscenity, as may
be seen by referring to the following passage : chap, v., 2-8.
Judges is occasionally very foul, and is utterly unfit for
general reading, according to the late definition;
Ehud and Eglon, Judges, iii., 15-25, would not bear
reading aloud, and the story might have been
told equally well in decent language. Or take the
horribly disgusting tale of the Levite and his concubine
(Judges xix.), and then judge whether a book containing
such stories is fit for use in schools. Dr. Carpenter’s book
may do good there, because, with all its plain speaking, it
conveys useful information; but what good—mental,
physical, or moral—can be done to a young girl by reading
Judges xix. ? And the harm done is intensified by the fact
that the ignorance in which girls are kept surrounds such a
story with unwholesome interest, as giving a glimpse into
what is, to them, the great mystery of sex. The story of
Ruth iii. 3—14 is one which we should not like to see
repeated by our daughters; for the virtue of a woman who
should wait until a man was drunk, and then go alone at
night and lie down at his feet, would, in our days, be
regarded as problematical. 1 Sam. ii. 2 2, and v. 9 are both
obscene; so are 1 Sam. xviii. 25—-27 and xxi. 4, 5.
1 Sam. xxv. 22, 34 are disgustingly coarse, and there are
many similar coarse passages to be found in “ holy ” writ.
2 Sam. vi. 14, 16, 20, is a little over-suggestive, as is also
2 Sam. x. 4. The story of David dancing is told in
1 Chron. xv. 27—29 without anything offensive in its tone.
The story of David and Bathsheba is only too well known, and
as told in 2 Sam. xi. 2—13 is far more calculated to arouse
the passions than is anything in Knowlton. The prophecy
in 2 Sam. xii. 11, 12, fulfilled in xvi. 21, 22, is repulsive in
the extreme, more especially when we are told that the
shameful counsel was given by Ahithophel, whose counsel,
“ which he counselled in those days, was as if a man had
inquired at the oracle of God.” If God’s oracles give such
counsel, the less they are resorted to the better for the
�IS THE BIBLE INDICTABLE?
IE
welfare of the state. We are next given the odious story of
Amnon and Tamar (2 Sam. xiii. 1—22), instructive for Lord
Sandon’s boys and girls to read together, as they go through
the Bible from beginning to end. 1 Kings i. 1—4 conveys
an idea more worthy of George IV. than of the man after
God’s own heart. In 1 Kings xiv. 10, the coarseness is inex
cusable, and verse 24 is only too intelligible after Judges xix.
2 Kings ix. 8, xviii. 27, are thoroughly Biblical in their
delicacy. 1 Chron. xix. 4 repeats the unpleasant story of
2 Sam. x. 4; but both 1 and 2 Chronicles are, for the Bible,
remarkably free from coarseness, and are a great improve
ment on the books of Kings and Samuel. The same praiseis deserved by Ezra and Nehemiah., The tone of the story
of Esther is somewhat sensual throughout: the drunken
king commanding Vashti to come in and show her beauty,
Esther i. 11 ; the search for the young virgins, Esther ii.
2—4; the trial and choice, Esther ii. 12—17, these are
scarcely elevating reading ; Esther vii. 8 is also coarse.
To a girl whose safety is in her ignorance, Job iii. 11 is very
plain. Psalm xxxviii. 5—7 gives a description of a certain
class of disease in exact terms. Proverbs v. 17—20 is good
advice, but would be condemned by the Lord Chief Justice;
Proverbs vi. 24—32 is of the same character, as is also
Proverbs vii. 5—23. The allusion in Ecclesiastes xi. 5
would be objected to as improper by the Solicitor-General.
The Song of Solomon is a marriage-song of the sensual
and luxuriant character : put Knowlton side by side with it,
and then judge which is most calculated to arouse the
passions. It is almost impossible to select, where all is of
so extreme a character, but take i. 2, 13; ii. 4—6, 17;
iii. 1, 4 ; iv. 5, 6, 11; v. 2—4, 8, 14—16 ; vii. 2, 3, 6—10, 12;
viii. 1—3, 8—10. Could any language be more alluring,
more seductive, more passion-rousing, than the languid,
uxorious, “ linked sweetness long drawn out ” of this
Eastern marriage-ode ? It is not vulgarly coarse and offen
sive as is so much of the Bible, but it is, according to the
ruling of the Lord Chief Justice, a very obscene poem.
One may add that, in addition to the allusions and descrip
tions that lie on the surface, there is a multitude of sugges
tions not so apparent, but which are thoroughly open to all
who know anything of Eastern imagery.
After the Song of Solomon, it is a shock to come to the
prophets; it is like plunging into cold water after being in
a hothouse. Unfortunately, with the more bracing atmo
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IS THE BIBLE -INDICTABLE?
sphere, we find the old brutality coming again to repel us,
■and coarse denunciation shocks us, as in Isaiah iii. 17. How
would the Lord Chief Justice have dealt with Isaiah if he
had lived in his day, and acted as is recorded in Isaiah xx.,
2—4 ? He clearly would have put him in a lunatic asylum
(Trial, p. 168). If it were not that there are so many worse
passages, one might complain of the taste shown in the com
parison of Isaiah xxvi. 17, 18; the same may be said of
Isaiah xxxii. 11, 12. In Isaiah xxxvi. 12 we have a repe
tition of 2 Kings xviii. 27, which we could weli have spared.
In Isaiah lvii. 8, 9, we meet a favourite simile of the Jewish
prophets, wherein God is compared to a husband, and the
people to an unfaithful wife, and the relations between them
are described with a minuteness which can only be fitly
designated by the Solicitor-General’s favourite word. Isaiah
lxvi. 7—12 would be regarded as somewhat coarse in an
■ordinary book. The prophets get worse as they go on.
Jeremiah i. 5 is the first verse we meet in Jeremiah which the
Solicitor-General would take exception to. We next meet the
simile of marriage, in Jeremiah ii., 20,iii. 1—3,6—9, verse 9
being especially offensive. Jer. v. 7, 8, is coarse, as are also
Jer. xi. 15 andxiii. 26, 27. Ought the girl’s schools to read
Jer. xx. 17, 18? But, perhaps, as Ezekiel is coming, it is
hypercritical to object to Jeremiah. Lamentations i. 8, 9, is
revolting, and verse 17 of the same chapter uses an extremely
coarse simile. Ezekiel is the prophet who eat a little book
and found it disagree with him : it seems a pity that he did
■not eat a large part of his own, and so prevent it from
poisoning other people. What can be more disgusting than
Ez. iv. 12—15? the whole chapter is absurd, but these
verses are abominable. The prophet seems, like the drawers
of the indictment against us, to take pleasure in piling up
uncomfortable terms, as in Ez. vi. 9. We now come to
a chapter that is obscene from beginning to end, and may,
I think, almost claim the palm of foulness. Let any one
read through Ez. xvi., marking especially verses 4—9, 15—17,
25, 26, 33, 34, 37, 39, and then think of the absurdity of
prosecuting Knowlton for corrupting the morals of the
young, who have this book of Ezekiel put into their hand.
After this, Ez. xviii. 6, 11, and 15 seem quite chaste and
delicate; and no one could object to Ez. xxii. 9—n.
Ez. xxiii. is almost as bad as chapter xvi., especially verses
6—9, 14—21, 29, 41—44. Surely if any book be indict
able for obscenity, the Bible should be the first to be prose
�IS THE BIBLE INDICTABLE?
13
cuted. I know of no other book in which is to be found such
utterly unredeemed coarseness. The rest of Ezekiel is only
bloodthirsty and brutal, so may, fortunately, be passed over
without further comment. Daniel may be left unnoticed ;
and we now come to Hosea, a prophet whose morals were,
to speak gently, peculiar. The “ beginning of the word of
the Lord by Hosea/’ was the Lord’s command as to his
marriage, related in Hosea i. 2 ; we then hear of his children
by the said wife in the remainder of the chapter, and
in the next chapter we are told, Hosea ii. 2, that the
woman is not his wife, and from verse 2—13 we have an ex
tremely indecent speech of Hosea on the misdeeds of the
unfortunate creature he married, wherein, verse 4, he com
plains of the very fact that God commanded in chap. i. 2.
Hosea iii. 1—3 relates another indecent proceeding on
Hosea’s part, and his purchase of another mistress; whether
girls’ morals are improved by the contemplation of such
divine commands, is a question that might fairly be urged
on Lord Sandon before he next distributes Bibles to little
children of both sexes. The said girls must surely, as they
study Hosea iv. 10—18, wonder that God expresses his in
tention not to punish impurity in verse 14. It is impossible,
in reading Hosea, to escape from the prevailing tone of
obscenity; chaps, v. 3, 4, 7; vi. 9, 10; vii. 4; viii. 9;
ix. 1, 10, 11, 14, 16; xii. 3 ; xiii. 13, every one of these
has a thought in it that all must regard as coarse, and which
comes distinctly within the ruling of the Lord Chief Justice
as to obscenity; there is scarcely one chapter in Hosea that
does not, with offensive reiteration, dwell on the coarsest
form of wrongdoing of which women are capable. Joel iii.
3 is objectionable in a comparatively slight degree. Amos,
although occasionally coarse, keeps clear of the gross
obscenity of Hosea, as do also Obadiah and Jonah. Micah i.
7, 8, 11, would scarcely be passed by Sir Hardinge Giffard,
nor would he approve Micah iv. 9, 10. Nahum iii. 4—6
is almost Hoseatic, and Habakkuk ii. 5, 16 runs it close.
The remaining four prophets are sometimes coarse, but
have nothing in them approaching the abominations of the
others, and we close the Old Testament with a sigh of
relief.
The New Testament has in it nothing at all approaching
the obscenity of the Old, save two passages in Revelation.
The story of Mary and Joseph is somewhat coarse, espe
cially as told in Matt. i. 18—25. Rom. i. 24—27 is distinctly
�^4
IS THE BIBLE INDICTABLE?
obscene, and i Cor. v. i, vi. 9, 15, 16, 18, would all be
judged indelicate by Her Majesty’s Solicitor-General, who
objected to the warnings given by Knowlton against sexual
sin. The whole of 1 Cor. vii. might be thought calculated
to arouse the passions, but the rest of Paul’s Epistles may
pass, in spite of many coarse passages, such as 1 Thess. iv.
3—7. Heb. xiii. 4 and 2 Peter ii. 10—18 both come into
the same category, but it is useless to delay on simple
■coarseness. Revelation slips into the old prophetic inde
cency; Rev. ii. 20—22 and xvii. 1—4 are almost worthy
•of Ezekiel.
Can anyone go through all these passages and have any
•doubt that the Bible—supposing it to be unprotected by
statute—is indictable as an obscene book under the ruling
of the Lord Chief Justice? It is idle to plead that the
writers do not approve the evil deeds they chronicle, and
that it is only in two or three cases that God appears to en
dorse the sin ; no purity of motives on the writers’ parts can
be admitted in excuse (Trial, p. 257). These sensuous stories
■and obscene parables come directly under the censure of the
Lord Chief Justice, and I invite our police authorities to
show their sense of justice by prosecuting the people who
circulate this indictable book, thereby doing all that in them
lies to vitiate and corrupt the morals of the young. If they
will not do this, in common decency they ought to drop
the prosecution against us for selling the “ Fruits of
Philosophy.”
The right way would be to prosecute none of these
books. All that I have intended to do in drawing attention
to the “ obscene ” passages in the Bible, is to show that to
•deal with the sexual relations with a good object—as is
presumably that of the Bible—should not be an indictable
misdemeanour. I do not urge that the Bible should be
prosecuted : I do urge that it is indictable under the present
ruling; and I plead, further, that this very fact shows how
the present ruling is against the public weal. Nothing could
be more unfortunate than to have a large crop of prosecu
tions against the standard writers of old times and of the
present day, and yet this is what is likely to happen, unless
some stop is put to the stupid and malicious prosecution
against ourselves. With one voice, the press of the country
—omitting the Englishman—has condemned the “ foolish ”
verdict and the “ vindictive ” sentence. When that sentence
as carried out, the real battle will begin, and the blame of
�IS THE BIBLE INDICTABLE?
15
the loss and the trouble that will ensue must rest on those
who started this prosecution, and on those who shield the
hidden prosecutor. The Christians, at least, ought to join
with us in reversing the ruling of the Lord Chief Justice,
since their own sacred book is one of those most easily
assailable. The purity that depends on ignorance is a
fragile purity ; the chastity that depends on ignorance is a
fragile chastity; to buttress up ignorance with prison and
fine is a fatal policy; and I call on those who love freedom
and desire knowledge, to join with us in over-ruling by
statute the new judge-made law
��
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
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2018
Publisher
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
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Pamphlet
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Is the Bible indictable? Being an enquiry whether the Bible comes within the ruling of the Lord Chief Justice as to Obscene Literature
Creator
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Besant, Annie Wood [1847-1933]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of Publication: London
Collation: 15 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Printed by Annie Besant and Charles Bradlaugh,28, Stonecutter Street. Date of publication from KVK. Originally published as a series of articles in the National Reformer and later condensed into this pamphlet. Issued during the Besant/Bradlaugh obscenity trial presided over by Lord Chief Justice Cockburn. They were tried for publishing Charles Knowlton's birth control pamphlet entitled 'Fruits of Philosophy'.
Publisher
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Freethought Publishing Company
Date
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[1884]
Identifier
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CT83
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Is the Bible indictable?),identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
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Text
Language
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English
Subject
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Bible
Obscenity (Law)
Bible-Criticism and Interpretation
Charles Bradlaugh
Conway Tracts
Freedom of the Press
Obscenity
-
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29b6681fc7609d85395c8c3aa483fec9
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Text
Cl
REPLY TO A LETTER
FROM
AN EVANGELICAL LAY PREACHER.
BY
PROFESSOR F. W. NEWMAN.
PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SCOTT,
NO. 11, THE TERRACE, FARQUHAR ROAD,
UPPER NORWOOD, LONDON, S.E.
Price Threepence.
�TURNBULL AND SPEARS, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.
�REPLY TO A LETTER
FROM AN EVANGELICAL LAY PREACHER.
Dear Sir,—You apologize for trying to convert one
a quarter of a century your senior, by telling me that
you tremble for my state. You express fear, lest at
my age strength of will may resist your efforts ; in other
words, you suggest that wilfulness is the great obstacle
to my going back to opinions, which, I told you, were
the opinions of my youth; were those to which my
education and early connections biassed me ; which I
held in my early manhood, but long ago renounced, from
finding them untenable. Is not your suggestion of my
wilfulness somewhat insolent ? Knowledge and truth
have all my life been my earnest desire, and have never
encountered resistance from my will.
You earnestly desire to know whether I have
meditated on those words, “ When my flesh and my
heart fail me. . . .” What else can you mean, but
that you expect me to tremble at death ? How many
brave men, not religious, not even in ordinary esteem
moral, lay down their lives, without trembling, in the
cause of duty ! Whence comes your quiet assumption
that other men are cowards ? I leave that to your
reflection. For myself I have only to say, that I regard
premature death a great calamity, but death in ripe age
or full time a divine blessing. Death is God’s ordinance
and gift, as much as life ; each is good in its own time.
As to the common talk, that “ it is a fearful thing to
go into the immediate presence of God,” I reply,
�4
Reply to a Letter from
“ we are already, here and always, in His immediate
presence, and never can be more so.” God is not a
visible, tangible form, but an omnipresent Spirit; and
since He is purely good and wise, no man, be he better
or worse, can have sound reason for wishing not to be
in his immediate presence. Yet a guilty man, no doubt,
may wish it; and, it seems to me, you assume that one
who does not agree with you must have a bad con
science.
You frankly appeal to me, “ must we not all confess
that we are sinners ?” and you add needless protestations
of your own consciousness of being utterly vile. Who
denies that we are all sinners ? I never yet knew a
single fool to doubt it. Why impute such absurdity to
me 1 The tenour of your letters leads me to conjecture
that the necessity of “ atonement by blood ” for sin is
such an axiom with you, that you assume one who
rejects it to be so self-righteous, as not to know that
he is a sinner at all. Taking for granted that I am un
reconciled to God, you generously offer to show me the
way of reconciliation,—Christ 1 and you assure me that
my whole nature was corrupt from birth, and has lost
the image of God in which Adam was created.
I have already told you, that you seem to me to
confound frailty with corruption, but you have not
understood me. Since Adam (according to you) sinned,
his primitive nature was frail, yet you do not call it
corrupt, you say it was created upright. If so, neither
can natural corruption be justly inferred in you, from
the very great vileness which you ascribe to yourself.
If you are corrupt, it is your own doing, your personal
sin ■, your nature at birth was as upright and as frail as
Adam’s, but not corrupt. I admit it was frailer in one
sense than that of your Adam, for he was created, it seems,
a full grown man, we began existence as infants. If,
even with this advantage, he sinned on the first tempta
tion, nothing worse could be done by any of us. We
have not lost any of the image of God which a distant
�an Evangelical Lay Preacher.
5
ancestor of ours possessed. The very idea is dishonour
able to the creator, that he would construct a progenitor
endowed with the power of wrecking his whole posterity
by his own single act. We should bitterly censure a
shipwright, who sent to sea a ship laden with 500
emigrants, that foundered under the first feeble side
breeze. Can any one who means to be pious dare to
impute to Man’s Creator the making such a top-heavy
nature for him, that with one sin of one Adam we all
rolled, millions of millions, into an abyss of perdition,
and need a stupendous effort of divinity to save . . . .
a very few!
Moreover, if the creator responsible for my nature is
not God, but some Adam, and God is ashamed of it as
a bad piece of work, (nay, necessarily hates it, as I
understand you,) then God deals with me as a father
who repudiates an affiliated child, denying that it is
his. Hereby, disowning fatherhood, he forbids me to
call him Creator, or to be grateful for an existence
crippled, bastard, and impotent for good.
You are not satisfied with painting to me this world’s
miseries, but you assure me that—not' through God’s
fault! Oh, no ! but through Adam’s fault—an eternity
of sin lies before the vast mass of mankind. But when,
according to you, that mass is utterly helpless, and the
Creator knew they would be so, what, I repeat, are we
to think of his wisdom and goodness (to say nothing of
his Prescience) in so creating Adam ?
In short, I mark three cardinal and pernicious errors,
which you hold as cardinal truth. 1. That man’s
nature is not as God created or intended it ; but that
the Creator has been outwitted (by the Devil, I suppose)
and poor mankind has to suffer through God’s un
wisdom. 2. The horrible and incredible idea that God
will retain in eternal sensitive existence beings who can
do nothing but sin and suffer; whose sufferings are
compared to everlasting flame. 3. That God cannot
remit sin without shedding of blood, but is reconciled to
�6
Reply to a Letter from
us (or reconciles himself to us? or reconciles us to him
self ?—for I do not know which phrase you adopt) by
the blood of Jesus.
You have twice attempted to urge upon me belief in
the theology of the book of Genesis. I must repeat
more pointedly, what is not my discovery, but that of
Christian divines long ago, .that the theology of that
book is very barbaric. What avails it to offer me a
defence of “ God repented that he had made man”
(words which I have not attacked) when all the
thoughts are alike barbarously crude ? “ Sons of God”
beget “giants” out of daughters of men, and corrupt
the earth. God repents that he has made man, and
destroys him by a universal flood. He saves Noah
with seven others, and with all sorts of beasts, under
wholly impossible conditions, and with a result to the
■distribution of animals as certainly false as the deluge.
After it Noah offers a burnt sacrifice of clean beasts,
and Jehovah, like Homer’s Jupiter, smells a sweet savour;
and sets his rainbow in the cloud as a sign, again
like Homer’s notions. Jehovah also resolves never again
to curse the earth for man’s sake, for, says he, there is
no use in it, so wicked are men ! He might as well have
thought of that before the flood. All is of a piece in
these legends. Jehovah eats roast veal with Abraham,
and teaches him the disgusting rite of circumcision as
a religious duty. He honours Abraham, in the very
base conduct of twice passing off his wife as a sister.
So in Exodus, xxiv. 9-11, he shows himself personally
to the seventy elders and to the nobles of Israel.
Christianity professes higher and purer things than
these, but by pressing on us as alike valuable, alike
true, all parts of that very diverse collection of books
which you call the Bible, you damage all your own
better thoughts.
This Pagan notion of Atonement by Blood you make
cardinal in your Christian gospel. “ It is impossible
that the blood of bulls and goats should take away
�an Evangelical Lay Preacher.
7
sin,” says the writer to the Hebrews. True, and
equally impossible for a marls blood, or, if so you will
have it, a God's blood. To suppose moral sin trans
ferred from one being to another, is a barbarous
absurdity ; to transfer the penalty is immoral. It is
not endured in any approved legislation. Jews insist
that it was not endured in Judaism, only ceremonial
“errors” (Heb. ix. 7) had ceremonial atonement: crime
never had any. I believe this to be correct; but that is
to me a question of history, not of theology. If the
Hebrew law taught the immoral idea that blood could
atone for moral iniquity”, so much the worse for it : but
shall Christian hymns therefore smell of the slaughter
house? Alas ! they do. Far better said Paul, “ offer your
selves as living sacrifices.”—Again: “ Unto Israel, saith
God, I will take no bullock out of thy house ; if I
were hungry, I would not tell thee.” The psalmist
who wrote that, knew the vulgar idea of sacrifice to be
the Pagan one, that the gods needed to partake of the
sweet savour. The Psalms and Prophets have truly
little sympathy with bloodshed for sin. Head the 103rd
Psalm (it is but one out of many), you will find no idea
in it that God wants bloody atonement. This coarse
Paganism, as far as I understand, came in only as
metaphor into the earliest Christianity, and did not
attain its sharpest prosaic form until Archbishop
Anselm under our William Kufus. But, unhappily,
Luther and Calvin adopted Augustine’s doctrines as a
basis, and logically rushed into Anselm’s extreme;
thence it has come to vex and damage Protestantism,
and is now presented to us as the Gospel or Good News,
in connection with a corrupt humanity and an eternal
hell. If you will preach such things, you must truth
fully call them Bad News. Well, said David Hume,
that the Protestant Reformation was checked, when the
generation which followed Calvin found that they
had to choose between believing that God was a wafer
or that God was a cruel tyrant.
�8
Reply to a Letter.
The core of the mischief lies in your monstrous and
unproved assumption that hooks called Holy Scripture,
widely different in age, merit, and doctrine, are all
infallible. To me it is as certain as any fact in the
world, that they are often self-contradictory, foolish,
and barbaric; that they often show extreme credulity
in the narrators, and are convicted of error in every
branch,—moral, and theological, as well as literary and
scientific. The very excellences of their more devo
tional parts (to which I do honour on every fit occasion)
are mischievous, if they are allowed to stamp sanctity
on the baser books, and on the unavoidable errors of
the better. You profess yourself “ not to have patience ”
to read criticism on the Bible by men whom you call
“ enemies of the Bible?’ You must then, either be
careless whether books are spurious, or believe that
you have an inward divine gift to distinguish the
genuine. But as I abhor fictitious authorship, and
know the pernicious results of national credulity; as,
moreover, I have no belief that I or you or any man
can know literary facts of the past by an inward
teaching, you surely ought to see the impossibility of
my receiving divine lessons from you, while you
ground them on the Bible, and flatly decline to give
any reason why, against all my own perceptions and
the result of many years’ anxious study, I am to receive
the Bible as authoritative. It may be just worth while
to observe, that, in particular, the narrative books of
the New Testament seem to me to deserve little credit,
and often to misrepresent events and words grossly
and even recklessly. But I hold morality to be far
more important than theology,—earlier in knowledge
and more solid in foundation. Babes in science may
judge soundly of morality, and by it confute the high
pretensions of cursing theologies.
I am, truly yours,
F. W. Newman.
�
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Title
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
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Title
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Reply to a letter from an evangelical lay preacher
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Newman, Francis William [1805-1897]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 8 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Printed by Turnbull and Spears, Edinburgh. Date of publication from KVK.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Thomas Scott
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[1873]
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
CT212
Subject
The topic of the resource
Bible
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Reply to a letter from an evangelical lay preacher), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Bible-Criticism and Interpretation
Clergy
Conway Tracts
Religious Disputations
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Text
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
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2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Self-contradictions of the Bible. 144 propositions, theological, moral, historical and speculative; each proved affirmatively and negatively by quotations from scripture, without comment; embodying the mot palpable and striking self-contradictions of the so-called inspired word of God
Description
An account of the resource
Edition: Rev. & Enl.
Place of publication: [New York]
Collation: 71, [1] p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Publisher's advertisements on unnumbered page at the end. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Author attribution from WorldCat.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Burr, William Henry
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
[American News Company]
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1872
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
CT24
Subject
The topic of the resource
Bible
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Self-contradictions of the Bible. 144 propositions, theological, moral, historical and speculative; each proved affirmatively and negatively by quotations from scripture, without comment; embodying the mot palpable and striking self-contradictions of the so-called inspired word of God), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
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application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Bible-Controversial literature
Bible-Criticism and Interpretation
Conway Tracts
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PDF Text
Text
2S2.4
THE VOYSEY CASE,
FROM AN
HERETICAL STAND-POINT.
BY
MONCURE D. CONWAY.
PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SCOTT,
MOUNT PLEASANT, RAMSGATE.
Price Sixpence-
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THE VOYSEY CASE,
FROM AN HERETICAL STAND-POINT.
-.... ■»---F the National Church is unable to fill its pews, it
. has at least succeeded of late in filling the air with
gossip. Its recent history has been a series of public
scandals. The excommunication of a heretic is fol
lowed by the insult of the bishops to a Unitarian
invited by themselves to assist in the revision of the
received version of the Bible, and this is succeeded by
the legal reprimand of a Ritualist, all combining to im
press the country with the idea that the Establishment
has come to a pass when “ apostolic blows and knocks ’*
have become the normal condition of its existence.
The most salient feature in the most important of these
events was, perhaps, its inevitableness. The most
zealous adherents of the church plainly recognised
that if Mr Voysey were brought to trial, orthodoxy
could not gain its case except at a heavy cost. They
saw that the trial would be the means of circulating
the heretic’s opinions, and would invest him with the
eminence of a martyr. But the church had no choice.
If a clergyman with such views could retain his
pulpit, there could be no reason why Socinians of
simple Theists should not close their several chapels,
and reinforce the rationalistic party in the church to
an extent that would destroy its distinctive character
and supernatural authority altogether. So the Church
I
�4
The Voysey Case,
was placed at the mercy of the Vicar of Healaugh, and
could only be saved from reviving an antiquated pro
cedure, sure to injure itself more than him, by the
quiet resignation which he refused to accord. There
is a Bavarian fable of a boy gathering strawberries,
who treated with rudeness an aged woman who met
him with a petition for some berries. In return for
this unkindness the old woman gave the boy a fine
casket, out of which, however, when the boy opened
it, came two small worms, which grew in size until
they coiled about the boy’s limbs, and drew him far,
and ever farther, into the dark forest, where he still
wanders in the toils of the mighty serpents. The
myth may express more than the lesson of Bavarian
mothers that small sins swell into fatal habits; it
may describe the miserable necessities which, in the
course of time, may be evolved from the rich casket of
power obtained by a church for its scorn of reason.
Bound fast in the coils of that superstition and bigotry
which it has preferred to progress and charity, it is
drawn into the dark forest to which its selected
masters belong, and cannot free itself even at the
bidding of obvious self-interest. The trial came, and
with it the incidents which have filled all heretics
with delight. For some days Mr Voysey virtually
edited the London papers, and turned the Times into
a rationalistic tract. There was enough orthodox
irritation at this, but it is difficult to rage a fact out of
existence. Nor can it be shown that this advantage
was unfairly gained by Mr Voysey and his fellow-free
thinkers. This charge has been made in various
quarters, and, since it involves the chief features of
importance in the case, it may be well to consider it
more closely.
Soon after the judgment of the Privy Council was
delivered, the Times in a leading article, atoned for
the wide publicity which it had been the chief means
of giving to the views of the heretic, by a remonstrance
which states the case of those who censure Mr
�From an Heretical Stand-Point.
5
Voysey’s position plausibly enough. The Times
says :—
“ Before the most conspicuous tribunal in the
world—for Rome itself can show no such hearings,
no such judgments, or so many readers—Mr Voysey
preaches the Universal Creator and the Loving Father
of all, in clear and lucid contrariety to every doctrine
that could seem to contradict, qualify, or obscure the
first teaching of Nature, and, as he believes, the essen
tial truth of Holy Writ. Nobody can complain that
Mr Voysey has this seeming advantage. Ours is an
atmosphere of discussion. It is our boast to try all
things, and hold fast to that which is good and true.
'But if Mr Voysey, and free inquirers in general, may be
congratulated upon a success which is the very utmost
they can have expected,—the. success of a fair trial
and a world-wide publicity,—it remains to doubt
whether this success, such as it is, has been lawfully
.obtained, and whether Mr Voysey’s position be as
good as he believes his teaching to be. Had he any
right to deny all the distinctive doctrines of his
church, claiming at the same time to be held an honest
subscriber and faithful minister, with no other pos
sible hope than that he might thereby proclaim his
denial the louder and further to all the world? We
cannot think so.”
Passing by the naive confession implied in this pas
sage, that the eminent prosecutors and the Lord
Chancellor cannot hope to gain by publicity as much
advantage for their orthodox views, as Mr Voysey for
his heresies, let us examine the main charge brought
against the integrity of the expelled Vicar’s position.
It is no secret that Mr Voysey had to make up his
mind to press his appeal between parties which urged
him to anticipate an inevitable sentence by a sur
render, and those who besought him to demand the
decision which has been obtained. The latter party
probably regarded the course they advised as per
fectly consistent with a belief that even if Mr Voysey
�6
The Voysey Case,
had gained his case, it would have been his truest
course to leave the church. Even if it could be
shown that, by means of legal technicalities, a teacher
of Mr Voysey’s opinions could manage to escape
expulsion from the church, the far greater moral
question remains, whether a man of earnest convictions,
especially one who believes it his especial task to
maintain them publicly, is justifiable in adhering to
formularies plainly not framed to represent those
convictions, and, at best, capable of expressing them
only- by strained and unusual interpretations. But
conceding that the thirty-nine articles are not the
honest physiognomy of Mr Voysey’s faith, there were
other elements in the relation in which he found him
self to the church which rendered the practical ques
tion of duty far more complex than the theory of his
accusers admits. It is by no means the whole of
Mr Voysey’s case that he courted the publicity which
a trial would secure for his views. As Vicar he was
related not only to the ehurch, but to the nation of
people which that church is endeavouring to enlist in
its service. His position made him for the moment
the representative and spokesman of the religious
rationalism of England, and the only one who could
demand and wring from the church an answer to a
question of paramount importance to every free
inquirer in this land. The question is, .What is the
exact price which the National Church demands for
its advantages ? How much of the young man’s free
dom, how much of his natural reason and conscience,
must be laid down at this step and at that step on
the path of promotion ?
Undoubtedly, it is deplorable that there should be
any such question as this, but that it exists is not the
fault of the rationalists in the country, but of the
church itself. If the terms of the contract between
the clergyman and the church have become so confused
that it is no longer certain whether an entrance to holy
orders signifies an acceptance of the articles in their
�From an Heretical Stand-Point.
7
ordinary sense, it is because the church itself has long
been indulging its eminent beneficiaries in heresy. Such,
indulgence has not been without advantages to the
church. If the church had, during the last two genera
tion, separated, like sheep and goats, all who held to
the creeds and articles in their popular sense, and those
who subscribed them under unusual interpretations, it
would certainly have lost thcFprelatcs and scholars who
have most reached the heart of the people and won the
attention of the world. But if it is an advantage for a
church to be represented in the world of thought and
literature by such men as Whately, Arnold, Baden.
Powell, Thirlwall, Stanley, jowett, Maurice, and Kings
ley, this is an advantage that, like every other, has to
be paid for. The church has long paid for the cham
pions thus drawn from the literary and philosophical
classes by offering them terms upon which they could
enjoy the large opportunities it could give them for
their congenial work. This indulgence of heresy was
extended even to the protection of the writers of the
Essays and Reviews,—a book which denied the super
natural authority of the Bible, the depravity of man,
the benefit of Foreign Missions, and miracles, and whose
heresies were so formidable that even the American
Unitarians declined to republish it in that country.
.And when the prosecution against Bishop Colenso also
failed, it seemed as if there were no limit to the tolera
tion of free thought in the church. The Unitarian
and Theistic Chapels seemed left without a raison
d! titre, and such young men as were inclined to the
ministry were freely saying, “ Surely we can have no
fear in entering a church which tolerates Arian and
Theistic bishops, Darwinian deans, and Socialistic
canons.”
But inside and outside of the church there has been
an increasing perception that this state of things was
morally indefensible. The increase of casuistry was a
ruinous rate at which to obtain toleration in the Estab
lishment, and the prospect of securing a church repre
�8
The Voysey Case,
senting all phases of religious thought was marred by
the danger that such an institution when it came
would equally represent the average Jesuitism of the
nation. The real believers in the articles in their
obvious sense, and they who utterly rejected them,
alike felt that Dr Colenso and Dr Wilberforce could
sit upon the same episcopal bench only by some mere
trick, and that to one or the other the creed was not a
real face but a mask. Rumours were afloat to feed
the misgivings of sincere men of all beliefs. It was
whispered that one divine was in the habit of shifting
the reading of prayers to his Subordinates, and that a
certain bishop was in the habit of prefacing his reading
of the creeds with the announcement that he read them
not as a believer in them, but as an officer of the
Queen. It is creditable to the honesty of the country
that those who were interested in keeping the standard
of church orthodoxy vague, were not strong enough to
overcome the determination that the vagueness should
end, and if the apparent policy of the church to embrace
all varieties of opinion were proved to be final, that its
formularies should be altered to suit the fact. To
compel this issue and decision no case could have been
more perfect and opportune than that of Mr Voysey.
The church had indeed tolerated all his heresies, but it
had tolerated them as distributed through many in
dividuals, each of whom held his segment of rationalism
in connection with such an eminent or even courtly
following, or held it with such dexterity of statement,
that he could not be made a fair test, and remained in
the church as its bait for clever young men. But all
these heresies converged at last in one man. The
honest orthodoxy of the church at last saw all the
Broad Church heretics with one neck, that neck being
Rev. Charles Voysey’s; and the outside world saw that
the destiny of the church depended upon whether that
neck could be cut off or not.
This, then, was a much greater aim than that mere
publicity for his opinions which, the Times says, was
the utmost success Mr Voysey could hope to obtain.
�from, an Heretical Stand-Point.
9
He and his friends aimed to compel the Church to
show its hand, and their right—their duty—to do so
was as clear as their intention was manifest. Are we
told that a man ought not, and need not, to enter holy
orders without knowing distinctly the terms of the con
tract to which he commits himself, and that if he dis
cover afterwards that he cannot fulfil his part of it he
should quietly resign the corresponding advantages ?
To this it may be replied (1.) that, for the reasons
already stated, the clergyman cannot—or hitherto could
not—know just what he was committing himself to.
The Church itself, by the retention of the more emi
nent or dexterous heretics, has confused the sense of
subscription at the very moment that it has increased
the inducements to it. Does the subscriber commit
himself to the opinions of Dr Pusey or Professor
Jowett?—to those of Dr Liddon or those of Dean
Stanley? It is not the Voseys who have produced
this confusion. Nay, (2.) so far from aiding the young
divinity-student, before whom the same Church lays
the Essays and Reviews and the Prayer-book, to avoid
the error of committing himself to its work prematurely,
it waylays him at a period of life when his future con
clusions cannot be foreseen, and with profferred fellow
ships and livings bribes him to take the dangerous
step. If he hesitate, the Church eagerly rebukes his
hesitation, and lures him on to the false position, in
stead of encouraging the utmost caution. From the
first moment that it gets hold of a single finger of him
the Church watches him jealously to manipulate his
mind for its own purposes. No sooner does the stu
dent begin to follow Archbishop Whately’s advice,
and misgive that he may not mistake, than the Church
addresses itself to the work of repressing the misgiv
ings, and furthering the mistake until it is irretriev
able. No sooner does the youth begin to doubt and
inquire than he is surrounded by weeping friends and
sighing parsons, who grieve over him and pray over
him, until, envying perhaps the old martyrs who were
�io
The Voysey Case,
simply burnt, the sensitive heart yields itself to fetters
forged from its^own affections. If any one thinks that
this is an exaggerated statement of the fact, let him
read the life of Dr Arnold, written by Dr Stanley. A
sceptic from boyhood, Arnold no sooner turned his
eyes upon the doctrine of a Trinity than he doubted it.
Straightway clerical friends whisper, and mourn over
him as if he had been guilty of some crime, and at
length they hit upon a plan for him. It is not to
warn him that if he enters the Church it will be a risk
to his own character, and a danger to the Church: the
scheme is,—and John Keble is to be credited with it,
—Let us make haste and harness Arnold in the Church!
Before he has time to think any more, get him in a
living, and committed to parish work I (3.) The youth
thus bribed and ensnared into the Church, if, as in the
case of Mr Voysey and many others, he discover that
he is out of his place, has been seriously wronged.
The best years of his preparation for the work of life
have been devoted to a career which he must now
abandon; and this grave injury is enhanced by the
grossly unjust disabilities which legally close against
one who had entered holy orders the awards of poli
tical life, and the professions in which his special
studies might still be of some service.
These, then, are the facts which have to be con
sidered in estimating the rights and duties of a man in
the position of Mr Voysey, who, having entered the
ministry of the church in good faith, arrives at con
clusions whose consistency with the articles he has
subscribed is questionable. Surely he has a right to
decide how he can make the misstep, for which he is
in the smallest degree responsible, the most con
spicuous warning to other young men who are being
lured into holy orders, of the fetters that await them;
and it is difficult to see how he could do so more
effectually than by compelling the Lord Chancellor
to pronounce solemnly that the simple and clear views
of natural religion held by himself are forbidden to
�From an Heretical Stand-Point.
-II
the beneficiaries of the National Church. The decision
is given, and our feet rest upon truth more firmly
than before.
It remains to inquire whether that decision, while
showing us more clearly where we stand, reveals a moral
.and religious state of things worthy of England, or
worthy of the intelligence and the conscience of this
age.
To what does the judgment of the Lord Chancellor
amount?
It distinctly affirms 1, that “ Christ bore the punish
ment .due to our sins, and suffered in our stead,” and
that “ He was crucified to reconcile His Father to us
/that is, to mankind), and was a sacrifice,”—sacrifice
also being defined as an “ offering to God.” 2. It
asserts the existence of “ original dr birth sin,” that
such sin u exists in every one descended from Adam; ”
that children are by nature “childrenof God’s wrath;”
and that it was for this original sin that Christ was a
sacrifice. 3. It re-affirms the Nicene and Athanasian
creeds, the doctrine of a Trinity, and declares that JesuS
was supernaturally conceived, that he is to be worshipped
as God, and that he will return as the Judge of the
earth on the last day. 4. It declares that no clergyman
has a right “upon his own taste and judgment, to
assert that whole passages of the canonical books are
without any authority whatever,” or can “ expound
one part of Scripture as repugnant to another.” These
.points represent the substance of the thirteen counts
which have been sustained in the indictment against
Mr Voysey. They represent the plain creed freshly
labelled upon every clergyman who stands in a pulpit
of the National Church.
No one can read the passages from Mr Voysey’s
Sling and Stone, which are held to be in contravention
with the above creed, without recognizing that they are
such as are familiar in the writings of the Broad Church
clergy. No one acquainted with the teachings of the
leaders of that school can doubt that the new heretic
�12
The Voysey Case,
has fed upon them, or that he honestly represents the
substance and tendency of their belief. It maybe
doubted whether Mr Voysey, before leaving.the church,
might not have very properly availed himself of the
opportunity for retractation offered him, and asserted
that he believed the Thirty-nine Articles as they are
interpreted by the distinguished theologians and officials
of the church, whose opinions he quoted in his defence.
When he offered those quotations, the court, unable to
break their force, evaded it by saying that the line of
argument implied that it should try the cases of each
of the distinguished divines in question. The evasion
was sufficient for the convenience of-the Judicial Com
mittee of the Privy Council; but it was insufficient to
alter the fact that the court was necessarily trying the
divines in question, and was compelled to sentence
them along with Mr Voysey. To each and all of them,
—bishops, deans, canons, clergymen,—the Church and
State with authoritative voice have said, “You hold
your positions illegally and dishonestly, unless you
believe that God is an angry and jealous monarch, and
man a child of Satan, and unless you believe unre
servedly all the statements contained in the Bible.”
One word further about the offer to Mr Voysey of
an opportunity for retractation. How grand and
worthy a proposition is this for a church representing
the national morals to make! Only say you believe
what you do not believe, says the church, and you are
quite welcome to. our pulpit! If Mr Voysey had fol
lowed the example of Cranmer, and put forward a
retractation to be itself retracted at the end, one can
imagine its character to be somewhat as follows:—
. “ I hereby renounce and deplore my wicked belief
that God is a loving Father. I affirm, on the con
trary, my faith that He is a jealous and wrathful being,
who will torture untold millions of men, women, and
children by fire for ever. I hold accursed my former
belief, that God is just and merciful, and affirm that
even the eating of a piece of forbidden apple by a
�From an Heretical Stand-Point.
13
man who lived six thousand years ago, was enough ta
make Him damn the whole human race to eternal
misery,—a curse which would have been carried into
execution, had it not been for the timely interference
of a certain Pontius Pilate, who, assisted by one
Judas, sacrificed to God the blood of the most innocent
being in the world, the sight of which blood so pleased
God, that He was prevailed upon to save from the
said damnation a select few at least of mankind.
Asking forgiveness of the Church for all I have said
to the contrary, I now declare my implicit belief
that a certain Jewish peasant was born 1871 years
ago without a human father, and that he was Almighty
God. Also that three are one, and one is three. I
believe that a serpent in Eden and Balaam’s ass
talked, and that Jonah resided three days and nights
in a whale’s belly, whence he emerged quite safe. I
believe that soothsayers turned rods to snakes; in the
existence of sorcerers and witches and devils. I be
lieve that all new-born babes are totally depraved, and
that God looks upon them with feelings of anger.
And finally, I believe that all who do not believe
these things shall without doubt perish everlastingly!”
This is a retractation which every eminent clergy
man of the Broad Church really makes in the hearing
of the world every time he ascends a pulpit, or offici
ates in any way, since the Lord Chancellor’s judgment.
No protest against that judgment cantear off the creed
which now adheres to each of them, plainly legible in
the eyes of the world. There it will adhere until they
can reverse the judgment, or bring themselves to say
with John Sterling—Adieu, O Church ! The world
will await with anxiety, perhaps with some sternness,
their action. It may sympathise with them as they
approach the dregs of their cup, but the situation
admits of no concealment, and the truth cannot be
compromised. Mr Voysey is their child. They have
nourished and reared him. Whatever may be their
views of the dogma of vicarious suffering, there will be
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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The Voysey case, from an heretical stand-point
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Conway, Moncure Daniel [1832-1907.]
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 14, [2] p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Part of Morris Miscellaneous Tracts 4. Publisher's list on unnumbered pages at the end. Date of publication from KVK.
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Thomas Scott
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[1871]
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G4861
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Heresy
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Bible-Criticism and Interpretation
Charles Voysey
Heresy
Morris Tracts
-
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Text
NATld^AL SECULAR SOCIETY
FOUNDATIONS OF FAITH
A LECTURE
ROBERT G. INGERSOLL
London :
R. FORDER, 28 STONECUTTER STREET, E.C.
1896
��THE FOUNDATIONS OF FAITH.
I.
THE OLD TESTAMENT.
One of the foundation stones of our faith is the Old Testa
ment. If that book is not true, if its authors were unaided
men, if it contains blunders and falsehoods, then that stone
crumbles to dust.
The geologists demonstrated that the author of Genesis
was mistaken as to the age of the world, and that the story
of the universe having been created in six days, about six
thousand years ago, could not be true.
The theologians then took the ground that the “ days ”
spoken of in Genesis wrere periods of time, epochs, six
“ long whiles,” and that the work of creation might have
been commenced millions of years ago.
The change of days into epochs was considered by the
believers of the Bible as a great triumph over the hosts of
infidelity. The fact that Jehovah had ordered the Jews to
keep the Sabbath, giving as a reason that he had made the
world in six days and rested on the seventh, did not interfere
with the acceptance of the “ epoch ” theory.
But there is still another question. How long has man
been upon the earth ?
According to the Bible, Adam was certainly the first man,
and in his case the epoch theory cannot change the account.
The Bible gives the age at which Adam died, and gives the
generations to the flood—then to Abraham, and so on, and
shows that from the creation of Adam to the birth of Christ
it was about four thousand and four years.
�4
THE FOUNDATIONS OF FAITH.
According to the sacred Scriptures, man has been on this
earth five thousand eight hundred and ninety-nine years, and
no more.
Is this true ?
Geologists have divided a few years of the world’s history
into periods, reaching from the azoic rocks to the soil of our
time. With most of these periods they associate certain
forms of life, so that it is known that the lowest forms of life
belonged with the earliest periods, and the higher with the
more recent. It is also known that certain forms of life
existed in Europe many ages ago, and that many thousands,
of years ago these forms disappeared.
For instance, it is well established that at one time there
lived in Europe, and in the British Islands, some of the
most gigantic mammals, the mammoth, the woolly-haired
rhinoceros, the Irish elk, elephants, and other forms that
have in those countries become extinct. Geologists say that
many thousands of years have passed since these animals
ceased to inhabit those countries.
It was during the Drift Period that these forms of life
existed in Europe and England, and that must have been
hundreds of thousands of years ago.
In caves, once inhabited by men, have been'"found
implements of flint and the bones of these extinct animals.
With the flint tools man had split the bones of these beasts
that he might secure the marrow for food.
Many such caves and hundreds of such tools, and of such
bones, have been found. And we now know that in the
Drift Period man was the companion of these extinct
monsters.
It is therefore certain that many, many thousands of years
before Adam lived, men, women, and children inhabited the
earth.
It is certain that the account in the Bible of the creation
of the first man is a mistake. It is certain that the inspired
writers knew nothing about the origin of man.
Let me give you another fact :—
The Egyptians were astronomers. A few years ago
representations of the stars were found on the walls of an
old temple, and it was discovered by calculating backward
that the stars did occupy the exact positions as represented
about seven hundred and fifty years before Christ. After
�THE OLD TESTAMENT.
5
wards another representation of the stars was found, and,
by calculating in the same way, it was found that the stars
did occupy the exact positions about three thousand eight
hundred years before Christ.
According to the Bible, the first man was created four
thousand and four years before Christ. If this is true, then
Egypt was founded, its language formed, its arts cultivated,
its astronomical discoveries made and recorded about two
hundred years after the creation of the first man.
In other words, Adam was two or three hundred years
old when the Egyptian astronomers made these representa
tions.
Nothing can be more absurd.
Again I say that the writers of the Bible were mistaken.
How do I know ?
According to that same Bible, there was a flood some
fifteen or sixteen hundred years after Adam was created
that destroyed the entire human race with the exception of
eight persons; and, according to the Bible, the Egyptians
descended from one of the sons of Noah. How, then, did
the Egyptians represent the stars in the position they
occupied twelve hundred years before the Flood ?
No one pretends that Egypt existed as a nation before the
Flood. Yet the astronomical representations found must
have been made more than a thousand years before the
world was drowned.
There is another mistake in the Bible.
According to that book, the sun was made after the earth
was created.
Is this true ?
Did the earth exist before the sun ?
The men of science are believers in the exact opposite.
They believe that the earth is a child of the sun—that the
earth, as well as the other planets belonging to our constel
lation, came from the sun.
The writers of the Bible were mistaken.
There is another point :—
According to the Bible, Jehovah made the world in six
days, and the work done each day is described. What did
Jehovah do on the second day?
This is the record :—
“ And God said : Let there be a firmament in the midst
�6
THE FOUNDATIONS OF FAITH.
of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters
And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which
were under the firmament from the waters which were above
the firmament. And it was so, and God called the firmament
heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second
day.”
The writer of this believed in a solid firmament—the
floor of Jehovah’s house. He believed that the waters had
been divided, and that the rain came from above the
firmament. He did not understand the fact of evapora
tion—did not know that the rain came from the water on
the earth.
Now, we know that there is no firmament, and we know
that the waters are not divided by a firmament. Conse
quently we know that, according to the Bible, Jehovah did
nothing on the second day. He must have rested on Tues
day. This being so, we ought to have two Sundays a week.
Can we rely on the historical parts of the Bible ?
Seventy souls went down into Egypt, and in two hundred
and fifteen years increased to three millions. They could
not have doubled more than four times a century. Say
nine times in two hundred and fifteen years.
This makes thirty-five thousand eight hundred and forty
(35,840), instead of three millions.
Can we believe the accounts of the battles ?
Take one instance:—
Jereboam had an army of eight hundred thousand men,
Abijah of four hundred thousand. They fought. The
Lord was on Abijah’s side, and he killed five hundred
thousand of Jereboam’s men.
All these soldiers were Jews—all lived in Palestine, a
poor, miserable little country about one-quarter as large as
the State of New York. Yet one million two hundred
thousand soldiers were put in the field. This required a
population in the country of ten or twelve millions. Of
course this is absurd. Palestine in its palmiest days could
not have supported two millions of people.
The soil is poor.
If the Bible is inspired, is it true ?
We are told by this inspired book of the gold and silver
collected by King David for the temple—the temple after
wards completed by the virtuous Solomon.
�THE OLD TESTAMENT.
7
According to the blessed Bible, David collected about
two thousand million dollars in silver, and five thousand
million dollars in gold, making a total of seven thousand
million dollars.
Is this true ?
There is in the Bank of France at the present time (1895)
nearly six hundred million dollars, and, so far as we know,
it is the greatest amount that was ever gathered together.
All the gold now known, coined and in bullion, does not
amount to much more than the sum collected by David.
Seven thousand millions. Where did David get this
gold? The Jews had no commerce. They owned no
ships. They had no great factories, they produced nothing
for other countries. There were no gold or silver mines in
Palestine. Where, then, was this gold, this silver found ?
I will tell you: In the imagination of a writer who had
more patriotism than intelligence, and who wrote, not for
the sake of truth, but for the glory of the Jews.
Is it possible that David collected nearly eight thousand
tons of gold—that he by economy got together about sixty
thousand tons of silver, making a total of gold and silver of
sixty-eight thousand tons ?
The average freight car carries about fifteen tons—David’s
gold and silver would load about four thousand five hundred
and thirty-three cars, making a train about thirty-two miles
in length. And all this for the temple at Jerusalem, a
building ninety feet long and forty-five feet high and thirty
wide, to which was attached a porch thirty feet wide, ninety
feet long, and one hundred and eighty feet high.
Probably the architect was inspired.
Is there a sensible man in the world who believes that
David collected seven thousand million dollars worth of
gold or silver ?
There is hardly five thousand million dollars of gold now
used as money in the whole world. Think of the millions
taken from the mines of California, Australia, and Africa
during the present century, and yet the total scarcely
exceeds the amount collected by King David more than a
thousand years before the birth of Christ. Evidently the
inspired historian made a mistake.
It required a little imagination and a few ciphers to
change seven million dollars or seven hundred thousand
�8
THE FOUNDATIONS OF FAITH,
dollars into seven thousand million dollars. Drop four
ciphers, and the story becomes fairly reasonable.
The Old Testament must be thrown aside. It is no
longer a foundation. It has crumbled.
II.
THE NEW TESTAMENT.
But we have the New Testament, the sequel of the Old, in
which Christians find the fulfilment of prophecies made by
inspired Jews.
The New Testament vouches for the truth, the inspiration
of the Old; and if the Old is false, the New cannot be true.
In the New Testament we find all that we know about
the life and teachings of Jesus Christ.
It is claimed that the writers were divinely inspired, and.
that all they wrote is true.
Let us see if these writers agree.
Certainly there should be no difference about the birth of
Christ. From the Christian’s point of view, nothing could
have been of greater importance than that event.
Matthew says : “ Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem
of Judea, in the days of Herod the King, behold there came
wise men from the East to Jerusalem.
“ Saying, where is he that is born king of the Jews ? for
we have seen his star in the East, and are come to worship
him.”
Matthew does not tell us who these wise men were, from
what country they came, to what race they belonged. He
did not even know their names.
We are also informed that when Herod heard these
things he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him; that
he gathered the chief priests and asked of them where
Christ should be born, and they told him that he was to be
born in Bethlehem.
�THE NEW TESTAMENT.
9
Then Herod called the wise men and asked them when
the star appeared, and told them to go to Bethlehem and
report to him.
When they left Herod, the star again appeared, and went
before them until it stood over the place where the child
was.
When they came to the child they worshipped him—
gave him gifts, and, being warned by God in a dream, they
went back to their own country without calling on Herod.
Then the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a
dream, and told him to take Mary and the child into
Egypt for fear of Herod.
So Joseph took Mary and the child to Egypt, and
remained there until the death of Herod.
Then Herod, finding that he was mocked by the wise
men, “ sent forth and slew all the children that were in
Bethlehem and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old
and under.”
After the death of Herod, an angel again appeared in
a dream to Joseph, and told him to take mother and child
and go back to Palestine.
So he went back and dwelt in Nazareth.
Is this story true? Must we believe in the star and the
wise men ? Who were these wise men ? From what
country did they come ? What interest had they in the
birth of the King of the Jews ? What became of them and
their star ?
Of course I know that the Holy Catholic Church has in
her keeping the three skulls that belonged to these wise men;
but I do not know where the Church obtained these relics,
nor exactly how their genuineness has been established.
Must we believe that Herod murdered the babes of
Bethlehem ?
Is it not wonderful that the enemies of Herod did not
charge him with this horror ? Is it not marvellous that
Mark and Luke and John forgot to mention this most
heartless of massacres ?
Luke also gives an account of the birth of Christ. He
says that there went out a decree from Csesar Augustus that
all the world should be taxed; that this was when Cyrenius
was governor of Syria; that, in accordance with this decree,
Joseph and Mary went to Bethlehem to be taxed ; that at
�IO
THE FOUNDATIONS OF FAITH.
that place Christ was born and laid in a manger. He also
says that shepherds in the neighborhood were told of the
birth by an angel, with whom was a multitude of the
heavenly host; that these shepherds visited Mary and the
child, and told others what they had seen and heard.
He tells us that after eight days the child was named
Jesus; that forty days after his birth he was taken by
Joseph and Mary to Jerusalem ; and that, after they had
performed all things according to the law, they returned to
Nazareth. Luke also says that the child grew and waxed
strong in spirit, and that his parents went every year to
Jerusalem.
Do the accounts in Matthew and Luke agree ? Can both
accounts be true ?
Luke never heard of the star, and Matthew knew nothing
of the heavenly host. Luke never heard of the wise men,
nor Matthew of the shepherds. Luke knew nothing of the
hatred of Herod, the murder of the babes, or the flight into
Egypt. According to Matthew, Joseph, warned by an angel,
took Mary and the child and fled into Egypt. According
to Luke, they all went to Jerusalem, and from there back to
Nazareth.
Both of these accounts cannot be true. Will some Chris
tian scholar tell us which to believe ?
When was Christ born ?
Luke says that it took place when Cyrenius was governor.
Here is another mistake. Cyrenius was not appointed
governor until after the death of Herod, and the taxing
could not have taken place until ten years after the alleged
birth of Christ.
According to Luke, Joseph and Mary lived in Nazareth,
and for the purpose of getting them to Bethlehem, so that
the child could be born in the right place, the taxing under
Cyrenius was used; but the writer, being “inspired,” made
a mistake of about ten years as to the time of the taxing and
of the birth.
Matthew says nothing about the date of the birth, except
that he was born when Herod was king. It is now known
that Herod had been dead ten years before the taxing under
Cyrenius. So, if Luke tells the truth, Joseph, being warned
by an angel, fled from the hatred of Herod ten years after
Herod was dead. If Matthew and Luke are both right,
�THE NEW TESTAMENT.
11
Christ was taken to Egypt ten years before he was born, and
Herod killed the babes ten years after he was dead.
Will some Christian scholar have the goodness to harmonise
these “ inspired ” accounts ?
There is another thing.
Matthew and Luke both try to show that Christ was of the
blood of David, that he was a descendant of that virtuous king.
As both of these writers were inspired, and as both
received their information from God, they ought to agree.
According to Matthew, there were between David and
Jesus twenty-seven generations, and he gives all the names.
According to Luke, there were between David and Jesus
forty-two generations, and he gives all the names.
In these genealogies—both inspired—there is a difference
between David and Jesus, a difference of some fourteen or
fifteen generations.
Besides, the names of all the ancestors are different, with
two exceptions.
Matthew says that Joseph’s father was Jacob. Luke says
that Heli was Joseph’s father.
Both of these genealogies cannot be true, and the proba
bility is that both are false.
There is not in all the pulpits ingenuity enough to har
monise these ignorant and stupid contradictions.
There are many curious mistakes in the words attributed
to Christ.
We are told in Matthew (chapter xxiii., verse 35) that
Christ said :
“ That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed
upon the earth from the blood of righteous Abel unto the
blood of Zacharias, son of Barachias, whom ye slew between
the temple and the altar.”
It is certain that these words were not spoken by Christ.
He could not by any possibility have known that the blood
of Zacharias had been shed. As a matter of fact, Zacharias
was killed by the Jews, during the siege of Jerusalem by
Titus, and this siege took place seventy-one years after the
birth of Christ, thirty-eight years after he was dead.
There is still another mistake.
Zacharias was not the son of Barachias—no such
Zacharias was killed. The Zacharias that was slain was
the son of Barueh.
�12
THE FOUNDATIONS OF FAITH.
But we must not expect the “ inspired ” to be accurate.
Matthew says that at the time of the crucifixion—“ the
graves were opened, and that many bodies of the saints
which slept arose and came out of their graves after his
resurrection, and went into the holy city and appeared unto
many.”
According to this, the graves were opened at the time of
the crucifixion, but the dead did not arise and come out
until after the resurrection of Christ.
They were polite enough to sit in their open graves and
wait for Christ to rise first.
To whom did these saints appear ? What became of
them ? Did they slip back into their graves and commit
suicide?
Is it not wonderful that Mark, Luke, and John never
heard of these saints ?
What kind of saints were they ? Certainly they were not
Christian saints.
So, the inspired writers do not agree in regard to Judas.
Certainly the inspired writers ought to have known what
happened to Judas, the betrayer. Matthew, being duly
“ inspired,” says that when Judas saw that Jesus had been
condemned, he repented and took back the money to the
chief priests and elders, saying that he had sinned in
betraying the innocent blood. They said to him : “ What
is that to us? See thou to that.” Then Judas threw down
the pieces of silver and went and hanged himself.
The chief priests then took the pieces of silver and bought
the potter’s field to bury strangers in, and it is called the
field of blood.
We are told in Acts of the Apostles that Peter stood
up in the midst of the disciples and said : “ Now this man
(Judas) purchased a field with the reward of iniquity—and,
falling headlong, he burst asunder and all his bowels gushed
out—that field is called the field of blood.”
Matthew says Judas repented and gave back the money.
Peter says that he bought a field with the money.
Matthew says that Judas hanged himself. Peter says
that he fell down and burst asunder. Which of these
accounts is true ?
Besides, it is hard to see why Christians hate, loathe, and
despise Judas. According to their scheme of salvation, it
�THE NEW TESTAMENT.
13
was absolutely necessary that Christ should be killed—
necessary that he should be betrayed; and, had it not been
for Judas, all the world, including Christ’s mother, and
the part of Christ that was human, would have gone to
hell.
Yet, according to the New Testament, Christ did not
know that one of his disciples was to betray him.
Jesus, when on his way to Jerusalem for the last time,
said, speaking to the twelve disciples, Judas being present,
that they, the disciples, should thereafter sit on twelve
thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.
Yet, more than a year before this journey, John says that
Christ said, speaking to the twelve disciples : “ Have not I
chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil ?” And John
adds : “ He spake of Judas Iscariot, for it was he that
should betray him.”
Why did Christ, a year afterwards, tell Judas that he
should sit on a throne and judge one of the tribes of
Israel?
There is still another trouble.
Paul says that Jesus after his resurrection appeared to
the twelve disciples. According to Paul, Jesus appeared to
Judas with the rest.
Certainly Paul had not heard the story of the betrayal.
Why did Christ select Judas as one of his disciples,
knowing that he would betray him ? Did he desire to be
betrayed ? Was it his intention to be put to death ?
Why did he fail to defend himself before Pilate?
According to the accounts, Pilate wanted to save him.
Did Christ wish to be convicted?
The Christians are compelled to say that Christ intended
to be sacrificed—that he selected Judas with that end in
view, and that he refused to defend himself because he
desired to be crucified. All this is in accordance with the
horrible idea that without the shedding of blood there is no
remission of sin.
�14
THE FOUNDATIONS OF FAITH.
III.
JEHOVAH.
God the Father.
The Jehovah of the Old Testament is the God of the
Christians.
He it was who created the universe, who made all
substance, all force, all life, from nothing. He it is who
has governed and still governs the world. He has established
and destroyed empires and kingdoms, despotisms and
republics. He has enslaved and liberated the sons of men.
He has caused the sun to rise on the good and on the evil,
and his rain to fall on the just and the unjust.
This shows his goodness.
He has caused his volcanoes to devour the good and the
bad, his cyclones to wreck and rend the generous and the
cruel, . his floods to drown the loving and the hateful, his
lightning to kill the virtuous and the vicious, his famines to
starve the innocent and criminal, and his plagues to destroy
the wise and good, the ignorant and wicked. He has
allowed his enemies to imprison, to torture, and to kill his
friends. He has permitted blasphemers to flay his wor
shippers alive, to dislocate their joints upon racks, and to
burn them at the stake. He has allowed men to enslave
their brothers, and to sell babes from the breasts of
mothers.
This shows his impartiality.
The pious negro who commenced his prayer, “ O thou
great and unscrupulous God,” was nearer right than he knew.
Ministers ask : Is it possible for God to forgive man ?
And when I think of what has been suffered—of the
centuries of agony and tears, I ask : Is it possible for man
to forgive God ?
How do Christians prove the existence of their God ?
Is it possible to think of an infinite being ? Does the word
God correspond with any image in the mind ? Does the
word God stand for what we know, or for what we do not
know?
�JEHOVAH.
15
Is not this unthinkable God a guess, an inference ?
Can we think of a being without form, without body,
without parts, without passions ? Why should we speak of
a being without body as of the masculine gender?
Why should the Bible speak of this God as a man—of
his walking in the garden in the cool of the evening—of
his talking, hearing, and smelling? If he has no passions,
why is he spoken of as jealous, revengeful, angry, pleased,
and loving?
In the Bible, God is spoken of as a person in the form
of man, journeying from place to place, as having a home,
and occupying a throne. These ideas have been abandoned,
and now the Christian’s God is the infinite, the incompre
hensible, the formless, bodiless, and passionless.
Of the existence of such a being there can be, in the
nature of things, no evidence.
Confronted with the universe, with fields of space sown
thick with stars, with all there is of life, the wise man, being
asked the origin and destiny of all, replies : “ I do not
know. These questions are beyond the powers of my
mind.” The wise man is thoughtful and modest. He
clings to facts. Beyond his intellectual horizon he does
not pretend to see. He does not mistake hope for evidence,
or desire for demonstration. He is honest. He neither
deceives himself nor others.
The theologian arrives at the unthinkable, the incon
ceivable, and he calls this God.
The scientist arrives
at the unthinkable, the inconceivable, and calls it the
Unknown.
The theologian insists that his inconceivable governs the
world ; that it, or he, or they, can be influenced by prayers
and ceremonies; that it, or he, or they, punishes and
rewards; that it, or he, or they, has priests and temples.
The scientist insists that the Unknown is not changed, so
far as he knows, by prayers of people or priests. He admits
that he does not know whether the Unknown is good or
bad—whether he, or it, wants; or whether he, or it, is worthy
of worship. He does not say that the Unknown is God,
that it created substance and force, life and thought. He
simply says that of the Unknown he knows nothing.
.Why should Christians insist that a God of infinite
wisdom, goodness, and power governs the world ?
�16
THE FOUNDATIONS OF FAITH.
Why did he allow millions of his children to be enslaved ?
Why did he allow millions of mothers to be robbed of their
babes ? Why has he allowed injustice to triumph ? Why
has he permitted the innocent to be imprisoned, and the
good to be burned ? Why has he withheld his rain and
starved millions of the children of men ? Why has he
allowed the volcanoes to destroy, the earthquakes to devour,
and the tempest to wreck and rend ?
IV.
THE TRINITY.
The New Testament informs us that Christ was the son of
Joseph and the son of God, and that Mary was his mother.
How is it established that Christ was the son of God ?
It is said that Joseph was told so in a dream by an angel.
But Joseph wrote nothing on that subject—said nothing,
so far as we know. Mary wrote nothing, said nothing.
The angel that appeared to Joseph, or that informed
Joseph, said nothing to anybody else. Neither has the
Holy Ghost, the supposed father, ever said or written one
word. We have received no information from the parties
who could have known anything on the subject. We get
all our facts from those who could not have known.
How is it possible to prove that the Holy Ghost was the
father of Christ ?
Who knows that such a being as the Holy Ghost ever
existed ?
How was it possible for Mary to know anything about
the Holy Ghost ?
How could Joseph know that he had been visited by an
angel in a dream ?
Could he know that the visitor was an angel ? It all
occurred in a dream, and poor Joseph was asleep. What is
the testimony of one who was asleep worth ?
�THE TRINITY.
17
All the evidence we have is, that somebody who wrote
part of the New Testament says that the Holy Ghost was
the father of Christ, and that somebody who wrote another
part of the New Testament says that Joseph was the father
of Christ.
Matthew and Luke give the genealogy, and both show
that Christ was the son of Joseph.
The “ Incarnation ” has to be believed without evidence.
There is no way in which it can be established. It is
beyond the reach and realm of reason. It defies observa
tion, and is independent of experience.
It is claimed not only that Christ was the Son of God,
but that he was, and is, God.
Was he God before he was born ? Was the body of
Mary the dwelling place of God ?
What evidence have we that Christ was God ?'
Somebody has said that Christ claimed that God was his
father, and that he and his father were one. We do not
know who this somebody was, and do not know from whom
he received his information.
Somebody who was “ inspired ” has said that Christ was
of the blood of David through his father, Joseph.
This is all the evidence we have.
Can we believe that God, the creator of the universe,
learned the trade of a carpenter in Palestine—that he
gathered a few disciples about him, and, after teaching for
about three years, suffered himself to be crucified by a few
ignorant and pious Jews ?
Christ, according to the faith, is the second person in the
Trinity, the Father being the first and the Holy Ghost the
third. Each of these three persons is God. Christ is his
own father and his own son. The Holy Ghost is neither
father nor son, but both. The son was begotten by the
father, but existed before he was begotten—just the same
before as after. Christ is just as old as his father, and the
father is just as young as his son. The Holy Ghost
proceeded from the Father and Son, but was equal to the
Father and Son before he proceeded—that is to say, before
he existed ; but he is of the same age as the other two.
So it is declared that the Father is God, and the Son
God, and the Holy Ghost God, and that these three Gods
make one God.
�18
THE FOUNDATIONS OF FAITH.
According to the celestial multiplication table, once one
is three, and three times one is one; and, according to
heavenly subtraction, if wjs take two from three, three are
left. The addition is equally peculiar : if we add two to
one, we have but one. Each one is equal to himself and
the other t,wo. Nothing ever was, nothing ever can be,
more perfectly idiotic and absurd than the dogma of the
Trinity.
How is it possible to prove the existence of the Trinity ?
Is it possible for a human being, who has been born but
once, to comprehend, or to imagine the existence of, three
beings each of whom is equal to the three ?
Think of one of these beings as the father of one, and
think of that one as half human and all God, and think of
the third as having proceeded from the other two, and
then think of all three as one. Think that, after the father
begot the son, the father was still alone; and after the
Holy Ghost proceeded from the father and the son, the
father was still alone—because there never was, and never
will be, but one God.
At this point, absurdity having reached its limit, nothing
more can be said except “Let us pray.”
V.
THE THEOLOGICAL CHRIST.
In the New Testament we find the teachings and sayings
of Christ. If we say that the book is inspired, then we
must admit that Christ really said all the things attributed
to him by the various writers. If the book is inspired, we
must accept it all. We have no right to reject the contra
dictory and absurd, and accept the reasonable and good.
We must take it all just as it is.
�THE THEOLOGICAL CHRIST.
19
My own observation has led me to believe that men are
generally consistent in their theories and inconsistent in
their lives.
So I think that Christ in his utterances was true to his
theory, to his philosophy.
If I find in the Testament sayings of a contradictory
character, I conclude that some of those sayings were never
uttered by him. The sayings that are, in my judgment, in
accordance with what I believe to have been his philosophy,
I accept, and the others I throw away.
There are some of his sayings which show him to have
been a devout Jew; others that he wished to destroy
Judaism ; others showing that he held all people except the
Jews in contempt, and that he wished to save no others;
others showing that he wished to convert the world; still
others showing that he was forgiving, self-denying, and
loving ; others that he was revengeful and malicious; others
that he was an ascetic, holding all human ties in utter con
tempt.
The following passages show that Christ was a devout
Jew
“Swear not, neither by heaven, for it is God’s throne,
nor by the earth, for it is his footstool; neither by Jerusalem,
for it is his holy city.”
“Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the
prophets ; I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.”
“For after all these things [clothing, food, and drink]
do the Gentiles seek.”
So, when he cured a leper, he said : “ Go thy way, show
thyself unto the priest, and offer the gift that Moses com
manded.”
Jesus sent his disciples forth, saying: “ Go not into the
way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans
enter ye not, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of
Israel.”
A woman came out of Canaan and cried to Jesus :
“ Have mercy on me, my daughter is sorely vexed with a
devil ” ; but he would not answer. Then the disciples
asked him to send her away, and he said: “ I am not sent
but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”
Then the woman worshipped him and said: “Lord help
me.” But he answered and said : “ It is not meet to take
�20
THE FOUNDATIONS OF FAITH.
the children’s bread and cast it unto dogs.” Yet for her
faith he cured her child.
So, when the young man asked him what he must do to
be saved, he said: “ Keep the commandments.”
Christ said: “The scribesand the Pharisees sit in Moses’
seat; all, therefore, whatsoever they bid you observe, that
observe and do.”
It is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for
one tittle of the law to fail.
Christ went into the temple and cast out them that sold
and bought there, and said: “It is written, my house is
the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of
thieves.”
“We know what we worship, for salvation is of the
Jews.”
Certainly all these passages were written by persons who
regarded Christ as the Messiah.
Many of the sayings attributed to Christ show that he
was an ascetic, that he cared nothing for kindred, nothing
for father and mother, nothing for brothers or sisters, and
nothing for the pleasures of life.
Christ said to a man: “ Follow me.” The man said :
“ Let me go and bury my father.” Christ answered : “ Let
the dead bury the dead.” Another said: “ I will follow
thee, but first let me go and bid them farewell which are at
home.”
Jesus said : “No man having put his hand to the plough,
and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of heaven. If
thine eye offend thee, pluck it out. If thy hand offend
thee, cut it off.”
One said unto him: “ Behold, thy mother and thy brethren
stand without, desiring to speak with thee.” And he
answered: “ Who is my mother, and who are my brethren?”
Then he stretched forth his hand towards his disciples and
said: “Behold my mother and my brethren.”
“And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren
or sisters, or father or mother, or children, or lands, for my
name’s sake, shall receive an hundred-fold and shall inherit
everlasting life.”
“ He that loveth father or mother more than me is not
worthy of me; and he that loveth son or daughter more
than me is not worthy of me.”
�THE THEOLOGICAL CHRIST.
21
Christ, it seems, had a philosophy.
He believed that God was a loving father, that he would
take care of his children, that they need do nothing except
to rely implicitly on God.
Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.
Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good
to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully
use you and persecute you.
Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat or what
ye shall drink, nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on.
* * * For your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have
need of all these things.
Ask and it shall be given you. Whatsoever ye would
that men should do to you, do ye even so to them. If ye
forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also
forgive you. The very hairs of your head are all numbered.
Christ seemed to rely absolutely on the protection of God
until the darkness of death gathered about him, and then
he cried: “My God! my God! why hast thou forsaken
me ?”
While there are many passages in the New Testament
showing Christ to have been forgiving and tender, there are
many others showing that he was exactly the opposite.
What must have been the spirit of one who said: “ I am
come to send fire on the earth. Suppose ye that I am
come to give peace on earth ? I tell you, nay, but rather
division. For from henceforth there shall be five in one
house divided, three against two, and two against three.
The father shall be divided against the son, and the son
against the father, the mother against the daughter, and the
daughter against the mother, the mother-in-law against her
daughter-in-law, and the daughter-in-law against her motherin-law ” ?
“ If any man come to me and hate not his father and
mother, and wife and children, and brethren and sisters,
yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.”
“ But those mine enemies, which would not that I should
reign over them, bring hither and slay them before me.”
This passage built dungeons and lighted fagots.
“ Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire prepared for the
devil and his angels.”
�22
THE FOUNDATIONS OF FAITH.
“ I came not to bring peace, but a sword.
All these sayings could not have been uttered by the
same person. They are inconsistent with each other. Love
does not speak the words of hatred.
The real philan
thropist does not despise all nations but his own. The
teacher of universal forgiveness cannot believe in eternal
torture.
From the interpolations, legends, accretions, mistakes,
and falsehoods in the New Testament is it possible to free
the actual man? Clad in mist and myth, hidden by the
draperies of gods, deformed, indistinct as faces in clouds,
is it possible to find and recognise the features, the natural
face of the actual Christ?
For many centuries our fathers closed their eyes to the
contradictions and inconsistencies of the Testament, and in
spite of their reason harmonised the interpolations and
mistakes.
This is no longer possible. The contradictions are too
many, too glaring. There are contradictions of fact, not
only, but of philosophy, of theory.
The accounts of the trial, the crucifixion, and ascension
of Christ do not agree. They are full of mistakes and
contradictions.
According to one account, Christ ascended the day of
or the day after his resurrection. According to another,
he remained forty days after rising from the dead. Accord
ing to one account, he was seen after his resurrection only
by a few women and his disciples. According to another,
he was seen by the women, by his disciples on several
occasions, and by hundreds of others.
According to Matthew, Luke, and Mark, Christ remained
for the most part in the country, seldom going to Jerusalem.
According to John, he remained mostly in Jerusalem, going
occasionally into the country, and then generally to avoid
his enemies.
According to Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Christ taught
that if you would forgive others God would forgive you.
According to John, Christ said that the only way to get to
heaven was to believe on him and be born again.
These contradictions are gross and palpable, and demon
strate that the New Testament is not inspired, and that
many of its statements must be false.
�THE THEOLOGICAL CHRIST.
23
If we wish to save the character of Christ, many of the
passages must be thrown away.
We must discard the miracles, or admit that he was insane
or an impostor. We must discard the passages that breathe
the spirit of hatred and revenge, or admit that he was malevo
lent.
If Matthew was mistaken about the genealogy of Christ,
about the wise men, the star, the flight into Egypt, and the
massacre of the babes by Herod, then he may have been
mistaken in many passages that he put in the mouth of
Christ.
The same may be said in regard to Mark, Luke, and
John.
The Church must admit that the writers of the New
Testament were uninspired men—that they made many
mistakes—that they accepted impossible legends as historical
facts—that they were ignorant and superstitious—that they
put malevolent, stupid, insane, and unworthy words in the
mouth of Christ, described him as the worker of impossible
miracles, and in many ways stained and belittled his char
acter.
The best that can be said about Christ is, that nearly
nineteen centuries ago he was born in the land of Palestine,
in a country without wealth, without commerce, in the midst
of a people who knew nothing of the greater world—a people
enslaved, crushed by the mighty power of Rome. That
this babe, this child of poverty and want, grew to manhood
without education, knowing nothing of art or science, and
at about the age of thirty began wandering about the hills
and hamlets of his native land, discussing with priests,
talking with the poor and sorrowful, writing nothing, but
leaving his words in the memory or forgetfulness of those to
whom he spoke.
That he attacked the religion of his time because it was
cruel. That this excited the hatred of those in power, and
that Christ was arrested, tried, and crucified.
For many centuries this great Peasant of Palestine has
been worshipped as God.
Millions and millions have given their lives to his service.
The wealth of the world was lavished on his shrines. His
name carried consolation to the diseased and dying. His
name dispelled the darkness of death, and filled the dungeon
�24
the foundations of faith.
with light. His name gave courage to the martyr, and in
the midst of fire, with shrivelling lips, the sufferer uttered it
again and again. The outcasts, the deserted, the fallen,
felt that Christ was their friend, felt that he knew their
sorrows and pitied their sufferings.
The poor mother, holding her dead babe in her arms,
lovingly whispered his name. His gospel has been carried
by millions to all parts of the globe, and his story has been
told by the self-denying and faithful to countless thousands
of the sons of men. In his name have been preached
charity, forgiveness, and love.
He it was who, according to the faith, brought immortality
to light, and many millions have entered the valley of the
shadow with their hands in his.
All this is true; and if it were all, how beautiful, how
touching, how glorious, it would be 1 But it is not all.
There is another side.
In his name millions and millions of men and women
have been imprisoned, tortured, and killed. In his name
millions and millions have been enslaved. In his name
the thinkers, the investigators, have been branded as
criminals, and his followers have shed the blood of the
wisest and best. In his name the progress of many nations
was stayed for a thousand years. In his gospel was found
the dogma of eternal pain, and his words added an infinite
horror to death. His gospel filled the world with hatred
and revenge; made intellectual honesty a crime; made
happiness here the road to hell; denounced love as base
and bestial; canonised credulity; crowned bigotry, and
destroyed the liberty of man.
It would have been far better had the New Testament
never been written—far better had the theological Christ
never lived. Had the writers of the Testament been re
garded as uninspired; had Christ been thought of only as a
man ; had the good been accepted, and the absurd, the
impossible, and the revengeful thrown away, mankind would
have escaped the wars, the tortures, the scaffolds, the
dungeons, the agony and tears, the crimes and sorrows of
a thousand years.
�THE
SCHEME.
25
VI.
THE “SCHEME.”
We have also the scheme of redemption.
According to this “ scheme,” by the sin of Adam and
Eve in the Garden of Eden, human nature became evil,
corrupt, and depraved. It became impossible for human
beings to keep, in all things, the law of God. In spite of
this, God allowed the people to live and multiply for some
fifteen hundred years; and then, on account of their
wickedness, drowned them all, with the exception of eight
persons.
The nature of these eight persons was evil, corrupt, and
depraved ; and, in the nature of things, their children would
be cursed with the same nature. Yet God gave them
another trial, knowing exactly what the result would be. A
few of these wretches he selected, and made them objects
of his love and care ; the rest of the world he gave to indiffer
ence and neglect. To civilise the people he had chosen,
he assisted them in conquering and killing their neighbors,
and gave them the assistance of priests and inspired pro
phets. For their preservation and punishment he wrought
countless miracles, gave them many laws, and a great deal
of advice. He taught them to sacrifice oxen, sheep, and
doves, to the end that their sins might be forgiven. The
idea was inculcated that there was a certain relation between
the sin and the sacrifice—the greater the sin, the greater
the sacrifice. He also taught the savagery that without
the shedding of blood there was no remission of sin.
In spite of all his efforts, the people grew gradually worse.
They would not, they could not, keep his laws.
A sacrifice had to be made for the sins of the people.
The sins were too great to be washed out by the blood of
animals or men. It became necessary for God himself to
be sacrificed. All mankind were under the curse of
the law. Either all the world must be lost, or God must
die.
�26
THE FOUNDATIONS OF FAITH.
In only one way could the guilty be justified, and that
was by the death, the sacrifice, of the innocent. And the
innocent being sacrificed must be great enough to atone
for the world. There was but one such being—God.
Thereupon God took upon himself flesh, was born into
the world—was known as Christ—was murdered, sacrificed
by the Jews, and became an atonement for the sins of the
human race.
This is the scheme of Redemption—the atonement.
It is impossible to conceive of anything more utterly
absurd.
A man steals, and then sacrifices a dove, or gives a lamb
to a priest. His crime remains the same. He need not
kill something. Let him give back the thing stolen, and in
future live an honest life.
A man slanders his neighbor, and then kills an ox. What
has that to do with the slander ? Let him take back his
slander, make all the reparation that he can, and let the ox
alone.
There is no sense in sacrifice, never was, and never
will be.
Make restitution, reparation, undo the wrong, and you
need shed no blood.
A good law, one springing from the nature of things,
cannot demand, and cannot accept, and cannot be satisfied
with, the punishment or the agony of the innocent. A
god could not accept his own sufferings in justification of
the guilty. This is a complete subversion of all ideas of
justice and morality. A god could not make a law for
man, then suffer in the place of the man who had violated
it, and say that the law had been carried out and the penalty
duly enforced. A man has committed murder, has been
tried, convicted, and condemned to death. Another man
goes to the governor and says that he is willing to die in
place of the murderer. The governor says : “ All right, I
accept your offer; a murder has been committed, somebody
must be hung, and your death will satisfy the law.”
But that is not the law. The law says, not that somebody
shall be hanged, but that the murderer shall suffer death.
Even if the governor should die in the place of the
criminal, it would be no better. There would be two
murders instead of one; two innocent men killed—one by
�BELIEF.
27
the first murderer, and one by the State—and the real
murderer free.
This Christians call “satisfyin the law.”
VII.
BELIEF.
We are told that all who believe in this scheme of redemp
tion and have faith in the redeemer will be rewarded with
eternal joy. Some think that men can be saved by faith
without works, and some think that faith and works are
both essential; but all agree that without faith there is no
salvation. If you repent and believe on Jesus Christ, then
his goodness will be imparted to you, and the penalty of the
law, so far as you are concerned, will be satisfied by the
sufferings of Christ.
You may repent and reform, you may make restitution,
you may practise all the virtues ; but without this belief
in Christ the gates of heaven will be shut against you for ever.
Where is this heaven ? The Christians do not know.
Does the Christian go there at death, or must he wait for
the general resurrection ?
They do not know.
The Testament teaches that the bodies of the dead are to
be raised. Where are their souls in the meantime ? They
do not know.
Can the dead be raised ? The atoms composing their
bodies enter into new combinations, into new forms, into
wheat and corn, into the flesh of animals, and into the
bodies of other men. Where one man dies, and some of
his atoms pass into the body of another man, and he
dies, to whom will these atoms belong in the day of
resurrection ?
�THE FOUNDATIONS OF FAITH.
If Christianity were only stupid and unscientific, if its
God were ignorant and kind, if it promised eternal joy to
believers, and if the believers practised the forgiveness they
teach, for one, I should let the faith alone.
But there is another side to Christianity. It is not only
stupid, but malicious. It is not only unscientific, but it is
heartless. Its God is not only ignorant, but infinitely cruel.
It not only promises the faithful an eternal reward, but
declares that nearly all of the children of men, imprisoned
in the dungeons of God, will suffer eternal pain. This is
the savagery of Christianity. This is why I hate its unthink
able God, its impossible Christ, its inspired lies, and its
selfish, heartless heaven.
,
Christians believe in infinite torture, in eternal pain.
Eternal pain 1
All the meanness of which the heart of man is capable is
in that one word—Hell.
That word is a den, a cave, in which crawl the slimy
reptiles of revenge.
That word certifies to the savagery of primitive man.
That word is the depth, the dungeon, the abyss, from
which civilised man has emerged.
That word is the disgrace, the shame, the infamy of our
revealed religion.
That word fills all the future with the shrieks of the
damned.
That word brutalises the New Testament, changes the
Sermon on the Mount to hypocrisy and cant, and pollutes
and hardens the very heart of Christ.
That word adds an infinite horror to death, and makes
the cradle as terrible as the coffin.
That word is the assassin of joy, the mocking murderer
of hope. That word extinguishes the light of life and wraps
the world in gloom.- That word drives reason from his
throne, and gives the crown to madness.
That word drove pity from the hearts of men, stained
countless swords with blood, lighted fagots, forged chains,
built dungeons, erected scaffolds, and filled the world with
poverty and pain.
That word is a coiled serpent in the mother’s breast, that
lifts its fanged head and hisses in her ear : “ Your child
will be the fuel of eternal fire.”
�CONCLUSION.
29
That word blots from the firmament the star of hope, and
leaves the heavens black.
That word makes the Christian’s God an eternal torturer,
an everlasting inquisitor—an infinite wild beast.
This is the Christian prophecy of the eternal future :—
No hope in hell.
No pity in heaven.
No mercy in the heart of God.
VIII.
CONCLUSION.
The Old Testament is absurd, ignorant, and cruel; the
New Testament is a mingling of the false and true—it is
good and bad.
The Jehovah of the Jews is an impossible monster. The
Trinity absurd and idiotic. Christ is a myth or a man.
The fall of man is contradicted by every fact concerning
human history that we know. The scheme of redemption,
through the atonement, is immoral and senseless. Hell
was imagined by revenge, and the orthodox heaven is the
selfish dream of heartless serfs and slaves. The founda
tions of the faith have crumbled and faded away. They
were miracles, mistakes, and myths, ignorant and untrue,
absurd, impossible, immoral, unnatural, cruel, childish,
savage. Beneath the gaze of the scientist they vanished;
confronted by facts, they disappeared. The orthodox
religion of our day has no foundation in truth. Beneath
the superstructure can be found no fact.
Some may ask : “ Are you trying to take our religion
away ?”
I answer No ; superstition is not religion. Belief with
out evidence is not religion. Faith without facts is not
religion.
�3°
THE FOUNDATIONS OF BELIEF.
To love justice ; to long for the right; to love mercy; to
pity the suffering; to assist the weak; to forget wrongs and
remember benefits; to love the truth; to be sincere; to
utter honest words ; to love liberty ; to wage relentless war
against slavery in all its forms ; to love wife and child and
friend; to make a happy home ; to love the beautiful in
art, in nature; to cultivate the mind ; to be familiar with
the mighty thoughts that genius has expressed, the noble
deeds of all the world; to cultivate courage and cheerful
ness ; to make others happy; to fill life with the splendor
of generous acts, the warmth of loving words ; to discard
error; to destroy prejudice; to receive new truths with
gladness ; to cultivate hope; to see the calm beyond the
storm, the dawn beyond the night; to do the best that can
be done, and then to be resigned—this is the religion of
reason, the creed of science. This satisfies the brain and
heart.
But, says the prejudiced priest, the malicious minister:
“You take away a future life.”
I am not trying to destroy another world, but I am
endeavoring to prevent the theologians from destroying
this.
If we are immortal, it is a fact in nature, and that fact
does not depend on Bibles or Christs, on priests or creeds.
The hope of another life was in the heart long before the
“ sacred books ” were written, and will remain there long
after all the “ sacred books ” are known to be the work of
savage and superstitious men. Hope is the consolation of
the world.
The wanderers hope for home. Hope builds the house
and plants the flowers and fills the air with song.
The sick and suffering hope for health. Hope gives
them health, and paints the roses in their cheeks.
The lonely, the forsaken, hope for love. Hope brings
the lover to their arms. They feel the kisses on their eager
lips.
The poor in tenements and huts, in spite of rags and
hunger, hope for wealth. Hope fills their thin and trembling
hands with gold.
The dying hopes that death is but another birth, and Love
leans above the pallid face and whispers : “ We shall meet
again.”
�CONCLUSION
31
Hope is the consolation of the world.
Let us hope that, if there be a God, he is wise and good.
Let us hope that, if there be another life, it will bring
peace and joy to all the children of men.
And let us hope that this poor earth on which we live
may be a perfect world, a world without a crime, without a
tear.
London : Printed by G. W. Foote at 28 Stonecutter-street, E.C.
�Works by Colonel R. G. Ingersoll
Some Mistakes
ok Moses.
The only complete edition in
England. Accurate as Colenso,
and fascinating as a novel. 132 pp.
Is. Superior paper, cloth Is. 6d.
Defence of Freethought.
A Five Hours’ Speech at the Trial
of C. B. Reynolds for Blasphemy.
6d.
The Gods. 6d.
The Holy Bible. 6d.
Reply to Gladstone. With
a Biography by J. M. Wheeler.
4d.
Rome or Reason? A Reply
to Cardinal Manning. 4d.
Crimes against Criminals.
3d.
Oration on Walt Whitman.
3d.
Oration on Voltaire. 3d.
Abraham Lincoln. 3d.
Paine the Pioneer. 2d.
Humanity’s Debt to Thomas
Paine. 2d.
Ernest Renan and Jesus
Christ. 2d.
True Religion. 2d.
The Three Philanthropists.
2d.
Love the Redeemer. 2d.
Is Suicide a Sin? 2d.
Last Words on Suicide. 2d.
God and the State. 2d.
Why am I an Agnostic?
Part I. 2d.
am I an Agnostic?
Part II. 2d.
Faith and Fact. Reply to
Dr. Field. 2d
God and Man. Second reply
to Dr. Field. 2d.
The Dying Creed. 2d.
The Limits of Toleration.
A Discussion with the Hon. F. D.
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The Household of Faith.
2d.
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Do I Blaspheme? 2d.
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Sense. 2d.
Social Salvation. 2d.
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Skulls. 2d.
The Great Mistake. Id.
Live Topics. Id.
Myth and Miracle. Id.
Real Blasphemy. Id.
Repairing the Idols. Id.
Christ and Miracles. Id.
' Creeds & Spirituality. Id
Why
THOMAS PAINE’S WORKS.
The Rights of Man. Centenary edition.
Biography by J. M. WHEELER.
Miscellaneous Theological Works,
The Age of Reason.
Foote.
is.
New edition, with Preface by G. W.
Is.
Complete Theological Works.
Reason.)
With a Political
Is.; bound in cloth, 2s.
(Including the Age of
Cloth, 2s. 6d.
London: R. Forder, 28 Stonecutter-street, E.C.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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The foundations of faith : a lecture
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Ingersoll, Robert Green [1833-1899]
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 31 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Publisher's advertisements on back cover. No. 24b in Stein checklist. Printed by G.W. Foote. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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1896
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Christianity
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Bible-Criticism and Interpretation
Christianity
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THE
QUESTION OF METHOD
’AS affecting
RELIGIOUS THOU.GHT.
BY
A CLERGYMAN
of the
CHURCH
of
ENGLAND.
OiiK alcrxpbv
3i?ra ret
\eyeiv ;
Owe, et rb trcodrivai ye rb tyevtios ipepei.
To speak untruly—dost not think it shame ?
Not when we fare the better for the same.
Sophocles Philoctetes.
f
PUBLISHED BY 'THOMAS SCOTT,
NO. II THE TERRACE, FARQUHAR ROAD, UPPER NORWOOD,
LONDON, S.E. '
1873.
Price Threepence.
��THE QUESTION OF METHOD
AS AFFECTING
RELIGIOUS THOUGHT.
HENCE comes the possibility of that strange
fact,—strange indeed, yet in the present day
by no means unfrequent,—that men having like
opportunities and abilities come to utterly diverse
conclusions on religious subjects? You may note,
say for example, two brothers, each possessed of un
usual talents, starting from the same early training,
each animated by a pure zeal for truth, one of whom,
through whatever wanderings, holds fast at least by
the great doctrines of Christianity, while the other
leaves all orthodox belief far behind him. For—
wonder at the fact if you will—we are constrained
to admit that men do doubt and disbelieve every
Christian dogma, who, whatever judgment may here
after be passed upon them, live, so far as human eye
can see, not less pure or upright lives than the most
strenuous upholders of the faith. How can these
things be ? How can two men, both sane and
sound, affirm of the same fountain, the one that its
waters are sweet, the other that they are bitter ?
Christianity is true or it is false. That is to say,
those occurrences on which all orthodox bodies
■ found their religion have historically happened
or they have not. The issue is a simple one, and one
W
�4
The Question of Method
might suppose that honest men who wished for
nothing but the truth would have little difficulty in
arriving at a similar conclusion one way or other.
Yet we find that men apparently possessed of honesty,
ability and learning, hold contrary opinions on the
subject. The object of the present paper is to point
out the broad beaten road which leads to orthodoxy,
and also the narrow thorny path which ends in un
belief.
Now if in studying the same subject inquirers
arrive at opposite conclusions, either they must start
from different premises, or they must adopt a different
method of inquiry. Obviously, starting from different
premises is a fruitful source of difference in religious
as in other matters. Thus in disputes between a
Christian and an unbeliever the former will often
base his arguments upon biblical texts, forgetting that
the other will by no means accept them as conclusive.
The one starts from the premiss that the Bible affords
an infallible source of information, the truth of which
the other denies. Such an argument often ends in
mere bitterness, as the parties do not see that there is
no common ground between them on which the argu
ment may rest. Or if they consent to go deeper, and
discuss the proposition which to one side formed
the premiss of the previous argument, yet again they
fail to find common ground, and therefore to appear
reasonable to each other. Now the source of the
difference must surely be this, that they approach the
subject in a different spirit: each adopts a different
method of inquiry. I believe the most common
method used by the orthodox party is that of assuming
some one point,—as the authority of the Church, or
of the Bible,—and then arguing from that. This
method, however, labours under the disadvantage
mentioned above. However satisfactory it may be
to the individual who accepts it, it cannot enable him
to convince unbelievers. Such a method may even to
�as Affecting Religious Thought.
5
some extent be open to the charge brought against it
by uncivil persons of being a petitio principii.
To those who endeavour to go to the root of the
Blatter, there are, as far as I can see, but two methods
which they can use as instruments of thought, between
which they must take their choice. I shall call these
the emotional method and the critical method.
These may be briefly characterised as follows :
The former method accepts an explanation simply
as satisfactory to the mind: it does not seek to compars or test further: it rests on intimate conviction.
The critical method, on the contrary, mistrusts every
hypothesis until verified ; if an explanation seem pro
bable in itself, it is not allowed to rest there: it is
brought face to face with other facts and theories, and
questioned as to its agreement with them; it is, in
short, tested in every conceivable way, and not
accepted unless it can endure the trial. The critical
method is based on verification.
I shall now endeavour to show that while the latter
method has its value—perhaps is the only one of any
value—in scientific inquiries, the emotional method
alone can lead to orthodox results in religious inves
tigations.
In ancient times the critical method was almost or
quite unknown. Whatever men wished to explain,
from the genesis of the earth and the human race
to the derivation of a word, was explained out of
hand, and evolved with child-like confidence out of
the mind of the explainer. When Pindar told of the
birth of Ajax (Aias), he derived the name from
aleros (aietos) an eagle. It was enough for him that
the first two letters corresponded in each word, and
that the explanation seemed to him a probable one.
When Eve bare her first-born she called his name
Cain, and said I have gotten (from the verb hanah,
to get) a man. There was a sufficient resemblance
between Kain and kanah ; although, according to the
�6
The Question of Method
critical method, Cain would seem to have been a
smith (pp) by name, although not in trade, and
Cain’s sons were smiths. These two examples will
suffice to show the principle on which names were
anciently derived. But a similar method was em
ployed in other and more important matters. In
order to illustrate this, perhaps the reader will allow
me to tell him a story out of Philo. An animal is
placed on the list of those allowed to be eaten in
Levit. xi. 22, which our translators, for some myste
rious reason, call “ beetle,” and which the Septuagint
version as unaccountably renders ophiomachus, ser
pent-fighter. Now Philo had already proved to his
satisfaction that the Serpent which tempted Eve was
pleasure. Therefore the reason why this ophioma
chus was recommended for the Jewish table was
plain. “For,” says he, “this ophiomachus seems to
me to be nothing else than temperance symbolically,
which wages endless war against intemperance and
pleasure.” I was charmed when I read this passage,
for nothing could more evidently set forth the advan
tages of the emotional method. See how beautifully
the old worthy works it out! The otpiopaxys, which
he lit on in his Septuagint, fitted into the theory he
was constructing, just like a long-sought, queer-cor
nered bit in a child’s puzzle-map. Then what “ uses,”
what edification, proceed from this interpretation ?
What earthly meaning could there be in bidding the
Hebrews eat a particular sort of locust ? But when
you understand how the locust represents asceticism,
what light and interest is shed on the Mosaic com
mand I And to think that Philo and we should have
lost all this had he only been cursed with the very
smallest tincture of the critical method ! Had he
had any notion of verifying his facts, he would have
compared the Septuagint with the Hebrew version,
and thus have found that the name of the creature in
the original language has nothing to do with ser-
�as Affecting Religious thought,
7
penis, but means simply a leap er (chargol), and so
his theory would have fallen to pieces at once. For
tunately he was secure in the strength of his method ;
the inward satisfaction which he felt was ample proof
of the correctness of his position ; and as the Septuagint version suited him, why should he go further to
seek another which might not suit so well ? It would
be easy to multiply instances of the use of the emo
tional method from the writings of authors of all
ages ; but I forbear to quote further from uninspired
writers. To do so would seem to be the more unne
cessary, inasmuch as this method, and no other, was
employed by the writers of the Books contained in
the New Testament.
If this be shown, it will be obvious that those who
wish to hold to the faith which those holy men pro
mulgated must walk in their steps and use their
method. If we attempt to use the critical method in
the exegesis of the Bible, we commence by placing
ourselves at a point of view utterly different from
that at which its authors contemplated their subject;
and shall therefore understand it in a sense alien
from theirs. It is by so doing that so many writers
and others, whose learning and honesty of purpose
are beyond all question, have changed that which
Christians hold to be the Word of God into a collec
tion of more or less curious myths. When the New
Testament writers found a passage of the Hebrew
Scriptures which seemed to them to bear upon the
life of Christ, they assumed at once that it was in its
origin prophetic of him. For example, Matthew re
members the words of Hosea, “ Out of Egypt have
I called my Son.” The critical inquirer remembers
that the prophet was alluding to the Exodus of
Israel. To the Evangelist it is sufficient that these
words, taken apart from their context, serve to illus
trate his narrative. So little did the Evangelists and
Apostles care for such accuracy as is required by the
�8
The Question of Method
critical method, that their quotations from the older
Scriptures are often distortions of the words and
meaning of the originals, at least as these latter have
come down to us. I am not now writing a treatise
on prophecy, and it will be sufficient to request the
reader who may doubt my assertion to compare the
quotations in the New Testament with the prophecies
themselves ; he will often be able to detect the distor
tion, even if he has no knowledge of the original lan
guages. I may observe here that what has been said
holds true of the doctrine of Types. What critical
inquirer could ever believe that the narratives of the
brazen serpent, of David, Jonah, &c., have any refer
ence to Christ ? These stories are complete in them
selves as they stand in the Old Testament, and do not
require any further fulfilment. He alone who proceeds
always on the emotional method can perceive that the
fact that an older narrative may profitably be em
ployed to illustrate the life of Christ, justifies the
assumption that it was intended to do so. So im
pressed, however, were the Apostolic writers with
the truth of this doctrine, that they seemed to have
considered the Hebrew Scriptures as of little impor
tance for any other purpose. Thus Paul cares only
for the story of Isaac and Ishmael in so far as they
typify the Christian and Jewish churches, and for
that of the passage of the Red Sea as exemplifying
the doctrine of Baptism. When he reads the words,
“To Abraham and his seed were the promises made,”
he does not understand “ seed ” to refer to the de
scendants of the patriarch, as any critical student
would, but he insists upon applying it to Christ.
Indeed Paul is perhaps the most consistent of all the
New Testament writers in his exclusion of the critical
spirit. So much so, that he rests entirely on his
emotional convictions. He is far indeed from com
paring critically the accounts of the Resurrection.
He will not confer with flesh and blood. He rejects
�as Affecting Religious ’Thought.
9
all knowledge of Christ “ after the flesh his inner
belief, apart from all comparison with the convictions
of others, or verification from external facts, is suffi
cient for him.
It is impossible within the limits of the present
paper to do more than illustrate the position here
taken up by a few examples. But I feel no doubt
that any candid person who will consider those here
brought forward, and himself search the Scriptures
for others, will be convinced that the writers of the
books composing our Bible had not the very slightest
idea of the critical method, and would, could they
have understood it, have condemned it as unsuited to
their purposes. If this be so, let those who would
continue to think as the evangelists and prophets
thought, beware how they tamper with a method so
alien from their spirit.
At the risk of being tedious I must adduce another
example of the danger of deserting the emotional
method. Many such suggest themselves ; indeed the
adoption of the opposite method breaks up the Bible
in all directions, and leaves, in place of one homoge
neous infallible book, a collection of tales, most of
them of little historical value. I cannot, however, go
into this subject any further at present. The one
instance which follows may be sufficient to serve as a
caution to those who wish to stand in the paths of
orthodoxy in these slippery days.
The apparent contradictions in the Gospel narra
tives have driven our orthodox commentators into
great straits, except when they have got over a diffi
culty by omitting to notice it. They would, however,
find no difficulty at all if they had sufficient faith in
the emotional method, and forebore the attempt to
wield the weapons of their adversaries.
They need not fear lest they should fail to be secure
against doubts and disputations if they will be care
ful to avoid the critical method. When the critical
�io
The Question of Method
inquirer compares the different narratives of the life
of Christ, he finds, among other points of a similar
nature, that Jesus is said to have ascended to heaven
both from Bethany and also from a mountain in Galilee.
According to Matthew,—who is so far confirmed by
the narrative which closes the second Gospel as we
have it,—the disciples met the risen Christ by ap-.
pointment in Galilee. There Mark further informs
us that the Ascension took place, they having first
been charged to go at once (as it appears) and
teach all nations. In Luke, on the contrary, the
Eleven do not quit the immediate neighbourhood of
Jerusalem; nay, they are expressly charged not to do
so until they should be “ endued with power from on
high.” This account agrees with that given in Acts,
while John does not mention the Ascension at all.
Here we see plainly the effect of the comparing or
critical method. To one who adopts it, it seems im
possible that the disciples could both have remained
at Jerusalem for a considerable time, and also during
part of that very time have been in Galilee ; nor less
so that one and the same Ascension should have
taken place at Bethany and on a far distant moun
tain. The emotionalist, on the other hand, feels no
difficulty. To compare the different and differing
accounts in a critical spirit would be foreign to his
nature. Each several account satisfies and edifies
him, and he cares for nothing more. Should such an
one be pressed to the point by an unbeliever, he might
reply that the sojourn of the disciples at Jerusalem is
to be understood in a spiritual sense. They were
commanded to tarry at Jerusalem, that is, not to
break with the Jews and Jewish customs, until the
descent of the Holy Ghost. Eor the double site
assigned to the Ascension I have indeed no explana
tion to suggest; yet I am confident that the holy
ingenuity of a second Philo—who would care nothing
for historic truth and everything for spiritual edifica-
�as Affecting Religious 'Thought.
11
cation—would explain this also as triumphantly as
the first turned the leaping locust into a slayer of
allegorical serpents.
If the reader has done me the honour to follow my
arguments up to this point, it is ten chances to one
that he feels somewhat disposed to quarrel with my
position.
It is likely enough that he will ask whether the
critical method be not that by which all scientific
discoveries have been made, and all our knowledge of
historic truth obtained ; whether, if that be so, it be
not the right method to use in that inquiry which is
of all others most important; and whether in fact
many eminent writers on religious subjects have not
used that method and no other. To the last question
I reply, that I am not acquainted with the works of
any theologian who has successfully used the critical
method and at the same time kept within the confines
of orthodoxy; nor can I conceive it possible that
there should be such. There are, indeed, orthodox
writers who use with more or less success the critical
method throughout the bulk of their work; but, so
far as I know, they always start with one or more
assumptions which are arrived at by the emotional,
not the critical method. They assume the authority
of the Bible or of the Church ; the necessity of a
Divine revelation, and of its miraculous character;
the authenticity of the sacred writings on which they
rely; and other such points. Having made these
assumptions, or some of them, they may proceed to
deduce their conclusions from them by the critical
method. But the propositions on which their whole
subsequent reasoning is based are assumed, not as
critically demonstrated, but as appearing natural and
necessary to the mind of the writer. The super
structure may be critical, but the foundation is
emotional; and it is from the latter, not the former,
that the entire work must take its distinguishino1
character.
°
�12
The Question of Method
With regard to the other question, viz., whether
the critical method be not the better, and therefore
the right one to employ, it should be considered that
either method is an instrument for aiding us to attain
certain ends. We must choose the one best fitted for
our purpose. The critical method is an admirable
instrument for enabling us to ascertain truth of fact.
If we wish to acquaint ourselves with the probability
of a reported occurrence having really taken place or
otherwise, with no care whether we are led to the
affirmative or the negative conclusion, the critical
method will serve our turn. But—I am addressing
myself to those who are predetermined to preserve
their orthodox faith—is this desired ? The critical
method is very exacting. If we adopt it we must
take nothing for granted : we must not say I will
believe this because it satisfies my emotional needs ;
or because it is so conducive to public morality and
the peace of the individual mind. This method
binds us to the pursuit of truth pure and simple, un
influenced by any preconceived wish as to the result.
The emotional method, on the contrary, allows a man’s
feelings to determine his belief. If we adopt it we
shall never need to trouble ourselves with disagreeable
questions, such as, Do we know when and by whom
the Gospels were written ? Do they or do they not
contain numerous contradictory statements ? Are the
accounts therein given of the doings and sayings of
Christ in all cases to be relied upon as matters of
historical certainty ? and the like. These and many
such beset the path of the critical inquirer like im
portunate beggars, who will not be shaken off until
they have their answer. He whose first object is to
continue stedfast in his religious belief should refuse
altogether to enter upon such inquiries. To deal with
them candidly implies a wish to know the truth
rather than to continue orthodox ; and such a wish,
if acted on, is apt to be fatal to orthodoxy. The
�Affecting Religious Thought.
13
importance of inquiry after truth in religious matters
Bas been much overstated. An orthodox believer
should never inquire after truth ; he should assume
that he has it. The word truth is indeed occasionally
used in the Bible, yet always in a sense widely
different from that in which it is used by the modern
critic. Thus the Apostle says : “ We can do nothing
against the truth, but for the truthbut by truth he
means his own system of religious belief, the truth of
which he assumes, and which indeed is the only truth
for which he cares. So, again, Christians are bidden
searc i the Scriptures.” ' But it is implied, as I
have attempted to show, that they are to use a method
of search,—a mode of interpretation,—which certainly
would not lead to such truth as is sought by the man
©f science or modern historian.
I say again, let your wish to know truth always
stand second to your desire to continue orthodox;
otherwise there is much danger that your truth will
not be that of the Church or of the Bible. Should
any one say in reply to this : “ What is orthodoxy to
me ? I desire to know whether or not the religion I
have been taught to profess be really founded on fact.
If it be so, it will stand the severest testing by the
most rigorous method ; if not, I will none of it: ” to
such an one the arguments used in this paper are not
addressed. Let him go on his way, if he is sure he
has strength to follow it out: taking however this
warning with him. I have known those who have
acted as he proposes to act; who, starting with a more
or less orthodox belief, have insisted on subjecting it
to the critical method without fear or favour. The
consequence has been that they have found them
selves in the end stripped of most of those garments
with which their earliest instructors had invested
their minds, and, in some cases, with their worldly
prospects blasted. Let him then count the cost first,
lest having begun he should not dare to finish.
�The Question of Method, &e.
I turn for a concluding word to those who prize
their religious faith above all things : who know that
it brings them peace, comfort, and worldly prosperity;
and are not to be ousted from these solid advantages
by a sneer about honesty. Let such be careful to
abide by the emotional method, to take the satisfaction
which religion and religious books bring to their
minds as the surest—the only—basis of their belief.
The men of science have with their critical method
“ turned the world upside down ” as effectually as did
the Apostles of old. Beware then how you allow
yourselves to inquire on their method into the truth
of sacred narratives. Consider that faith is not as
robust as it was ; it now needs hot-house treatment:
it must be glazed, and warmed artificially, and kept
from rude scientific contact. Guard it from critical
thought as you do your exotic plants from frost.
Consider, a few degrees of cold will consign it to a
grave from which no coming spring can summon it
to resurrection.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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The question of method as affecting religious thought
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 14 p. ; 18 cm.
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Thomas Scott
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1873
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Bible-Criticism and Interpretation
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Religious Thought