fcibrarp of Che Cheolocjiccd £min<xvy 
 
 PRINCETON • NEW JERSEY 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 The Estate of the 
 t>— ~ JnVm Bi Wiedirarer 
 BL 2775 .H37 1893 
 Harden, William Dearing. 
 An inquiry into the truth o 
 dogmatic Christianity 
 
JUN 2 1948 
 
 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC 
 CHRISTIANITY 
 
 COMPRISING A DISCUSSION WITH A BISHOP OF 
 THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM DEARING ^HARDEN 
 
 " It is obvious that the most indispensable requisite in regard to Religion 
 is that it should be true. No specious hopes or nattering promises can have the 
 slightest value unless they be genuine and based upon substantial realities. Fear 
 of the results of investigation, therefore, should deter no man, for the issue in 
 any case is gain: emancipation from delusion, or increase of assurance. It is 
 poor honor to sequester a creed from healthy handling, or to shrink from the 
 serious examination of its doctrines. That which is true in Religion cannot be 
 shaken ; that which is false no one can desire to preserve." — Supernatural 
 Religion, Preface to First Edition. 
 
 " It is absurd to assume what is beyond reason to account for what is opposed 
 to reason." — Ibid. Part I., Chapter 3, Sec. 2. 
 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
 
 NEW YORK LONDON 
 
 27 WEST TWENTY-THIRD ST. 24 BEDFORD ST., STRAND 
 
 %\i fimdurbochrr |}rcss 
 1893 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1893 
 BY 
 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
 
 Electrotyped, Printed and Bound by 
 
 Ube Ifcntckerbocfcer; press, mew l^ork 
 G. P. Putnam's Sons 
 
TO MY CHILDREN 
 
 for whose advantage even more than for my own this 
 Search for Truth has been prosecuted, so much of this 
 volume as I can fairly claim as my own, and therefore sub- 
 ject to such disposition, is most affectionately inscribed ; 
 with the earnest, soul-full prayer that, if there be error in 
 my views, the conviction of it may be brought to my mind 
 before it can possibly affect theirs. 
 
 W. D. H. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 SOME time ago, for reasons of no interest to the 
 public, I engaged in a friendly controversy on 
 religious topics, running in a rather desultory way through 
 several years, with a Bishop (since Archbishop) of the 
 Roman Catholic Church. A mass of arguments on both 
 sides of the question was thus accumulated, and friends, 
 who think they have been benefited by reading the dis- 
 cussion, have urged its publication. 
 
 Thinking that it may reach and benefit some who would 
 be deterred from undertaking an examination of the sub- 
 ject if the argument had assumed a more learned and 
 profound shape ; believing that the fact of its being an 
 actual discussion, in which the side of orthodoxy is rep- 
 resented by a learned Bishop of her strongest Church, 
 would lend an additional interest to the argument ; know- 
 ing that it is a great advantage, in a search for truth, to 
 have the argument on the one side directly contrasted 
 with the argument on the other, the weakness of the one 
 adding to the strength of the other ; and, more than all, 
 because the argument is in a form that can be understood 
 without any previous theological education, and is there- 
 fore the better adapted to the ordinary lay reader, and 
 every new argument, or new statement of an old argu- 
 ment, may convince some who had not been convinced 
 
v i PREFACE. 
 
 before,— I have consented to give the discussion to the 
 
 public. 
 
 In its original form the correspondence (which it is 
 proper to state was probably written by both, certainly by 
 me, without any idea of any future publication) contained 
 much of a purely personal nature, and the argument was 
 necessarily somewhat disjointed, each paper discussing a 
 variety of subjects. I have therefore thought it best to 
 re-arrange it so as to omit that which was purely personal 
 and not pertinent to the argument, and to give it a more 
 connected form, putting together all the correspondence 
 on each subject and arranging the points in what seems a 
 more natural sequence. 
 
 Further than this I have not interfered with the 
 Bishop's presentation of his views. I have had no dis- 
 position to set up any specious or pretended arguments 
 in order to refute them ; I am too much in earnest for 
 that. I did not even seek an inexperienced or unlearned 
 layman with whom to discuss for the sake of confounding ; 
 but, on the contrary, I sought the most distinguished and 
 learned Prelate within my reach, and if he has replied 
 to, without answering, my arguments, it may be safely 
 assumed that it is because they are unanswerable. 
 
 The correspondence was a real one, 1 and I have the 
 right to use the Bishop's argument, which I think covers 
 pretty much all that can be said for his Church, and I use 
 it in his own words. 
 
 In my own argument I have dropped the epistolary 
 form, and address myself directly to the reader. 8 
 
 1 The original is in the hands of the Publishers. 
 
 2 The choice was before me to use the material for the purpose of writing 
 a book, in which the entire argument on both sides would be in my own 
 words — which might give the orthodox, if they felt themselves worsted, the 
 
PREFACE. vii 
 
 If there is any argument, other than those herein dis- 
 cussed, that can be urged against my views ; any argu- 
 ment which dcuss not depend upon the point at issue for 
 one of its premises ; any argument which is sustained by 
 fact rather than by mere assertion, and which appeals 
 to reason, and not alone to faith ; any argument not 
 entirely based on the authority of a doubtful scripture, or 
 a still more doubtful tradition, — I will be more than 
 pleased to hear it, come from what source it may, and 
 will answer or yield. 
 
 But otherwise further discussion would, I fear, be but 
 time wasted. 
 
 It is a fundamental principle of science that a theory 
 is exploded whenever a single fact is produced, within the 
 range of its application, which it does not explain or 
 account for ; the variance of fact and theory is always fatal 
 to theory. I do not see why the same principle may not 
 be applied to theology. So, if there be a single point in 
 my argument which the Church cannot meet, the Church 
 must go to the wall ; not that I expect to be the means 
 of accomplishing what so many abler and better men 
 have failed to compass — the death of superstition. I know 
 human nature too well for that ; but I do hope to satisfy 
 some of my readers that the dogmas of the Church are 
 
 chance to say that I had used only such arguments in behalf of the Church 
 as I thought I could answer, leaving out the strongest, or emasculating 
 them by my method of statement ; or to give the correspondence substan- 
 tially as it stood, with all its imperfections on both sides. I have chosen 
 the latter course as being fairer to my opponent, and decidedly more in- 
 teresting to the public, who might be attracted by the unusual fact of an 
 actual controversy, and would not be repelled by finding itself entrapped 
 into a dry and technical theological dissertation ; and I might thus reach 
 the people whom I sought above all others — those who, not realizing its 
 importance, were not disposed to give much time or thought to the subject. 
 
viii PREFA CE. 
 
 devised rather for its own perpetuation than their salva- 
 tion ; and if I shall succeed in bringing even one human 
 soul from darkness into light — from superstition and 
 death to freedom and life — I will not have thought and 
 worked in vain. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I 
 
 THE POINTS TO BE DISCUSSED 
 
 Proposition I. Influence of the Church 
 
 Proposition IT. Free-Will 
 
 Proposition III. CEcumenical Councils 
 
 Proposition IV. The Divinity of Jesus 
 
 Proposition V. The Betrayal 
 
 Proposition VI. The Bible 
 
 Proposition VII. The Mass. Good Works 
 
 47 
 69 
 114 
 186 
 221 
 237 
 
 CONCLUDING REMARKS 
 
 242 
 
AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC 
 
 CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 IT is my belief that Dogmatic Christianity, Catholic 
 and Protestant, contains, along with much that is 
 pure, good, and elevating, much that is unreasonable, un- 
 authorized, untrue, and pernicious. 
 
 That owing to this the good which it has undoubtedly 
 accomplished, and may yet accomplish, has been, and is, 
 fully, if not more than, counterbalanced by the harm it 
 has done and is doing. 
 
 I believe, further, that the false may, to a great extent, 
 be separated from the true, and that whatever can be 
 clearly established as untrue should be discarded : and 
 that once freed from its errors, retaining only its truths, 
 Christianity will arise from the ashes of dogmatism puri- 
 fied, glorified ; and men need no longer fear to examine 
 their faith in the strong clear light of reason. 
 
 The object of my argument, therefore, is to point out 
 in a simple, homely way, that all can understand, what I 
 consider error in the Church's Creed, and why, and to 
 show that with its errors expunged Christianity, so far 
 
2 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 from being injured or having its power for good impaired, 
 will be in every way strengthened and improved. 
 
 I claim an earnest desire to benefit my fellow-man as 
 far as I am able to do so without neglecting my personal 
 duties, or injuring my private interests. I think that man 
 will be benefited, here and hereafter, by having a true 
 religion, pure and undefiled ; and if I can help him to 
 that, I will have helped him indeed. 
 
 Hence, writing with the wish to benefit those who differ 
 with me in their theological ideas, and with the hope of 
 bringing them to adopt my views, it has been my desire 
 to say nothing which could in any way wound their sus- 
 ceptibilities : and if I should appear sometimes to be either 
 caustic or flippant, it is because the argument of the 
 Church, or the example of her defenders, seemed to call 
 for it. 
 
 But I desire my orthodox readers and friends (and 
 probably the larger portion of both readers and friends 
 are, or think themselves, orthodox) to be assured that I 
 speak with none but the kindliest feelings towards them 
 personally ; and I beg them to read me calmly and dis- 
 passionately, and to avoid coming to any conclusion until 
 they have read it all. I beg them to read as I have 
 studied and written, with the single object of ascertaining 
 just how much of orthodoxy is true and beneficial, and 
 how much false and hurtful ; with the full assurance that, 
 whether concurring with, or dissenting from, me, their 
 honest conclusions will always be entitled to, and shall 
 receive from me, that respect which is due to every con- 
 scientious conviction ; and let us hope that some day, not 
 this or that belief, but the actual, living truth will reach 
 the minds of us all, and really deliver us from " envy, 
 hatred, and malice, and ail uncharitableness." 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 3 
 
 I know that I attack some beliefs which are cherished 
 with the fondest reverence, the most affectionate devo- 
 tion, and the deepest awe, and that such will be aban- 
 doned only with the greatest reluctance ; but this should 
 not be so : any belief that is shown to be unfounded in 
 fact or reason should be discarded unhesitatingly, no 
 matter how dear ; for age cannot sanctify error, nor faith 
 make truth. 
 
 But I am asked " cui bono ? " Why should I seek to 
 weaken any one's faith, unless I have something better 
 with which to replace old beliefs ? 
 
 I reply that I have something better with which to re- 
 place such beliefs as I attack : I propose to substitute truth 
 for error. And I have no disposition to interfere with any 
 faith the holding of which can be of any possible benefit 
 here or hereafter. I would not leave humanity comfort- 
 less. But I would relieve it from the hideous incubus of 
 superstition ; from the fearful tyranny of an earth-devised 
 Church ; from the paralyzing clutches of a fear-inspiring 
 clergy. I would elevate its conception of deity, and teach 
 it that God is indeed love ; that He hates nothing that 
 He has made; that He has made us for other purposes 
 than to administer to His vanity ; that He is not subject 
 to the worst of human frailties ; that He has no favorites 
 through whose importunities He can be induced to change 
 His purposes; that He will not hurl the thunderbolts of 
 His wrath at the poor mortal who may prefer to act in 
 accordance with his own honest convictions, even though 
 they may run counter to the dicta of the Church ; that 
 He is neither a supernatural Jew nor an incorporeal 
 Christian. 
 
 God has given us reason : it is impossible for me to 
 believe that He did not intend for us to use it : it can be 
 
4 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 fully used only when unrestrained, therefore I would set 
 it free. Whatever is within its grasp, it should control ; 
 only that which is above, beyond it can be proper 
 subject-matter for faith ; and when faith and reason are 
 antagonistic, faith must succumb ; it should live only 
 when in accord with, or, at least, unopposed by reason. 
 
 Then let us use our God-given reason cautiously, care- 
 fully, prayerfully, but honestly and fearlessly ; and in the 
 language of Paul " prove all things : hold fast that which 
 is good." Surely no one can wish to worship a myth, or 
 hang his hope of salvation on a shadow. So then, I say, 
 let us reason together, not in the spirit of bitter sectarian- 
 ism, but in the love of God, which is truth, and fear not 
 the result. If our views remain unchanged, our convic- 
 tions will have been strengthened, and our doubts dis- 
 sipated : if we agree with the conclusions which I have 
 reached, we will have indeed found that " peace of mind 
 which passeth understanding." I speak from my personal 
 experience, confirmatory of that of others ; for, brought 
 up with the usual views of a youth reared by Christian 
 parents in a Christian country, I had become so harassed 
 by doubts that would not down at the command of faith, 
 that I was forced, in spite of myself, to investigate a sub- 
 ject which I considered too important to be left in uncer- 
 tainty : and if ever a man sought earnestly for truth, if 
 ever a man prayed fervently for light, I know I have ; and 
 if ever a man had his search rewarded and his prayer 
 answered, I believe I have ; and I feel as though I had 
 come up out of the valley of the shadow of death into 
 the pure bright light of God's truth shining, not for this 
 or that creed, not for this or that nation, but for all 
 humanity. Hence I know that when once we have freed 
 ourselves from those terrible doctrines and dogmas which 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 5 
 
 we have hitherto feared to even investigate ; when we 
 have cast aside the senseless errors and superstitions of the 
 ignorant past as merely the outcome of the early gropings 
 of primitive man ; and study God as He has revealed 
 Himself in nature, the truths of the present and the hopes 
 of the future become actual living realities ; and in the life- 
 giving atmosphere of rationalism we fairly revel in moral 
 health, and really love, instead of fearing, the great con- 
 trolling Spirit of the universe. 
 
 How far I shall succeed in establishing that certain be- 
 liefs are not only not sustained, but are actually disproved, 
 by reason, I cannot possibly foretell. I hope I may con- 
 vince ; but I will be satisfied if I induce the reader to think 
 and investigate earnestly and conscientiously for himself; 
 for earnest thought and conscientious investigation must 
 certainly, as I think, lead to the absolute conviction of the 
 truth of the propositions urged by me. And sure am I 
 that if every doctrine I combat were destroyed, humanity 
 would be the gainer. 
 
 The two commandments enunciated by Jesus, and which 
 he said included all the law and the prophets, and which, 
 being taught by all the old religions (except perhaps the 
 Hebrew) may be considered as the ethical instinct of all 
 humanity, contain all that is necessary as a rule of con- 
 duct ; and the doctrine which I urge, that there is no escape 
 from the consequences of wrong-doing, even by repentance, 
 confession, or absolution — that no vicarious atonement 
 can help us — that the penalties for transgressing the law 
 are sure and proportionate, though not endless — would 
 seem to furnish an all-sufficient motive to those who 
 need the fear of punishment to induce them to observe 
 the law. 
 
 I think, therefore, that I am justified in saying that I 
 
DOGMA TIC CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 seek to remove only such beliefs as are hurtful, because 
 false, and try to hold fast to that which is good ; and with 
 the hope that I may bring truth to the minds of those who 
 have it not, and strengthen it in the minds of those who 
 already possess it, I proceed with the argument. 
 
THE ARGUMENT. 
 
 THE POINTS TO BE DISCUSSED. 
 
 I HAVE found it convenient to divide the subject into 
 distinct propositions, all tending, however, to the 
 same end — the demonstration of the defects of Dogmatic 
 Christianity — and will discuss them seriatim, giving, 
 whenever I have it, the argument contra of my learned 
 opponent. 
 
 While I thus subdivide the subject, it must be borne 
 in mind that each proposition, while seemingly distinct in 
 itself, is but a branch of the controversy, and is so inter- 
 woven with, and so overlaps, the others, that it is difficult 
 to draw a very accurate dividing line between them, and 
 much that is said under one head is equally appropriate to 
 another ; and there will necessarily be some repetition, the 
 more especially as I have tried to make the argument on 
 each point as complete in itself as the circumstances would 
 permit. 
 
 I will endeavor to establish the following propositions, 
 premising that by the term " Church " here, and in the 
 argument, I mean Dogmatic Christianity in any of its 
 phases, Catholic or Protestant. 
 
 I. The Church has exerted, and still exerts, a baleful in- 
 fluence upon mankind : 
 
 a. by discouraging the study of nature and suppress- 
 ing the use of reason, thereby checking progress 
 and retarding civilization ; and 
 7 
 
8 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 b. by insisting that belief is necessary to salvation, 
 
 thereby driving many to despair and ruin ; 
 and man's physical, mental, and spiritual advance- 
 ment has been, and must be, through skepticism 
 and free-thought, and in spite — and not because — of 
 the Church. 
 
 II. The doctrine of free-will, as usually understood and 
 as taught by the Church, is impossible if God be as 
 He is represented. Attributing the origin of sin to 
 man is absurd; and the idea of a continual strife 
 between God and the Devil is blasphemous. 
 
 III. The councils of the Church by which her Creeds 
 were formulated, were not inspired, but very fallible, 
 assemblies of exceedingly natural men ; and their 
 decrees are conflicting, unreasonable, and utterly 
 without authority. 
 
 IV. Jesus of Nazareth was not God, nor the son, in the 
 sense of offspring, of God ; he never claimed to be 
 either, nor did others claim it for him until long after 
 his death ; and during his life he never sought or re- 
 ceived divine honors. 
 
 He taught no new ethics ; and the ethics of many of 
 the "Pagans" were superior to those of the Jews, 
 and equal to those of the Church. 
 
 V. If Jesus of Nazareth was God, he could not have 
 been betrayed, and Judas Iscariot was but a helpless 
 instrument in the hands of Omnipotence ; if Judas 
 was a traitor, Jesus was not God : and the doctrine 
 of free-will does not relieve us from the dilemma, 
 for the attempt to reconcile free-will with the attri- 
 butes of God results only in attacking His absolute 
 supremacy. 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 9 
 
 VI. The Bible is not a divinely inspired book ; and being 
 untrustworthy as to its facts cannot be relied on as 
 i»fallible as to its theories. 
 
 VII. Arguments directed especially against the Roman 
 Catholic form of orthodoxy : 
 
 Saying masses for the dead — for a pecuniary con- 
 sideration — is either obtaining money under false 
 pretences, or is selling the grace of God ; 
 
 If repentance and confession are necessary to and 
 will secure salvation, charity and other good works 
 cannot affect our future condition — unless the for- 
 giveness of God can be bought ; 
 
 and the Church practising the one and teaching the 
 
 other is in error and not infallible. 
 
 I realize the difficulties of the task, but I think it can be 
 accomplished. 
 
 I shall endeavor, where I state arguments on • the side 
 of the Church otherwise than in the Bishop's own words, 
 to state them fairly and candidly ; and I will try to present 
 those on my side clearly. 
 
 I may, doubtless will, have to say many things in the 
 course of my remarks which will clash unpleasantly with 
 the views of those who differ with me ; but I shall say 
 them with all respect for my opponents and their honest 
 convictions ; and I trust that even if my views be found 
 objectionable, my language may never be offensive. 
 
 Some of my arguments will be recognized as old and 
 familiar, for I have not hesitated to use any legitimate 
 argument which I thought of without reference to, and 
 frequently without knowing, where it came from. Some 
 I have never heard from others ; yet I cannot doubt but 
 
lO DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 that even these have been used before. But age does not 
 hurt an argument if it has not been refuted, and an argu- 
 ment, whether original or borrowed, is an argument still, 
 and its value depends on its inherent strength, not on who 
 may be its author. 
 
THE ARGUMENT. 
 
 PROPOSITION I. 
 
 I. The Church has exerted, and still exerts, a baleful in- 
 fluence upon mankind : 
 
 a. by discouraging the study of nature and suppress- 
 ing the use of reason, thereby checking progress 
 and retarding civilization ; and 
 
 b. by insisting that belief is necessary to salvation, 
 thereby driving many to despair and ruin ; 
 
 and man's physical, mental, and spiritual advance- 
 ment has been, and must be, through skepticism 
 and free-thought, and in spite — and not because — of 
 the Church. 
 
 The Church has so pertinaciously claimed that every- 
 thing good comes from, through, or by it ; has so persist- 
 ently appropriated to itself the credit of improving man's 
 temporal condition as well as of providing for his future 
 happiness, that it seldom occurs to any one to question 
 its pretensions. But some have thought it worth while to 
 look into the matter, and I purpose giving, very briefly, a 
 summary of some of their researches into history, and 
 also my own views on the subject, that we may form a 
 more accurate opinion than some of us probably now 
 have, as to the value of the Church's services to man in 
 the past and now. 
 
 I think it necessary that I should state the actual truth, 
 
12 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 because it is constantly urged on me, and many doubtless 
 so think, that even if the Church be wrong in many of its 
 dogmas and doctrines, it has done and is doing so much 
 good that it should be helped, not hurt ; that most cer- 
 tainly some religion is necessary to control, at least, the 
 masses, and keep them in the paths of rectitude and vir- 
 tue ; and that Christianity, as taught by the Churches, 
 Roman, Greek, and Protestant, is the best and highest 
 form of religion known ; and, even if not true, should not 
 be interfered with ; that a disbelief in the Church and the 
 religion which it teaches would do much harm and no 
 good. 
 
 I doubt the morality of the position, which is closely 
 akin to the doctrine that evil maybe done that good may 
 follow. I think that what is false should perish because 
 it is false, and that no other reason is necessary for com- 
 bating it. And while I believe it to be a fact that it is a 
 great advantage to any one to have a religion, I believe 
 also that it is of grave importance that such religion 
 should be true ; and I do not, and cannot, believe that a 
 false religion can do more good than a true one — that 
 the spirit of falsehood is stronger for good than is the 
 spirit of truth. 
 
 I make no war on religion. I attack only such phases 
 of it as seem to me to be clearly wrong and hurtful ; and 
 I think that what is left, the true, is all that is worth 
 preserving— is all that does any good. All the morality 
 of Christianity, the outpouring of the ethical instincts of 
 all humanity, should and must stand forever; the mere 
 dogmatic teachings of ecclesiasticism with reference to 
 beliefs, with no foundation in fact or reason, should be 
 discarded. They may be useful to the Church in helping 
 to sustain her power, wealth, and glory, but are exceed- 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 1 3 
 
 ingly injurious in their effects on mankind. Christianity, 
 as taught by the Church, may be the best form of 
 organized religion known, but it is certainly not the 
 best knowable, nor near so good as it will be with its 
 errors expunged and only its truths left. And this I 
 now attempt to show, beginning with the Church's past 
 record. 
 
 (a.) I quote, and largely, from a little pamphlet called 
 The Influence of Christianity on Civilization, by B. F. 
 Underwood. 
 
 Having shown in detail the condition of Europe when 
 it was under the absolute domination of the Church ; 
 when all learning, all science, all art, all history, all litera- 
 ture in Christendom were monopolized by the clergy, and 
 no education worthy the name existed outside ; when the 
 light of the Church, in its full and unobstructed power, 
 though shining so brilliantly for the clergy, shone so 
 dimly for the rest of mankind that that period has ever 
 since been known as the " Dark Ages," — the mental and 
 moral atmosphere sodden with ignorance and supersti- 
 tion until the mind of the laity began at last to hunger 
 for wholesome air and nutritious food ; he goes on to 
 show how they were obtained. 
 
 He quotes Lecky(and I commence my selections on p. 
 63) thus : 
 
 " The influence of theology having for centuries benumbed and paralyzed 
 the whole intellect of Christian Europe, the revival which forms the start- 
 ing-point of our modern civilization, was mainly due to the fact that two 
 spheres of intellect still remained uncontrolled by the sceptre of Catholicism. 
 The Pagan literature of antiquity and the Mohammedan schools of science 
 were the chief agencies in resuscitating the dormant energies of Chris- 
 tendom." 1 
 
 1 Hist, of Morals, p. 18. Appleton & Co., N. Y., 1869. 
 
14 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 Mr. Underwood goes on to say : 
 
 " The Crusades, the main object of which was to get possession of an 
 empty sepulchre, and which a writer justly says ' turned Syria into an 
 Aceldama, and inundated with blood the fairest fields of Europe,' neverthe- 
 less, by bringing the Christians more generally and more directly in contrast 
 with the Saracens, accomplished much good. ' They proved,' says Guizot, 
 ' a great progress toward more extensive and liberal ideas. They, the 
 Crusaders, also found themselves in juxtaposition with two civilizations, not 
 only different from their own, but more advanced — the Greeks on the one 
 hand, and the Mohammedans on the other It is curious to ob- 
 serve in the old Chronicles the impression which the Crusaders made upon 
 the Mussulmans. These latter regarded them at first as barbarians ; as the 
 rudest, the most ferocious, and the most stupid class cf men they had ever 
 seen. The Crusaders, on their part, were struck with the riches and ele- 
 gance of manners of the Mussulmans.' x 
 
 " Brought thus in contact with a people greatly their superiors in intelli- 
 gence and culture, the Christians could not help receiving benefit from those 
 whose country they invaded. That Christendom, in various ways, is vastly 
 indebted to the Arabs, and especially to the Saracens, for the intellectual 
 advancement that has been made within its limits, no person who has 
 acquaintance with the history of the middle ages can deny. By them the 
 learning and ethics of pagan antiquity were disinterred from the dust of 
 centuries and transmitted and cultivated on the soil of modern Europe. 
 And it was contact with the Saracens that quickened the energies and 
 enlarged the minds of the European Christians, and prepared the way for 
 advances in every direction. Knowledge and skepticism increased together. 
 The rationalism of Abelard in the twelfth century, the heresies of the Walden- 
 ses, which gave the Church so much trouble and called forth her vengeance, the 
 spirit of free-thought, of which general complaint was made in the thirteenth 
 century, all furnish evidence of the existence of a strong and growing senti- 
 ment against the prevailing system. The poetry of Dante, in which he 
 assigned several popes a place in hell for their vices, the sonnets of Petrarch, 
 in some of which the Church of Rome is characterized as a harlot, and the 
 tales of Boccaccio, wherein the vices of the monks and priests were freely 
 exposed, among other works of less ability and note, tended to increase con- 
 tempt for the Church and her unholy pretensions. The influence of Roger 
 Bacon. . . . The invention of rag paper, and afterwards of printing. 
 
 1 Hist. Civilization, vol. i., p. 154. See Hazlitt's translation, Appleton 
 & Co., 1867, pp. 182. 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 1 5 
 
 . . . An acquaintance with the mariner's compass . . . and a 
 knowledge of gunpowder, proved of incalculable value to the cause of progress. 
 . . . Copernicus, and later Galileo, opened to the contemplation of man 
 other worlds than our own ; science and philosophy received more and more 
 attention, and the heart of man seemed to beat with a more vigorous pulsa- 
 tion, and his mind, brought from heaven to earth, awakened to a life of ac- ' 
 tivity and adventure. . . . During all this struggle between intellectual 
 life and intellectual death, which continued for ages, Christianity opposed 
 most stubbornly every innovation and punished with imprisonment, torture, 
 and death the votaries of science, philosophy, and reform. Roger Bacon 
 was imprisoned ten years for his scientific investigations ; the work of 
 Copernicus was condemned as ' a false Pythagorean doctrine,' and the 
 author, there is reason to believe, excommunicated ; Bruno was burnt at 
 the stake ; Galileo was arrested and forced to renounce his scientific theories, 
 and when released his steps were dogged until his death. 
 
 "If the Church became the friend of the serfs against the nobles of 
 Europe, it was because a proud and powerful nobility, not always submis- 
 sive to Ecclesiastical discipline, having almost unlimited control over the 
 people, weakened the authority of the Church. The people once more 
 under her power, she oppressed the nobles and the serfs alike. 
 
 "The Archbishop of Canterbury joined with the barons in extorting 
 Magna Charta from King John. For this act he incurred the wrath of Pope 
 Innocent III., who removed him from office, denounced the Charter, de- 
 clared it null and void, and threatened the King with excommunication and 
 the curses of the Church if he did not disregard it. . . . 
 
 "In Spain, the supremacy of Catholic Christianity was followed by the 
 most disastrous results. Under the Saracens, as we have seen, that country 
 was the most enlightened portion of Europe. Its decline commenced with 
 the triumph of the Christian faith, when science decayed, manufactures 
 gradually disappeared, industrial pursuits were abandoned, fields were un- 
 cultivated, and whole districts depopulated. The most valuable part of the 
 Spanish population — the Moriscoes, a remnant of the people who had made 
 Spain illustrious in preceding centuries — were expelled from Spanish soil. 
 This monstrous wrong, the expulsion of 100,000 people from their native 
 land, was urged on and compelled by the Spanish priests. ' When they 
 were thrust out of Spain,' says Buckle, ' there was no one to fill their places ; 
 arts and manufactures either degenerated or were entirely lost, and immense 
 regions of arable land were left deserted ; . . . Whole districts were 
 suddenly deserted, and down to the present day have never been repeopled. 
 These solitudes gave refuge to smugglers and brigands, who succeeded the 
 industrious inhabitants formerly occupying them ; and it is said that from 
 
t6 an inquiry into 
 
 the expulsion of the Moriscoes is to be dated the existence of those 
 organized bands of robbers, which after this period became the scourge 
 of Spain, and which no subsequent government has been able entirely to 
 extirpate.' ' 
 
 " The expulsion of the Jews from Spain, who next to the Moriscoes were 
 the best part of the population, still further contributed to the downfall of 
 that priest-ridden country. The terrible effects of the Inquisition can never 
 be computed. According to Llorente, 31,000 persons were burnt, and 290,- 
 000 condemned to other kinds of punishment by this institution in Spain 
 alone. It destroyed all industry, stamped out all free-thought, and in spite 
 of all the treasures which the new world poured into Spain, the people were 
 reduced, largely through its influence, to a condition of poverty and degra- 
 dation. In no way did the prevailing religion intentionally encourage the 
 dissemination of learning or the improvement of man's unhappy condition 
 in this world. On the contrary, the Church robbed and impoverished the 
 people here, giving them in return promises of crowns of glory beyond the 
 grave. 
 
 "Since man has to a considerable extent, in some portions of Christen- 
 dom, emancipated himself from the thraldom of the Church he has made un- 
 precedented progress. The advocates of Christianity now absurdly claim 
 that the advancement thus made is justly attributable to their faith. As well 
 might we ascribe the enlightenment of Spain from the ninth to the thirteenth 
 century to the religion of the Koran. In those times the Mohammedan might 
 have maintained the divine character and beneficent tendency of his religion 
 by a comparison of Spain with the Christian countries of Europe with just 
 as much reason and truth as the defenders of Christianity now argue in 
 favor of the divinity and favorable tendency of their religion by comparing 
 the Christian nations of to-day with pagan countries— with as much reason 
 and truth as the Protestant endeavors to prove what the Protestant form of 
 Christianity has accomplished by pointing to England and America, and 
 contrasting them with Spain and Mexico as they are to-day. 
 
 " It is not uncommon for the defenders of Christianity to refer to the fact 
 that nearly all the universities of learning in Christendom are sustained in 
 the interests of the Christian religion, and that science, philosophy, and 
 literature have been chiefly encouraged and cultivated by those who have 
 been reared under the influence of this faith. The Saracens of Spain in the 
 centuries named could have said the same in defence of Mohammedanism. 
 The noblest universities in the world were Mohammedan institutions, and the 
 cultivation of science and learning was brought up under and indoctri- 
 
 1 Hist. Civil. , vol. 
 
 "., p. 53. 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 1? 
 
 nated in the Mohammedan faith. But the universities and learning of Spain 
 were surely not the result of the religion of the Saracens. Neither are the 
 learning and the universities of England, Germany, and America the result 
 of any form of Christianity. Mohammedanism was less unfavorable to intel- 
 lectual progress in the middle ages than Mediaeval Christianity. So Protes- 
 tant Christianity as it exists in England or America is far less injurious in its 
 tendency than Catholicism as it exists in Spain and Mexico ; but it is cer- 
 tainly absurd to maintain that the progress that has been made in the former 
 countries should be put to the credit of Protestant Christianity. This form 
 of Christianity, like Catholicism, has, in the past, opposed science, philoso- 
 phy, and reform, and persecuted the pioneers of intellectual progress to the 
 full extent of its power ; but happily, its power, never equal to that of the 
 mother Church, has been growing less gradually until now it is so weak that, 
 in this country especially, it can oppose but feebly the discoveries and inno- 
 vations which contradict its assumptions and threaten to destroy it entirely. 
 The policy that it now adopts to get a new lease of life is to conform, with 
 the best possible grace, to the teachings of science and philosophy, and to 
 acquiesce, as far as possible, in the reforms of the day. 
 
 "Hence it is now comparatively harmless in checking intellectual pro- 
 gress. Herein we see the liberalizing and elevating influence of those 
 sciences and arts, and those pursuits of industrialism which have thus ex- 
 panded the mind and enlightened the understanding, and, in consequence, 
 shorn religion of its power, and forced it, in spite of its stubborn opposition 
 at every step, to abandon many of its antiquated errors, and stop its cruel 
 persecution of the benefactors of mankind. It is skepticism and free- 
 thought, not religion, that have contributed to the progress we have 
 sketched. 
 
 " ' For more than three centuries,' says Lecky, ' decadence of theological 
 influence has been one of the most invariable signs and means of our 
 progress. In medicine, physical science, commercial interests, politics, and 
 even ethics, the reformer has been confronted with theological affirmations 
 which barred his way, which were all defended as of vital importance, and 
 were all in turn compelled to yield before the secularizing influence of 
 civilization.' 1 
 
 " It is frequently asserted that in the most Christian countries the people 
 are the most intellectual, moral, and happy. But the fact is, that in those 
 countries in which skepticism and infidelity have acquired the greatest 
 strength and influence, and in which Christianity has been modified to con- 
 form to the changed condition of affairs, the people are the most advanced." 
 
 1 Hist. Morals, vol. ii., p. 18. 
 
1 8 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 I hardly think it worth while to quote further. Any 
 unsectarian history of the middle ages will afford cumula- 
 tive and convincing proof of the prodigious harm worked 
 by the Church. 
 
 I have not quoted Church writers ; they are too apt to 
 confound faith and fact, assertion and argument, and 
 accept or reject without sufficient investigation. Nor do 
 I think a rigid Churchman competent to investigate and 
 judge in matters affecting his religion. It is only those 
 who have emancipated themselves from " authority " and 
 " faith " — who have, no theory to sustain, but who want 
 truth and do not care what that truth may be — who can 
 investigate impartially, and are apt to reach correct con- 
 clusions. All experience proves this, and until human 
 nature becomes different from what it is it must continue 
 to be so. But the facts which I have quoted cannot be 
 successfully denied. They are undoubtedly true, and could 
 not have been otherwise so long as the Church believed 
 and taught the Bible literally, and held it to be the word 
 of God ; for under that state of facts any scientific demon- 
 stration which contradicted, or conflicted with, the state- 
 ments of the Bible, must have been regarded as dangerous. 
 The Church, for its own protection, was bound to see that 
 no knowledge should find its way into any man's mind 
 until it had been first inspected by its authority. I care 
 not if a word of history had never been written ; I care 
 not if every word of history that ever has been written 
 had been lost ; it must follow, as a matter of necessity, 
 that any religion which teaches that God Himself revealed 
 to man what He had done and how He had done it, 
 which goes into detail, and undertakes to explain nature ; 
 which represents that the natural facts contained in the 
 Bible are the direct statements of the Creator Himself; 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 1 9 
 
 which, in short, includes a detailed cosmogony as well as 
 a theology ; must be a religion which discourages, if it 
 does not forbid, investigation. Why question nature 
 when God, its Creator, has explained ? Why seek for 
 further information, for more knowledge, when God has 
 revealed all He thought necessary for man? And when 
 some active, honest mind that would not be still, would 
 observe, record, and report some fact in nature in seeming 
 conflict with the sacred statement, it could not be other- 
 wise than that he should be regarded as a heretic, an 
 enemy of mankind ; and when the religion taught that 
 God Himself directed the slaughter of His and their 
 enemies by His chosen people, it could hardly be that the 
 people would restrain their brutish instincts in the face of 
 what they would have been justified in considering a per- 
 mission, if not an order, to turn them loose. 
 
 Hence, apart from the teachings of history, it could not 
 have been otherwise than that the human mind was fet- 
 tered, benumbed, paralyzed, and progress rendered well- 
 nigh impossible either in science or religion, except where 
 the Church could turn it to its own account. 
 
 Therefore the arts, and such sciences as did not conflict 
 with — that is, did not touch — the statements of the Bible, 
 would have flourished, but all others would have declined 
 or died out, — notably the sciences of astronomy, geology, 
 and medicine : the first two because it was supposed 
 that the Bible told all that was necessary on the subjects; 
 and the third because nearly all sickness, especially epi- 
 demics, was regarded as a direct visitation of Divine wrath, 
 and therefore to be gotten rid of only by prayer or 
 miracle. And this is just what history, as recorded by 
 honest writers, tells us, and their accounts need no other 
 confirmation. Just as a philologist will take a few words, 
 
20 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 and from them give a history of the people who used 
 them ; as a naturalist will from a single bone reconstruct 
 in his mind and accurately describe the animal to which it 
 had belonged, its appearance, habits, and disposition ; so 
 an historian might take the teachings of the Church and 
 a knowledge of human nature, and tell just what effects 
 such causes must have necessarily produced. And in 
 looking over the conflicting statements of historians 
 writing from different standpoints, for or against the 
 Church, it is an easy matter for one at all versed in 
 the business to tell the true from the false. 
 
 But we have further proofs of all this before us now. 
 The world is still suffering from the influence of the 
 Church, whether Catholic or Protestant. We still find the 
 free discussion of science, ethics, and religion frowned 
 down. The Church, thanks to the civilization brought 
 about by the few brave men who were not afraid to think 
 and speak their thoughts, has no longer the power to 
 crush and punish, but she tries to frighten by her now 
 powerless bulls, by excommunications and anathemas, 
 by branding with such harmless epithets as " infidel," 
 " deist," " atheist," " materialist," and still does all she 
 can, in her small way, to check progress. Forced into 
 the recognition of the demonstrated truths of astronomy, 
 of geology, of geography, her own priests now study, and 
 make discoveries, and hold opinions for which a few years 
 ago they would have been burned at the stake. And we 
 may thank infidelity for.it. A very pious Protestant said 
 to me, not long ago, that he hated infidelity, but believed 
 God used it to advance the world in knowledge and free- 
 dom. And it is undoubtedly true. It is owing to the 
 civilizing influences of infidelity that I can now thus pub- 
 licly express my honest convictions, and that my views 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 21 
 
 are patiently examined, and approved or disapproved, as 
 the case may be, instead of my being denounced to the 
 Grand Inquisitor. When the Church was in supreme 
 power, I would not have dared to thus write, nor the 
 public to read. Now the Church attempts to use no 
 force, but leaves me unmolested. Surely it has changed 
 for the better, through the civilizing effects of free- 
 thought, or else civilization has pulled its teeth, cut its 
 claws, and made it seem respectable. 
 
 And even yet we are not entirely free from the old 
 superstition that plagues and epidemics are but the ven- 
 geance of God visited upon a sinful people ; and we still 
 hear of masses, processions, prayer-meetings, and various 
 similar, but always unsuccessful, devices being used to 
 prevent or get rid of them. But if the Church had never 
 taught such an incorrect and blasphemous idea, but had 
 taught that diseases are sent by God to punish man for 
 his ignorance, or disregard of the laws of nature, and for 
 no other sin, and only to teach him better, the time wasted 
 in prayers, processions, fastings, and vigils, would have 
 been applied to studying the laws of hygiene, and far 
 more progress would have been made in stopping epidem- 
 ics than has been. Nature warns but never forgives. 
 Violate her laws, she warns by striking ; continue to vio- 
 late, and she strikes mortally. How much more important, 
 then, to study nature as she is, than to spend time pray- 
 ing to God to change His laws to suit our views. Holy 
 wafers, masses, relics, charms, and prayers will not do 
 anything towards warding off sickness ; but soap and 
 water, ventilation, drainage, disinfection, and a proper diet 
 will. The old superstitions are not all dead yet ; but they 
 are sickening, and some of them are gone ; and by the 
 grace of God, working through those who love Him and 
 
22 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 strive to do His commandments, not as taught by human 
 churches and effete theology, but as gathered from His 
 ever open and never-changing book of revelations, Nature, 
 they will ultimately all be buried, and the world be freer, 
 better, purer for it. And all of us, long since passed 
 away, with our eyes opened to higher truths than we may 
 know in this world now, forgetting all past differences of 
 creed, will rejoice that the kingdom of God, not of the 
 Church, has come at last to man. 
 
 But there were other influences than those just referred 
 to at work to make it impossible that the Church should 
 not have stayed progress and improvement of every sort. 
 
 These are indicated in the following passage from Dar- 
 win's Descent of Man V 
 
 "Who can positively say why the Spanish Nation, so dominant at one 
 time, has been distanced in the race. The awakening of the Nations of 
 Europe from the dark ages is a still more perplexing problem. At this early 
 period, as Mr. Galton has remarked, almost all the men of gentle nature, 
 those given to meditation or culture of the mind, had no refuge except in the 
 bosom of the Church, which demanded celibacy : and this could hardly have 
 failed to have a deterioriating influence on each successive generation. Dur- 
 ing the same period the Holy Inquisition selected with extreme care the 
 freest and boldest men in order to burn or imprison them. In Spain alone 
 some of the best men— those who doubted and questioned, and without 
 doubting and questioning there can be no progress — were eliminated during 
 three centuries at the rate of a thousand a year." 
 
 Talent, genius, bravery, nobility, gentleness, all of our 
 good qualities and propensities, are as transmissible from 
 father to son as are those that are bad ; and these two in- 
 stitutions of the Church, celibacy for the priests and the 
 Inquisition for the laity, cut off the stream of good influ- 
 ences while the bad flowed steadily on. 
 
 And this does not reflect on the character of the men 
 1 Vol. i., pp. 171, 172. 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 2$ 
 
 who worked this fearful harm on the world ; it was the 
 terrible nature of their creed. Believing, as they did, that 
 celibacy was a virtue and that heresy was the worst of all 
 crimes and forever damned those who were guilty of it, 
 what wonder that they insisted on the one and tried to 
 check the other, and used, to further their plans, the means 
 with which Jehovah was wont to scourge His enemies. As 
 Mr. Underwood remarks: "It is easy to believe Llorente 
 when he says that the founders of the Spanish Inquisition 
 were men whose characters were unstained by vice, and 
 who acted from an earnest desire to save the souls of 
 men." 
 
 It is claimed that the Church has been a boon to woman, 
 and that it has immensely ameliorated her condition. This, 
 too, is a mistake. Woman's condition, like man's, has been 
 bettered by civilization and in spite of the Church. The 
 fundamental fact in Scripture with reference to woman is 
 that through her came sin into the world. "Adam was 
 first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but 
 the woman being deceived was in the transgression." ' 
 
 For this reason woman was to be in every way subject 
 to man. She was not to speak in public, she was to yield 
 implicit obedience to her husband, and man was made for 
 the glory of God, while woman was made for the use of 
 man. Her wishes were not to be consulted in the choice 
 of a husband. She could be captured and put to the basest 
 uses, and by the direct permission of God. She was an 
 abject slave to man, submitting herself to him as to her 
 God — and except as man has freed her, she so remains. 
 
 I am not an advocate of " woman's rights," so called ; I 
 believe in the division of labor, and think woman's sphere 
 is different, in a great degree, from man's. But I think 
 
 1 i Tim. ii., 13, 14. 
 
24 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 she should be so educated as to bring out the full power 
 and strength of her mind and body, and should be as free 
 to discuss matters affecting her interest, and to express 
 her views thereon, as man. And above all she should be 
 relieved from the cowardly reproach of ages, " the woman 
 tempted me, and I did eat." If we will believe the story, 
 let us be men enough to bear the responsibilities of our 
 own acts, and not try, like cringing school-boys, to shift 
 the blame on helpless woman. 
 
 I have heard it frequently urged that we should not judge 
 the Christian religion by the acts of its adherents in the 
 early days of the Church ; that all men were then barbarous 
 to some extent, and that it took time for Christianity to 
 civilize them. A tree must be judged by its fruit. We 
 can only judge the Church by its effect on mankind, and 
 certainly it is fair to show its effect on its chief supporters 
 and its own officers and priests. 
 
 We have seen the excesses which they committed when 
 they held undisputed power, and we have seen that they 
 became more moderate only in proportion as they lost their 
 power ; and that there is abundant evidence that the Church 
 is actuated yet by the same old intolerant spirit; and I 
 close this branch of my first proposition by a quotation in 
 point from Huxley's Lay Sermons, p. 278. 
 
 " Who shall number the patient and earnest seekers after truth, from the 
 days of Galilee until now, whose lives have been embittered and their good 
 name blasted by the mistaken zeal of bibliolators ? Who shall count the 
 host of weaker men whose sense of truth has been destroyed in the effort to 
 harmonize impossibilities— whose life has been wasted in the attempt to 
 force the generous new wine of science into the old bottles of Judaism, 
 compelled by the outcry of the same strong party ? 
 
 " It is true that if philosophers have suffered, their cause has been amply 
 avenged. Extinguished theologians lie about the cradle of every science as 
 

 THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 2$ 
 
 the strangled snakes beside that of Hercules ; and history records that when- 
 ever science and orthodoxy have been fairly opposed, the latter has been 
 forced to retire from the lists, bleeding and crushed, if not annihilated ; 
 scotched, if not slain. But orthodoxy is the Bourbon of the world of thought. 
 It learns not, neither can it forget ; and though at present bewildered and 
 afraid to move, it is as willing as ever to insist that the first chapter of Gene- 
 sis contains the beginning and the end of sound science, and to visit with 
 such petty thunderbolts as its half-paralyzed hands can hurl, those who 
 refuse to degrade nature to the level of primitive Judaism."' 
 
 We have thus seen how, and why, the Church has dis- 
 couraged the study of nature, and has sought to suppress 
 the use of reason, thereby checking progress and retard- 
 ing civilization ; and that it still retains the same tenden- 
 cies, though, on account of the gradual emancipation of 
 man's mind, by skepticism and free-thought, from the 
 slavery imposed by his superstitious fears, its power is 
 materially lessened. 
 
 (b.) It now remains to go a little further, and to show 
 that so long as the Church insists that belief in any creed 
 or dogma is necessary to salvation, so long must it con- 
 tinue to exert, in the future, as in the past and present, 
 a baleful influence on mankind, and to drive many to 
 despair and ruin. 
 
 In order to be perfectly clear, it will be best, I think, to 
 examine, somewhat in detail, but rapidly, how belief, of 
 the kind being considered, originates, how it is main- 
 tained, and how the doctrine of its importance works 
 harm ; for knowing its origin we can the better judge of 
 its correctness and consequent importance, and if it be 
 found to be incorrect, and therefore the very reverse of 
 important, we will the more fully appreciate the error of a 
 system which makes belief a necessary preliminary to 
 salvation. 
 
26 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 Impressions made upon the infant mind, growing with 
 our growth, increasing with our strength, are the most 
 tenacious we have ; and even when we think we have 
 gotten rid of them, that they are finally effaced, we find 
 that they have left a scar, like that of a badly healed 
 wound, which sometimes breaks out afresh. 
 
 Among the strongest of our instincts (and surely the 
 noblest) is love of, and respect for, our parents. The child 
 looks up to father and mother, as father and mother look 
 up to God. One or the other is appealed to for informa- 
 tion, for sympathy, for help, for he has unlimited 
 confidence in their knowledge, their affection, their 
 power ; and though experience comes later to show 
 that knowledge and power were overestimated, their 
 affection still remains undoubted and unchanged, and, 
 as it should, casts a sacred, holy, charm over all they said 
 and did. 
 
 Again, the child is like primitive man, certainly no 
 further advanced in mental characteristics or powers. He 
 sees, as saw primitive man, effects resulting from unknown 
 causes, and, as with primitive man, his growing brain asks 
 "why?" Why does the sun shine? Why does it rain? 
 What is the awe-inspiring lightning, and the still more 
 fearful thunder? What is the wind, and why does it 
 blow? What holds up the stars? Why does it get dark? 
 What, and why, are pain, and sickness, and death ? 
 
 As primitive man, when questioned similarly by his 
 thoughts, had gradually, if not solved these problems, at 
 least quieted his mind, by at first personalizing the forces 
 of nature, and later on, when they were recognized as 
 powers, not persons, by putting them under the control 
 of the personalities he had thus imagined ; and guided by 
 experience, having no other teacher, since he had come to 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 2J 
 
 recognize the necessity of a ruler among men, had as- 
 sumed that there must be, and hence was, a superior and 
 supreme personality in command of all the rest ; and so, 
 by slow degrees, had built up a theological system, 
 founded at first on his fancies alone, and subsequently 
 merely modified as he learned to use his reason ; and as 
 this system, changing its dress as men changed their 
 notions, the old gods and goddesses transformed into 
 saints of either sex, shorn of much of their power, but 
 still possessing some, or else, losing their personality, be- 
 coming attributes of the supreme God, has come down to 
 our own times essentially the same old idea, modified in 
 detail alone ; so the father, under the domination of these 
 inherited ideas, answers the queries of the child as primi- 
 tive man answered his own aspirations for knowledge, his 
 own yearning for the unknown — perhaps the unknowable 
 — by referring all phenomena to a supernatural personal 
 cause, individualized as God, telling him that all things 
 may be explained as the acts of such God furthering His 
 schemes of love and mercy, or of hatred and revenge ; for 
 this God of his is very human in his nature, and is subject 
 not only to the noblest, but also to the basest, passions of 
 man ; and proceeds to teach him how to win God's love, 
 how to avert God's anger ; in other words, lays before 
 him, by degrees, the Church's creed. 
 
 All men are superstitious, some to a greater some to a 
 less degree. I do not think there exists one without super- 
 stition in some form — even if it be only a belief in " luck," 
 and ways and means of changing it. The germ is there, 
 though in many cases strength of will, or reason, or ex- 
 perience, or ridicule may have modified many of its ex- 
 pressions, and wellnigh, but not quite, destroyed itself. 
 But in the child it is in its full force, and the theological 
 
28 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 system unfolded to him appeals directly to this strong 
 instinct, and with it aiding the teachings of those in 
 whom he has the most implicit confidence, how could it 
 be otherwise than that he should receive as undoubted, 
 undoubtable truth all that comes to him from such a 
 source and under such circumstances ? 
 
 And with most Christians, in fact with a majority so 
 vast as to approach unanimity, this is the only founda- 
 tion on which their faith is built, — the single source of 
 their belief. Think of it. Our whole hope of the eter- 
 nal future based on nothing more substantial than the 
 teachings of those who knew no more than we, and who, 
 like us, and like their teachers, believe only because 
 taught to do so while children, or in the trusting mental 
 condition of children, and, having never been taught dif- 
 ferently, have never questioned what they thought un- 
 questionable. 
 
 I do not mean to exaggerate. I do not think that I 
 do. Let any one ask himself why he believes, and in 
 nearly every case I am confident the answer, if intelligent 
 and sincere, will prove that I am right. In nearly every 
 instance he will find that the ultimate reason is that he 
 has been taught to so believe by those in whom he had 
 absolute confidence — his parents or his guardians in early 
 life, his teachers and clergy later on. And the answer 
 will be the same though in his turn he may now be 
 parent, guardian, teacher, or priest. For even those who 
 have investigated fully, as they think, the subject since 
 they have become of maturer years, will find, by rigid 
 self-examination, that their early beliefs and training have 
 been all-important factors in their conclusions, that the 
 alpha of their studies and the omega of their results, is 
 FAITH, which I conceive to be a blind reliance on the 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 29 
 
 views and assertions of others, and the utter suppression 
 of reason. 1 
 
 I do not wish to be misunderstood. I do not believe 
 that all intelligence, wisdom, or knowledge is confined to 
 those who doubt. I am perfectly well aware that some 
 of the most brilliant intellects, the wisest minds, and the 
 most learned men the world has ever known have been, 
 and still are, conscientiously enlisted on the side of the 
 
 1 This definition of faith seems to have aroused the indignation of the 
 learned Bishop who did me the honor to discuss with me the points presented 
 in this argument. I give his criticism : 
 
 "It is related of the famous Don Quixote that, lance in hand, he furi- 
 ously attacked what he imagined to be a hostile giant. But alas ! the foe 
 of flesh and blood proved to be a windmill. This achievement of the knight 
 of the rueful countenance is certainly ludicrous enough. But I don't think 
 it is half so laughable as your gallant charges on 'faith.' You define faith 
 to be a blind reliance on the views and assertions of others, and the utter 
 suppression of the latter, i. e., reason. And then you draw your gallant 
 weapon against this ugly giant. But alas ! Sir, it is only a windmill. 
 For a windmill is about as much like an iron-clad knight as your definition 
 is like to Catholic faith. You say I must use my own reason. Certainly ; 
 we don't object to that. And don't you think it might have been using 
 your reason to considerable advantage had you first learned what faith really 
 was before penning such a caricature of it ? 
 
 " Faith has been held to be the most sacred of things by such intellectual 
 giants as a Copernicus, Michael-Angelo, Raphael, Dante, and hosts of 
 others whose names are immortal in science and art. These mighty geniuses 
 never for a moment dreamed that faith is a ' blind reliance on the views and 
 assertions of others, and the utter suppression of reason ' ; for faith, instead 
 of being the ' utter suppression of reason,' is reason's highest act." 
 
 To which I replied : 
 
 We now come to Don Quixote, and his windmill, to whom and which 
 you are kind enough to liken me and my definition of faith. 
 
 At the time I had no intention of giving a regular definition of faith ; if I 
 had, I would probably have given the famous one of Hood in his Up the 
 Rhine. It is contained in a letter from Martha Penny to Rebecca Page, 
 and is as follows : 
 
 ' ' But as a party you don't know says, what 's faith ? As for beleavin what 's 
 
30 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 Church. But I do believe, and this is what I wish to 
 convey, that such men either have never properly investi- 
 gated in the pure spirit of truth, and nothing else, or, if 
 with the proper spirit, have started at the wrong point ; 
 have taken for granted as an unquestioned fact something 
 taught them in their early youth, but which is really the 
 very point at issue, and, starting from false premises, have, 
 by correct reasoning, been naturally brought to wrong 
 conclusions. 
 
 That such men, not only wise but good, have believed, 
 and still believe, the Church's creed, proves nothing, 
 though it entitles their belief to a respectful considera- 
 
 only plain and probberble and nateral, says he, its no beleaf at all. But 
 wen you beleav in things totally impossible, and direct contrary to nater, 
 that is real, true, downright faith, and to be sure, so it is." 
 
 And this reminds me of a sermon which a friend assures me he heard 
 you preach, in which, while speaking of the sacrifices which the Church de- 
 manded of her children, you said (as he recollects it) that it even " demanded 
 the sacrifice of our intellects," instancing the belief in the real presence. 
 
 But after carefully considering your objections, I am disposed to adopt, in 
 cold blood, what I then said in my haste, and define faith as " a blind re- 
 liance on the views and assertions of others, and the utter suppression of 
 reason." There, Sir, is the windmill, and you will excuse me if I turn 
 your simile against you. Don Quixote did not make windmills ; others 
 made them, and he attacked them, as you do, and I really think you have 
 been as successful as he, no more. If my definition is wrong, why have you 
 not given me a better ? You tell me that a number of " intellectual giants " 
 have held faith " to be the most sacred of things," but that does not define 
 it. You further say that they did not regard it as "a blind reliance on the 
 views and assertions of others, and the utter suppression of reason," and you 
 add "for faith, instead of being the utter suppression of reason, is reason's 
 highest act." But why not define it? I do not know what the gentlemen 
 whose names you give thought about faith, nor do I care. If their views were 
 wrong, they ought to be suppressed ; if they were right, they were right, 
 not because they held them, but because of the reasons which induced them 
 to hold them. Some eminently respectable gentlemen have believed that 
 the earth was stationary, and that the sun revolved around it ; indeed I am 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 3 1 
 
 tion and a careful examination. And that consideration 
 and examination I have given it, and, so far as I have 
 been able to ascertain, the basis of their belief, the foun- 
 dation of their creed, is faith, as I have defined it, ac- 
 quired as I have pointed out. 
 
 And yet the faith of such men, so acquired and main- 
 tained, is used as proof of the truth of their belief! 
 Whereas, to restate with greater clearness what I have 
 just said, the fact that any one believes or disbelieves a 
 system is not, per se, any evidence that the system is 
 either correct or incorrect. It may be evidence that it is 
 not to be lightly rejected or accepted ; but the reasons 
 
 not sure but that some of the popes, and other eminent luminaries of the 
 Church, so held ; but their belief did not make it so. Belief is now known 
 not to influence facts ; indeed it is doubted if the tractile or repellant power 
 of faith can any longer remove a mountain, except figuratively, and it can- 
 not be denied that mountains of fact, reason, or philosophy are to faith as if 
 they were not. 
 
 But, seriously, I would like to know what is wrong about my definition. 
 Let us examine it. It certainly is a belief in something of which we have 
 no demonstration, or it would be knowledge — not faith. If we have no 
 demonstration of it, it would seem to be a belief in the opinions or asser- 
 tions of others, and any belief in the opinions or assertions of another, with- 
 out other evidence, is blind reliance, even though we only give that sort of 
 confidence to people whom we think we can trust ; and the only possible use 
 I can see of reason in the matter is in determining upon whom we shall 
 rely ; and in matters of religious faith (and that is the sort I am speaking of) 
 that has generally been determined for us when we were children and 
 could n't help ourselves. 
 
 So, really, I cannot see how faith can be reason's " highest act," except 
 on the principle that the highest act of a king is abdication. 
 
 To this the Bishop has never replied ; so I adhere to my definition until I 
 can find a better one. Indeed the language ascribed to Jesus (Matt, xviii., 
 13), "except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not 
 enter into the kingdom of heaven," would seem to be an authoritative 
 enunciation of the principle that inability to reason is essential to a perfect 
 fulness of faith. 
 
32 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 why such a one believes or rejects are of much more 
 importance than the mere fact that he so believes or re- 
 jects. And upon the strength of the reasons for belief or 
 disbelief, not on the belief or disbelief itself, should the 
 case rest. And when we are told that we must believe 
 or reject any doctrine because believed or rejected by 
 another, or many others, whom we admire, love, and 
 respect for both mental and moral qualities, if it be a 
 matter of any importance, our self-respect and our duty 
 to ourselves and others should require us to ascertain 
 WHY such person, or persons, so held. Any other course 
 would be to surrender our individuality, to dethrone our 
 reason. And the WHY we have just examined, and have 
 found it to be the faith of a little child. 
 
 But notwithstanding its origin and its want of real 
 foundation, such faith is claimed to be proven true by the 
 fact that so many live and die content, nay, happy, in its 
 possession. Especially is this urged of the calm beatitude 
 of so many dying Christians. 
 
 But if this proves anything, it proves too much, for ex- 
 actly the same argument may legitimately be used, and 
 with precisely the same effect, in support of any and 
 every religion actually and earnestly believed. 
 
 And so, indeed, of all the arguments based on faith, or 
 inner consciousness, or soul-intelligence, or gratified spir- 
 itual aspirations. They are all as applicable to one 
 sincere religion as to another, and no more so. If the 
 Christian religion can be so proved, so can any other, and 
 perhaps more conclusively ; for it is notorious that the 
 adherents of many of the rival religions of the world are 
 far more earnest, far more sincere in their absolute faith, 
 far more conscientious in the observance of their rites 
 and ceremonies, and far more self-sacrificing in life and 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 33 
 
 property, than their more civilized Christian brethren. 
 But the honesty and sincerity of its votaries cannot estab- 
 lish the truth of any religion. Faith may be very satis- 
 factory and comforting to its possessor, but it is not proof 
 — it is not even evidence. 
 
 Having thus rapidly traced what seems to be the origin 
 of belief and, incidentally, its value as evidence, let us see 
 what importance the Church attaches to it. 
 
 Under the teachings of the orthodox Christian Church 
 belief in certain dogmas is essential to salvation. It is 
 not necessary now to consider what are these particular 
 dogmas ; we will consider, at present, only one — the 
 Divinity of Jesus. This, of course, includes the Incarna- 
 tion, the Death of Atonement, and the Resurrection. 
 
 Belief of this is absolutely necessary. 
 
 41 He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved ; but he that believeth 
 not shall be damned." Mark xvi., 16. 
 
 " And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the 
 Son of Man be lifted up ; that whosoever believeth in him should not 
 perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved the world that He gave 
 His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish 
 but have everlasting life. For God sent not His Son into the world to con- 
 demn the world : but that the world through him might be saved. He that 
 believeth on him is not condemned, but he that believeth not is condemned 
 already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son 
 of God." John iii., 14, 18. " He that believeth on the Son hath everlast- 
 ing life ; and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life : but the wrath 
 of God abideth on him." John iii., 36. 
 
 Texts need not be multiplied, nor sermons quoted, to 
 establish this point. So far as I am aware it is not denied 
 by any of the orthodox. I believe that some of the more 
 liberal say that such belief is not necessary for those who 
 have never heard of Jesus, nor had the truth preached to 
 them, and such may be saved without so believing. I do 
 
34 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 not know the scriptural authority for this idea ; I suspect 
 that civilization is reading a little more humanity into the 
 creed. But it does not matter, for all are agreed, as I un- 
 derstand it, that so far as those who have heard the gos- 
 pel are concerned, such belief is essential ; or, in other 
 words, that if one is told the fact and rejects it, he is lost. 
 And I may here parenthetically remark, that if the more 
 liberal idea be true — that is, that belief is essential only to 
 those who have heard the truth, it is a conclusive argu- 
 ment against sending missionaries to the heathen : for 
 since it must necessarily be that many who hear will not 
 believe, sending them missionaries is to do good to none 
 (since they could be saved without them), but to send 
 damnation to many. 
 
 But apart from the scriptural texts pointing in that 
 direction, it seems to me to be absolutely necessary that 
 the Church, as an organization, should hold to the harsher 
 doctrine of the importance and necessity of belief, without 
 exception of any kind. If morality alone will save, if 
 belief be unimportant, then the good man of any and every 
 creed, or of no creed at all, will be as surely saved as the 
 most orthodox and bigoted Christian, and the Church will 
 have become confessedly a useless, even a hurtful institu- 
 tion : useless, because it needs no ordained or anointed 
 priest to teach us that virtue, for itself alone, is better than 
 vice; hurtful, because it drives thousands out of the paths 
 of rectitude by insisting that they cannot be really good, 
 really acceptable to God, cannot be saved,without possess- 
 ing what it would then have admitted to be an unnecessary 
 faith. Therefore, while the Church must teach with James 
 that faith without works is dead, it would be suicidal for it 
 to admit that works without faith may be life. As horrible 
 as I purpose to show the doctrine to be, it must insist on 
 
THE TR U TH OF DOGMA TIC CHRIS TIA NITY. 35 
 
 the essentiality of belief, be the consequences what they 
 may. 
 
 Now belief is not dependent on volition. We accept, 
 without examination, many things as true, but this is not 
 belief. Belief,or mental conviction, is the result of evidence 
 and reason, and is involuntary. No one can believe or 
 disbelieve by the mere exertion of his will. When one in 
 whom we have confidence tells us something which is not 
 contrary to our experience, not inconsistent with our rea- 
 son, we may believe it because of those facts satisfying 
 our minds, but not because we wish to. But if the state- 
 ment is unusual, apparently unreasonable, new to our ex- 
 perience, and of sufficient importance to arouse our inter- 
 est, we examine into the facts, and as the facts and reasons 
 are, so will our belief be : all of us have, at times, been 
 compelled by evidence to believe many unpleasant things 
 which we would gladly not have believed, and no amount 
 of mere volition could control our mental convictions, and 
 we believed in spite of ourselves. 
 
 Having examined into how faith comes and is sustained, 
 and having shown that, although belief is an involuntary 
 condition of the mind, the Church insists on its import- 
 ance, let us see how doubt may arise and destroy belief, 
 and what the Church teaches may flow from such de- 
 struction. 
 
 Most people go through life quietly, satisfied with the 
 creeds of their fathers, thinking very little about it, save in 
 a very general way, and the less they think the better they 
 are satisfied. But some, with a realizing sense of the im- 
 portance of the matter, unwilling to rest their eternal 
 future entirely on others' views, begin to examine for 
 themselves their Church's somewhat voluminous creed, 
 having determined that the most important of all their 
 
36 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 affairs shall no longer be the only one about which they 
 do not think, and thought on this subject must bring 
 doubt. 
 
 They have been taught, for instance, that there is one 
 Supreme God ; that He is omnipotent, omniscient, omni- 
 present, and eternal — without beginning as without end ; 
 that He is all-good, all-just, and all-love ; that He is 
 our loving Father, and we His wayward children ; that 
 He so loved us that He gave His only begotten and well 
 beloved Son as a sacrifice for our good. They believe all 
 this with an absolute faith, and have so believed for many 
 years. But now, having begun to think, they see that if 
 all this be true some of the rest of their creed must be 
 false ; that if God possessed all the attributes ascribed to 
 Him He could not have been angry with man, and would 
 not have resolved to exterminate the race He Himself had 
 created as it was, for anger necessarily implies discontent, 
 and discontent can only mean that matters have not turned 
 out to suit Him— and it is absurd to think of a supreme, 
 omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, but disappointed, 
 God, — and yet if He was angry with man and " repented " 
 (that is the word used in the sacred text) that He had made 
 him, that is what He must have been. 
 
 They further reflect that if possessed of all these attri- 
 butes He could have demonstrated His love for us, and 
 could have changed the heart of man, and have made 
 him all-good, by the mere exercise of His volition ; and 
 as there was so simple, sure, and obvious a method of 
 accomplishing His supposed purpose, they begin to doubt 
 whether He would have employed a plan so complex, so 
 utterly at variance with and contrary to His usual methods 
 as seen in nature, so cruel, so unnecessary, and, as they 
 hear their clergy so constantly bewailing the world as 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 37 
 
 growing worse, they must also conclude, so ineffectual as 
 the Incarnation. 
 
 They are utterly unable to conceive that of the many 
 plans which suggest themselves to their finite minds and 
 limited wisdom, and which would surely have succeeded 
 when backed by the unlimited power of the Almighty, 
 none would have occurred to Infinite Wisdom itself, or, 
 having so occurred to it, would have been rejected in favor 
 of a plan that Omniscience must have known would never 
 succeed, — at least until untold millions of His children's 
 souls should have been forever lost. 
 
 Another thought is here suggested. 1 
 
 There could have been no necessity for any scheme of 
 SALVATION had there not been first a scheme of DAMNA- 
 TION. This is inevitable. One must be in danger before 
 there is any necessity to save him. Was God the author 
 of both schemes ? Or is there another Being more pow- 
 erful for evil than God is for good ? If, as they are told, 
 the world is getting worse, notwithstanding the scheme of 
 salvation ; if, as they are further taught, more are damned 
 than saved, the scheme of damnation is more successful 
 than the counter scheme of salvation, and the author of 
 the first more powerful than the author of the second. 
 Or, if God be the author of both, when they are return- 
 ing thanks for the ineffectual second scheme, what are 
 they to say about the successful first ? 
 
 These and other kindred thoughts cause them to 
 doubt, and their doubts lead to investigation ; so they 
 look to the evidence adduced in support of the whole 
 extraordinary system. 
 
 They admit, to the fullest extent, that anything which 
 God does, or has done, must be right ; could not be 
 
 1 By my friend Dr. Richard J. Nunn. 
 
38 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 otherwise. But before they admit as right that which is 
 so utterly at variance with their reason, they must be 
 fully satisfied that God really did it. 
 
 It is not necessary, now, to follow any of our doubters 
 through his investigations. We will investigate for our- 
 selves farther on. It is not even necessary to my present 
 purpose to assume that the conclusions at which he ar- 
 rives are correct ; it will be sufficient to assume that they 
 are honest ; and that as the result of long, patient, faithful, 
 and earnest investigations, our doubter, as so many others 
 have done, finds his doubts resolved into the certainty, 
 so far as his own mind is concerned, that there is abso- 
 lutely no foundation in fact for the dogma of the Incar- 
 nation, the fundamental doctrine of the whole system ; 
 that Jesus of Nazareth was not God, nor the son, in the 
 sense of offspring, of God ; that he never claimed to be 
 such, nor did others claim it for him until long after 
 his death. 
 
 As I have said, it is entirely immaterial, so far as the 
 point now being discussed is concerned, whether he is 
 right or wrong, so long as he is sincere. He has tried to 
 believe his Church's creed— would much prefer to— for 
 the sake of peace and the good-will of his fellows, but he 
 cannot, and he is too honest to pretend. 
 
 Now, under the teachings of orthodoxy what might 
 result from this? 
 
 Let us suppose two persons : the one, A, upright, moral, 
 honest, honorable, charitable, industrious, sober, and, in 
 all respects, a useful, respected citizen, but who, after 
 careful examination of the matter, has reached the con- 
 clusions just referred to as reached by our doubter. He 
 observes all the ethics of the best and most rigid Church- 
 man, and in his life is a model for all ; but he cannot 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 39 
 
 believe certain doctrines, belief in which is declared by the 
 Church to be absolutely essential to salvation. 
 
 On the other hand, B is all that is vile, a thorough 
 criminal in thought and deed, out of the pale of the 
 Church and of decent society. 
 
 A prevents B from committing some crime, frustrates 
 some scheme of unlawful money-getting, or of revenge, 
 and so incurs B's enmity. B lies in wait for him, and on 
 some dark night kills him. 
 
 If the Church has not deceived us, if this matter of be- 
 lief is so important, so necessary, A, the just man, who 
 never did a wrong act, goes at once to a cruel and endless 
 doom, his only crime being that he did not believe what 
 he could not ; damned for a matter beyond his own 
 control. 
 
 B is arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced to death. 
 In the seclusion of his cell, reflecting over his past life, as 
 his end draws near his mind reverts to his innocent child- 
 hood when, kneeling at his mother's feet, his baby-tongue 
 first learned to lisp " Our Father which art in heaven." 
 He thinks of that dear, dear mother so cruelly neglected, 
 dead, perhaps, from grief at his cause, and the man's 
 heart is softened, and he bitterly regrets, nay, sincerely 
 repents, his past misdeeds. Wretched, and without hope 
 in this world, but with his mother's unheeded, though not 
 forgotten, teachings pointing to hope and happiness in 
 another life ; with some good priest at his side earnestly 
 urging the same cheerful view ; without any knowledge or 
 ideas of his own on the subject, and, in his helpless con- 
 dition, clutching at anything that looks like hope ; he 
 cannot fail to accept and believe that which so coincides 
 with his wishes, and of which he knows nothing to the 
 contrary. He believes, believes sincerely, and, as I have 
 
40 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 said, sincerely repents, and so dies, and goes to endless 
 bliss, while his recent victim is writhing in hell. 
 
 The man who never did a wrong forever punished — the 
 man who never did a right forever rewarded ; and purely 
 because the one could not believe, since the evidence did 
 not convince his mind, while the other did believe merely 
 because he knew no better. Reason, God's chiefest gift 
 to man, thus made out to be his worst enemy — for the use 
 of it sends to hell, while its suppression leads to heaven. 
 
 Can we wonder that so many men refuse to accept a 
 creed of such hideous possibilities ; that they believe 
 such teachings to be a slander against the Almighty, and 
 prefer to worship God in their hearts alone rather than to 
 listen to the vapid utterances of a theological automaton 
 who either has not the brains to discover, or the manhood 
 to avow, the errors of his system ? 
 
 Nor is this all the harm contained in this doctrine that 
 certain beliefs are absolutely essential to salvation. Not 
 only may it, as we have just seen, damn the righteous 
 dead, it may actually drive the living to their utter ruin. 
 
 When one first discovers that he does not really believe 
 some cherished tenet of his Church, something which it is 
 held sacrilegious to even doubt, he is usually shocked at 
 himself, and carefully conceals what he considers his back- 
 sliding ; most probably prays that his faith be increased 
 and strengthened — prays that he may become as a little 
 child, that being, as we have seen, the most favorable 
 condition for faith — until he unexpectedly finds that he is 
 not alone in his skepticism, that many, if not most of his 
 friends have very much the same doubts in their hearts, 
 but to be expressed only under the seal of confidence, 
 when, gaining courage from sympathy, he either investi- 
 gates the whole subject fully and fearlessly, and so becomes 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 4 1 
 
 a rationalist, and, ninety-nine times out of a hundred, an 
 honest, useful member of society ; or, hiding his doubts, he 
 becomes a hypocrite, an Amminadab Sleek, with God in 
 his lips and Satan in his heart, his religion but a cloak, his 
 piety but a sham ; or, as is very likely to be the case, by 
 the force of reaction, from being a devout, earnest Chris- 
 tian, he becomes an open scorner, sneering at all virtue, 
 because some are hypocrites, rejecting all because some 
 are bad, throwing away the wheat as well as the chaff ; 
 and so, if he had been dependent on his religion for his 
 morality, goes to the bad : more especially if he, as he 
 probably will, still has a lurking belief that for his heresy 
 he is to be eternally damned as soon as he leaves this 
 world ; for in that case he is apt to try to make the most 
 of this life of which he is certain for fear of that of which 
 he is ignorant, and, with the dreaded ban of the Church 
 upon him, an outcast among his fellows, he lives with no 
 object higher than the present gratification of his passions 
 and dies without a hope for the future — wrecked, here 
 and hereafter, by the false teachings of a priesthood who, 
 while claiming to be but the followers of the meek and 
 lowly Jesus — " poor miserable sinners " — and preaching 
 humility for all, are in reality filled with an intolerant 
 pride that brooks neither contradiction nor doubt. We 
 must agree with them or take the consequences, the 
 anathema of the Church. We must go to heaven by their 
 road, in their conveyance ; we may prefer some other 
 route, some other vehicle, and they may not be able to 
 show why our way is not as good as theirs ; but it makes 
 no difference, we must submit our reason to their dicta, 
 or be damned, if they can bring it about. 
 
 And how could it be otherwise ? The system teaches 
 that when God wished to communicate with man He did 
 
42 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 so through His priests ; and that when man wished to 
 learn anything of God he should use the same intermedi- 
 aries as the only source of information. If the priests 
 believe what they teach they must think that they are 
 very near to God — His ministers-plenipotentiary and, like 
 the ministers of earthly kings, entitled to supremacy over 
 other men ; and if they do not believe their own dogmas, 
 if they teach as true what they think is false, they are the 
 very men of all others to pretend that they are God's 
 agents in order that they may take advantage of what 
 their congregations are thus taught to consider their semi- 
 divine position to exact all the obedience, consideration, 
 honor, and profit that they can. 
 
 And they have neglected neither their interests nor 
 their opportunities. It is not so very long since the 
 Church assumed to govern in temporal as well as spiritual 
 things, and the arrogant priest gave his orders to a king 
 as that king would to his valet. And in any discussion, 
 if such were allowed at all, the finality of all argument 
 was the " dixi " — " I have said " — of the Church. And 
 though modern thought has exploded many of the old 
 ideas, and compelled the Church to greatly modify her 
 claims, and has curtailed the privileges and prestige of the 
 clergy, they are still regarded, perhaps regard themselves, 
 as a class set apart and consecrated to purposes which lift 
 them far above their fellows. 
 
 So their pride is natural, and their intolerance to be ex- 
 pected ; for their past experience has taught them that, 
 the more their people thought over and discussed their 
 teachings, the less those teachings prevailed, and the more 
 their power waned. Hence they must look with extreme 
 aversion on any one who interferes by his doubts and 
 questions, still more by his arguments, with them or their 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISITANITY. 43 
 
 doctrines, and, so far as in them lies, fight against the ad- 
 vancing champions of religious freedom, by shaking the 
 anathemas of the Church, their only remaining weapons, 
 in the faces of their assailants, in the same manner, and 
 with about the same effect, that the Chinese beat their 
 tom-toms at the advancing hosts of civilization ; for, so 
 far from being frightened by the noisy anger of the 
 Church, unbelievers are rather amused at the impotency 
 of her wrath, the very epithets once used by her to bring 
 her enemies into reproach and contempt are now looked 
 upon as rather complimentary than otherwise, investiga- 
 tors and rationalists are getting to be in fashionable de- 
 mand, and agnosticism stalks in high places. 
 
 Faith must give way to doubt, for faith accepts, doubt 
 investigates ; faith rests content, doubt advances ; faith 
 paralyzes, doubt invigorates ; faith is death, doubt is 
 life. All the progress man has ever made, will ever make, 
 must be because he doubts if the goal is reached, and still 
 struggles onward and upward. And so it will be, so it 
 should be. The goal, the consummation of all hope, the 
 end of all progress, must lie beyond infinity, cannot be 
 reached this side of eternity ; it is unattainable, in the 
 nature of things, here or hereafter, — but we may continue 
 to approach it nearer and nearer, forever moving forward 
 and higher, the past then as now a teacher, the future 
 still an enigma to be solved, the ever changing present 
 made more and more a delight as we learn more and more 
 what, and why, we are. 
 
 Nor is this a cheerless view of the future life. It seems 
 to me happier, higher, nobler, to advance forever than to 
 rest at any one point, whether physical or spiritual, even 
 though that point be what is, at this time, considered per- 
 fection. The highest perfection which the mind of man 
 
44 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 can conceive must be infinitely lower than the absolute 
 perfection of the Deity. We can never reach His level, for 
 that would make us Gods; we must ever be at some point 
 below ; and, to my mind, there can be no higher destiny 
 for the human soul than a continued progression towards 
 the Godhead, forever getting nearer and nearer, even 
 though never attaining, each step of progress bringing a 
 happiness unconceived of before. 
 
 This faith in the power of doubt, if I may so express it, 
 brings the conviction that investigation can injure only 
 error; that the clergy do not possess all knowledge; that 
 if God has ever really spoken to man He has not yet told 
 him all he was to know ; that the goal in the spiritual is 
 no more reached than is the goal in the physical ; and 
 prompts man to ask for more light. And finding that to 
 ask the Church is to ask in vain ; that she has but one 
 answer, drawn from the barbarous past, and which she 
 admits is best suited for children, — an answer that cannot 
 be understood by reason, but must be accepted by faith, 
 and which includes as self-evident propositions the very 
 doctrines which first aroused his doubts, he turns to 
 nature and leaves the Church to women and children, who, 
 trusting and confiding in their nature, and with strong 
 superstitious instincts, used to subjection and dependent 
 in disposition, may receive its teachings unquestioned. 
 
 But the Church could not and cannot satisfy the cravings 
 of thoughtful, earnest men, for she discourages investiga- 
 tion ; she cannot answer their cry for light, for she forbids 
 the free use of their reason ; she cannot advance, for she 
 claims she has attained ; and to those who, hungering for 
 spiritual food, ask for the nutritious bread of life, she has 
 always given a spiritually indigestible stone in the shape 
 of the unchanged and unchanging myths of an ignorant 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 45 
 
 past, unsupported by reason, unsustained by fact, and says 
 " believe or be damned." 
 
 Am I not right when I say that the Church works great 
 harm to man when she insists that belief is necessary to 
 salvation ? 
 
 If such doctrine be derived from the Almighty, if God 
 really teaches that we must believe what our reason rejects, 
 then no wonder that Paul has said (1 Cor. ii., 14): " But the 
 natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, 
 for they are foolishness to him ; neither can he know them, 
 because they are spiritually discerned." 
 
 But I think Paul said this because he recognized, with 
 his astute intellect, the necessity of silencing the voice of 
 reason, and therefore called to his aid the superstitious 
 instincts of those whom he addressed, and used exactly 
 the same class of assertions (for they are not arguments) 
 that are used in support of all theological systems, — that 
 the inner consciousness must be the supreme controller 
 (if it agreed with the teacher), that instinct is superior to 
 reason, that belief is proof. 
 
 But I do not and cannot believe that God has set a trap 
 for His children, that they may be taken unawares and 
 cruelly and endlessly tortured without even the hope of 
 relief through final annihilation, by making it necessary 
 for their escape from that fearful doom that they should 
 believe and accept as His wisdom that which their God- 
 given reason rejects as nonsense. 
 
 I cannot believe that He would condemn me to punish- 
 ment for a matter beyond my own control — belief. 
 
 I cannot believe that He would endow me with reason, 
 and damn me, unwarned, for consciously using it. 
 
 And thousands think the same, and no longer bow to 
 the behests of orthodoxy. 
 
46 DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 The glamour which her priests have thrown around her 
 rites and doctrines is fast fading away, and the inconsis- 
 tencies and incongruities of the Church are becoming more 
 and more visible. Men are, by degrees, getting bold enough 
 to deny that God is but an exaggerated man, and to assert 
 that what is foolishness to the natural man cannot be of 
 the Spirit of God. We may believe what is above and 
 beyond our reason, for it is only where the realm of rea- 
 son ends that the domain of faith properly begins ; and in 
 the legitimate domain of faith reason is silent, for she 
 knows nothing which contradicts. But when our reason 
 can clearly see why anything cannot be — when anything 
 is palpably folly to us — how infinitely below the wisdom 
 of God must it be. And before we admit that the highest 
 type of Divine wisdom just reaches the level of our con- 
 ception of nonsense ; before we slander the Almighty by 
 believing him absurd ; before we stultify ourselves and 
 insult Him by believing that what would be imbecility in 
 us would be intelligence in Him ; let us require absolute 
 demonstration that He really is what His self-appointed 
 priests have painted Him, and until such demonstration 
 is made, let us continue to believe Him what nature tells 
 us He is, an all-pervading, living, loving, unchanging 
 God, ruling, not by caprice, but by fixed and immutable, 
 because perfect, law. 
 
THE ARGUMENT. 
 
 PROPOSITION II. 
 
 II. The Doctrine of Free-will, as usually understood, 
 and as taught by the Church, is impossible if God be 
 as He is represented : attributing the origin of sin to 
 man is absurd ; and the idea of a continual strife 
 between God and the Devil is blasphemous. 
 
 In the course of my correspondence with the Bishop I 
 had occasion to express my doubts as to the doctrine of 
 free-will as taught by the Church. Whereupon he very 
 kindly gave me his views (which I take to be also those 
 of his Church) on this interesting and puzzling question, 
 as follows. 
 
 I quote from his second letter: 
 
 " I must confess that I had not expected that you would 
 deny to us free-will. In treating of the morality of human 
 actions, philosophers and theologians regard liberty as 
 a ' conditio sine qua non.' Where there is no liberty 
 there can be no moral act. A twofold liberty is spoken 
 of, viz : ' Libertas a coactione ; libertas a necessitate.' 
 
 " ' Libertas a coactione ' is the freedom from exterior 
 violence offered to me. For instance, if a man stronger 
 than I would overpower me and force my hand, unable 
 to resist, to stab another, no court would call my action 
 a murder, since my will did not possess the ' libertas 
 a coactione.' 
 
 "The 'libertas a necessitate' is defined ordinarily: 
 
 47 
 
48 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 1 Libertas qua voluntas non solum sponte ac liberter agit, 
 sed cum tali suorum ac : tuum dominio ut possit seque non 
 eligere vel eligere, agere vel non agere.' It is also 
 denned to be ' vis electiva, seu facultas eligendi vel non 
 eligendi pro libitu.' This is in reality the true liberty 
 which has its seat essentially in the intellectual soul, and 
 no power of man or devils can rob us of it. No man or 
 devil can force my will to consent to, or take pleasure in, 
 an improper action. The very pagan Seneca says ' cor- 
 pora obnoxia sunt dominis, mens sui juris est.' But if a 
 man has lost, or never did possess, this ' libertas a neces- 
 sitate, ' he will not be punished for an act which in sc 
 would be a crime. Thus an idiot, who has killed a man, 
 could not be punished for the act. But it is just this free- 
 dom of the will which you deny. To prove that man has 
 no free-will, you bring the example of the drunkard. He 
 falls into drunkenness and you very illogically conclude 
 that therefore he has no free-will. You can logically 
 conclude that the individual in question has preferred 
 drunkenness to temperance — and nothing else. Hence 
 we note thousands of instances of men who have pre- 
 ferred temperance to the allurements of drunkenness. 
 I have seen in New York and other cities, what almost 
 every Catholic priest can tell you of, how poor 
 women have emerged from the lowest sinks of the great 
 city, and, by a life of piety, redeemed the past. I have 
 seen many and many a man who has been a drunkard, 
 arise, and by a life of temperance bring back comfort and 
 happiness to his family. From your example of the 
 drunkard you can logically conclude that the poor fellow 
 prefers the momentary gratification of his palate to the 
 pleasures purchased only by checking the unlawful 
 desires of the senses — and not a jot more can be logi- 
 cally concluded. 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 49 
 
 " Because some men always yield to their cravings for 
 liquor and other improper gratifications of the flesh, to 
 conclude that therefore ' an irresistible force ' controls 
 them, and thence to deny free-will — is certainly most 
 illogical. Deny free-will to man, and you destroy all dis- 
 tinction between virtue and vice. If, as you say, 'the 
 poor man is helpless ' — if an ' irresistible force ' controls 
 him, the drunkard, the adulterer, the murderer, is to be 
 pitied when he gets drunk, commits adultery, murder, 
 and other crimes. But surely a man ought not to be 
 punished for what he cannot help. In therefore denying 
 free-will to man, you open the famous and terrible ques- 
 tion : 'Whence the origin of evil?' That grave question 
 puzzled the wisest heads of antiquity. Whence came all 
 the evil — the countless woes, physical and moral, which 
 we see in this world ? How does it happen that the poor 
 little babe must die in such agony as to melt the hardest 
 bosom ? How come those cruel diseases, fearful epi- 
 demics, and the countless woes that flesh is heir to from 
 the cradle to the grave ? To say that God purposely 
 created man, who, without any fault of his own, is to 
 endure the agonies, the pains, the death, which are so 
 fearful in the history of man — is to make of God a tyrant, in 
 comparison with whom Nero and Robespierre were gentle 
 doves. Hence the ancients were all puzzled over this 
 question. Hence their theories about a blind and eternal 
 fate, about the dual principles, etc., etc. The only logical 
 answer to this fearful question is what the Christian dogma 
 gives. For the Christian dogma places the origin of all evil 
 in the revolt of the free-will of the creature against the most 
 lawful and mild command of Him who was more than 
 friend, benefactor, father to man — for He was God. God 
 created man with a nature perfect and free from disease 
 
50 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 and death. God placed man in a world free from all that 
 is noxious, and replete with the good and beautiful. But 
 man had a free-will— and he consequently could make a 
 bad use of that beautiful freedom ; and he did. He dared 
 to insult the infinite majesty of God by revolting against 
 His commands. Our sense of justice tells us that sin 
 must be punished. Now the punishment must be in pro- 
 portion to the enormity of the crime. Hence the man 
 who may have stolen a few pennies is not to receive the 
 same punishment as he who has committed murder. The 
 enormity of the crime is also measured by the dignity of 
 the person insulted. Hence the boy who slaps the face 
 of one of his little playmates has not committed as grievous 
 a fault as he who has slapped the face of his own mother. 
 The dignity of the mother insulted being so much greater 
 than the dignity of the little playmate, causes the differ- 
 ence. But He who is insulted by man's sin is a God of 
 infinite dignity. Hence when death and his train of tem- 
 poral punishments came into this world, the philosophic 
 mind can justly regard all this as a punishment due to 
 sin. ' Per peccatum mors intravit in hunc mundum ' — by 
 sin has death entered into this world. Moreover, God 
 sent a Redeemer to fallen man, — and if man will but have 
 a good will, God's wisdom will convert man's very fall 
 into such wonderful dignities flowing from the redemp- 
 tion that for all eternity he will sing: 'O felix culpa 
 quae talem et tantum meruiti Redemptorem.' The 
 bodily ills and miseries of life, if patiently endured by 
 the Christian, cease to be ills. For they will merit such 
 a glorious reward after this brief life that with Christ we 
 say : ' Blessed are the poor ; blessed are ye that mourn 
 and weep ; blessed are they that suffer persecutions/ 
 As to moral evils, (and take them away, would you not 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 5 1 
 
 be taking away the vast, I had almost said all, the evils 
 which afflict mankind,) our dogma is here most reason- 
 able. Catholic dogma tells us that our will is free — and 
 consequently there is no ' irresistible force ' to compel me, 
 or any other human being, to get drunk, murder, or com- 
 mit any other moral evil. If moral evil exists man's 
 abuse of that wonderful gift — our free-will — is to blame 
 for it and its consequences. 
 
 " But you deny that man has a free-will — you assert that 
 an 'irresistible force controls him.' Then we have the 
 right to say that a just judge cannot punish man for doing 
 what he is constrained to by ' an irresistible force.' 
 
 " I have a right then to ask you, whence then all these 
 evils in this world ? I can ask, why then does God make 
 man suffer such cruel ills and horrid death? Can a God 
 who is infinitely good create poor beings who without 
 any fault of their own are so miserable as we — who 
 having done no sin (as they have no free-will) enter this 
 vale of tears, ' primam vocem lachrymans,' and leave this 
 world amid groans and agonies which make the bystanders 
 shudder with horror? Not having a free-will, man did 
 nothing to merit all these punishments — and how could 
 a God be just and punish man for sins which he could not 
 avoid ? Consequently there is no escape ; deny a man free- 
 will, and you must believe in the existence of an unjust 
 and cruel God, which is an absurdity. Admit that man 
 has a free will, and philosophy can tell you that sin 
 deserves punishment ; that death and the other evils of 
 this life are not too severe punishments for sins committed 
 against a person of infinite dignity. 
 
 " 'Tis true, I do not deny that there are difficulties. But 
 these difficulties arise from the fact that we do not know 
 in life the Infinite Being — God. The dignity of a father 
 
52 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 and mother we know. And hence when that dignity is 
 insulted our sense of justice appreciates the justice of the 
 punishment. The Infinite, however, we have never seen. 
 Hence what is due to infinite dignity insulted will always 
 appear more or less obscure, more or less attended with 
 difficulty to the poor weak mind of the finite being. 
 
 " The Eternal Infinite, Omniscient, we have never seen, 
 consequently we will always find difficulties in the action 
 of the Eternal, Omniscient, Infinite God, with and upon 
 the finite free-will of man. It is the very nature of things 
 to expect difficulties here. For to comprehend clearly 
 and without difficulties with our limited intellects, we 
 must first know the Eternal Infinite. Hence it is impos- 
 sible, in this life, fully to realize the enormity of sin— for 
 we do not know in this life the infinite dignity of the God 
 insulted by sin. The Infinite, the Eternal, have never 
 yet fallen under the apprehension of our senses. We 
 have really no true and adequate conception of the Infi- 
 nite. But this should not surprise us. In our very body 
 there are many things whose existence we must admit, 
 but which give rise to difficulties which will never be ex- 
 plained. But to endeavor to remove difficulties by alto- 
 gether denying well-established facts, is only to fall into 
 inextricable absurdities. So in things divine. There are, 
 no doubt, difficulties arising from acknowledging the free- 
 will in man and the ever Omniscient, Infinite, Eternal 
 God. But these difficulties must be in all reason expected 
 to arise in our minds. For we are so limited. In this 
 world our knowledge of the Omniscient, Infinite God is 
 extremely little. We see God here only ' in cenigmate et 
 quasi in speculo '—consequently the relations between an 
 Infinite, Omniscient, Eternal Being, and beings like us, 
 finite and subject to many weaknesses, must necessarily 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 53 
 
 present difficulties to our mind, which has never seen the 
 Infinite, the Eternal, the Omniscient. 
 
 " But because of difficulties to deny point-blank the ex- 
 istence of free-will in man, is to deny the belief of all man- 
 kind. Mankind has always been conscious that there is 
 no ' irresistible force ' which compels a man to get drunk, 
 commit adultery, murder, and other sins. If a man does 
 these acts, the voice of the entire human family says he 
 himself is to blame, — and so conscious is the human family 
 of this that they have always punished most terribly the 
 men who dared commit those crimes. But deny free-will 
 and you encounter a greater evil. You open the then 
 countless and wholly unanswerable questions : how came 
 evil into this world ? Why does God, infinitely good, 
 send sickness, miseries, and death upon his own, in that 
 case, helpless, as well as hapless, creatures? What have 
 they done to deserve all these miseries ? They have not 
 committed sin — for sin is impossible where there is no 
 free-will. These actions are not sins ; for an ' irresistible 
 force,' which God Himself created, compelled them to 
 get drunk and do other things — where then the justice in 
 punishing them? 
 
 " Whereas by admitting that man has a free will we are 
 in accord with the universal belief of mankind. If all 
 mankind has been so wofully deceived that after all we 
 have no free-will, the human intellect could no longer be 
 trusted. We also find here the rational answer to the 
 grave question: how came evil into this world? More- 
 over, I have said before that the omniscience of God is 
 perfectly reconcilable with man's free-will." 
 
 It will be observed, I think, that this very interesting 
 statement of the Church's side of the question is fairly 
 
54 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 reducible to this: The doctrine of free-will is a theory 
 devised by the Church to explain certain mysterious facts 
 and to answer certain very inconvenient questions. It 
 does not seem to be claimed as a fact revealed by the 
 Almighty, but is an assumption of the Church. It is 
 frankly admitted that the subject is naturally full of diffi- 
 culties, and it is practically confessed that the Church's 
 dogma is only a partial solution ; and the main arguments 
 in favor of its correctness, when reduced to their last 
 analysis, seem to be : 
 ist. That though not explaining satisfactorily, it explains 
 
 better than any other theory ; and 
 2d. All mankind believe it. 
 
 To these two arguments I reply : 
 
 ist. A theory that does not explain all the facts it 
 attempts to account for is unfit for the purposes for 
 which it was intended ; and 
 
 2d. Even if all mankind believed it, (which I think is 
 rather too broad an assertion), it would not be any 
 evidence of its truth. It would be a very dangerous 
 precedent to establish that a theory was true or false 
 according to the number of those who accept or 
 reject it, for, in that case, having in view " all man- 
 kind," the Christian religion would be in a hopeless 
 minority, and consequently could not be held to 
 be true. 
 
 And this ought to dispose of this class of arguments so 
 common with the Church. 
 
 The Bishop's method of reconciling the omniscience of 
 God with man's free-will, will be given and commented 
 on under Proposition V, when we come to speak of the 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 55 
 
 deductions to be drawn from the history of the betrayal 
 by Judas. 
 
 I agree with the Bishop that the question of free-will is one 
 of difficulty, very grave difficulty. I will even admit that the 
 difficulty is, in our present state of knowledge, insolvable. 
 So with the questions of the origin of the evil, and reconcil- 
 ing the existence of evil with the goodness of God. I have 
 thought much, and read much on these subjects, and 
 candidly admit that I have only partially satisfied my 
 own mind. We are all equally in the dark, churchmen 
 and laymen ; but some little light is beginning to shine 
 upon the question of why evil exists, or, more properly, 
 of the uses and advantages of what we call evil, and I 
 need hardly say the light does not come from the direc- 
 tion of the Church ; it comes from a better acquaintance 
 with nature. 
 
 Although whether I am right or wrong in my views 
 upon these intricate and interesting questions cannot 
 really affect the main points under discussion, except that 
 if I am right the Church must be wrong, and therefore by 
 no means infallible ; and although the known facts are too 
 few and too little understood to permit either side to do 
 more than argue the probability of its views ; I will, very 
 briefly, considering the magnitude of the subject, give 
 such conclusions as I have reached, with my reasons. 
 
 I understand there are those who believe in what is 
 called " predestination," and that such urge that we are, 
 with reference to God, as clay in the potter's hands, that 
 our every act is foreseen, that our eternal fate is fore- 
 ordained, but yet insist (by a contradiction which is 
 absurd to all except theologians, to whom it is incompre- 
 hensible) that we are free agents. I do not address my 
 argument to such, for they would seem to be on both 
 
56 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 sides of the question at once, and ready to agree with any 
 one in any conclusion. I wish to reach a definite con- 
 clusion, not repugnant to reason, and which will at least 
 have the merit of letting us know just what we do 
 believe ; and I will reason from analogy, and not from 
 authority. 
 
 I believe, because I can see no reason to the contrary, 
 but much in its favor, that there is a God, and that He is 
 necessarily, or He would not be God, omnipotent, om- 
 niscient, and prescient, as well as all-good. I also believe 
 that He pervades all nature, and that everything exists 
 by and through Him, and that without Him nothing 
 could exist. I think this much can be logically deduced 
 from nature, and as the Church and I agree on this point 
 it is hardly necessary to argue it. I also believe, as a 
 necessary corollary from these facts, that this universe is 
 governed by His will ; and as it has been demonstrated that 
 the universe is governed by law, it must be, if my belief 
 is right, that God's will is that law. This means, taken 
 in connection with the attributes above specified, that 
 everything, all nature, animate and inanimate, originated, 
 exists, changes, grows, decays, dies, under fixed and in- 
 alterable law, not caprice ; for caprice is not law, in the 
 sense in which I am using the term, even if it be the 
 caprice of a God. 
 
 All we know, in contra-distinction to believe, of God, we 
 have learned from nature. How He works we may observe 
 and learn ; why He does it, we may never know, we can 
 only guess. Or as I expressed the same idea in a public 
 address more than twenty years ago : " We are not per- 
 mitted to scrutinize the reasons of the Almighty, but we 
 are permitted to observe phenomena and from them to 
 learn His laws." 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. $7 
 
 From the observation of these phenomena it is demon- 
 strated with absolute certainty that under certain circum- 
 stances the desire to do certain acts amounts to mania, is 
 a disease, and is irresistible. Hence dipsomania, nymph- 
 omania or gynecomania, kleptomania, and other diseases 
 which, though theology may teach the contrary, irresisti- 
 bly impel men and women to do acts which, were their 
 wills free, they would not do. These are scientific facts 
 which the Church has not yet learned. Further investi- 
 gation may, and probably will, establish the fact that even 
 when one is apparently acting the most deliberately, he is 
 acting under irresistible impulses, induced by causes 
 beyond his control ; and, of course, the same applies with 
 more force to actions not deliberate. For example, sup- 
 pose a man of violent temper marries a woman equally 
 excitable ; their offspring will almost certainly possess an 
 ungovernable temper, and will do many things under its 
 influence which he would not do if his parents had not 
 forced, under the inexorable law of heredity, such dispo- 
 sition on him. His reason and judgment, his will, may 
 be to be mild and gentle ; he strives hard to control his 
 inherited ferocity, but causes which on one more favorably 
 born would have no effect, will goad him into a frenzy 
 that makes him blind, and in his rage he knows not what 
 he does. So, too, with the man who inherits the desire 
 for drink. In his sober moments he resolves earnestly 
 and honestly never to touch alcohol in any shape ; he 
 avoids temptation ; but his desire is stronger than his will, 
 and he falls again and again. Where is his free-will? 
 Who is responsible for the irresistible force which controls 
 his will? He is not to blame for it, his father, or his 
 grandfather, or some other ancestor bequeathed it to 
 him, and he cannot cret rid of it. God made the law of 
 
58 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 heredity, and under its operation the poor man is help- 
 less. Though we are not controlled by visible powers, we 
 are none the less controlled. Disposition, the peculiar 
 structure of our brains, surrounding circumstances, all or 
 any, may control our wills, and they are all beyond our 
 control ; and I cannot doubt that in the final settlement 
 of our accounts, whenever and wherever that may take 
 place, our inherited disposition and character will enter 
 very largely into it, and immensely modify the psycho- 
 logical consequences of our acts. 
 
 And yet, in the absence of visible physical force, in 
 our inordinate human vanity, we, men, the creatures of 
 circumstances beyond our control, arrogate to ourselves 
 free-will, and think we are but a little lower than the 
 angels. 
 
 A man cannot be truly said to possess a free will 
 unless he can control all that goes to make up that will. 
 One man is, as we have seen, by a nature for which he is 
 not responsible, made cold and phlegmatic, while another, 
 equally without his fault, is hot and impetuous. Each 
 one's will is controlled by his natural disposition, and his 
 natural disposition is forced upon him not by his own act. 
 He may, by proper training and favorable circumstances, 
 modify his nature, or, rather, to some extent restrain it ; 
 but never to that degree that he can be truly said to have 
 entire free-will. One will find temptation irresistible, the 
 other is not moved by it ; it may be that neither is in- 
 fluenced by principle, but only by his natural disposition ; 
 or it may be that natural disposition in one is so much 
 stronger than in the other that it controls and subordi- 
 nates principle ; yet in either case the will, and the choice 
 made by it, is the result of that disposition which, come 
 from what source it may, is not his fault; and therefore 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 59 
 
 while his will may seem to choose, the choice is by no 
 means free. 
 
 But the Bishop says that drunken men and fallen 
 women may, and do, reform. This is true, though rare : 
 but it shows nothing to the contrary of, nor does it conflict 
 with, what I have just said. Many, perhaps most, who 
 fall are sorely tempted by present circumstances, fre- 
 quently deceived and entrapped, in the case of women, oi- 
 led astray by evil associations, or the desire to forget 
 trouble, in the case of men, and are not impelled by pre- 
 natal causes, though the facility of the yielding or the 
 vigor of the resistance may be affected by them. And 
 the reform may be because the experiment has satisfied 
 the person that there was more happiness in a more moral 
 life, his mind having, by satiety or other natural cause, 
 been brought to that condition where it in its turn sub- 
 ordinated his wasted passions. Each case of reform, like 
 each case of sin, must be examined in all its details before 
 we can give any satisfatory explanation of how it has 
 been brought about. But in each case the reform must 
 depend, like the yielding, more on the effect of circum- 
 stances on the natural disposition, than on the mere voli- 
 tion, or free-will. There may be a line within which man 
 is free to act as he wishes, and can control his will, or act 
 contrary to his desires. But where that line is I do not 
 know, and it must vary in each individual ; but the proba- 
 bility is that every act, no matter how trivial, is done in 
 strict accordance with some law, though we may not 
 know or understand it ; and that there are other laws 
 which, by counteracting the first, may permit us a certain 
 freedom within certain undefined and restricted bounds ; 
 and it is therefore probable that a better acquaintance 
 with the laws of nature may teach us a better way of con- 
 
60 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 trolling unlawful desires than by praying for the grace of 
 God, which experience shows us is, to put it with extreme 
 mildness, a very uncertain method. 
 
 The study of the operations of the mind seems to point 
 in the same direction. What I have already said in dis- 
 cussing the involuntary character of belief appears to me 
 to illustrate this. If I had a free will in the sense in 
 which the Church uses the term, and if to believe as I do 
 be a sin, as the Church must certainly hold, then, on the 
 Church's theory, I hold my views by virtue of my own 
 free-will, and have the power (else I have not free-will), 
 to change them and believe as the Church teaches. But 
 I know that I am as powerless to believe the dogmas of the 
 Church as I am to believe that my existence is a myth; 
 so whatever the Church's theory may say, I know that I 
 am not free to change my views. Were argument to be 
 adduced sufficient to convince my mind, my views would 
 change themselves, but my will would have nothing to do 
 with it. And if my belief be a sin, it is a sin I cannot 
 help committing. The Church might say that my free- 
 will led me into a course of study which has produced the 
 present result. But I say no ; the study succeeded the 
 doubt, and was the result of an earnest desire to get 
 truth, a desire so strong that it absorbed even the wish to 
 resist ; and he is unfortunate indeed who wishes to resist 
 the desire for truth ; I am thankful that I do not. 
 
 It has been urged that on the theory which I advocate 
 it is wrong to impose punishment upon criminals, certainly 
 upon those who commit crimes under the impulsion of 
 pre-natal causes. There is absolutely nothing in this 
 beyond its seeming plausibility. In the first place, juries 
 must convict and judges sentence without reference to 
 their personal ideas of propriety, because it is their duty 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 6 1 
 
 to execute all the laws which actually exist, not merely 
 those which they approve. And in the next place 
 the criminal laws, as they now exist, as a rule, are 
 right. We have seen that these pre-natal causes impel 
 with varying force, sometimes irresistibly, sometimes with 
 less power. One force in nature frequently overcomes 
 another. The cohesion of a string may counteract the at- 
 traction of gravity and hold a weight suspended in the 
 air. Gravitation exists and is acting; cohesion exists and 
 is acting. If gravitation is the stronger, the string breaks 
 and the weight falls ; otherwise the weight remains acted 
 on but unmoved by gravity. So one emotion or passion 
 may counterbalance or restrain another ; and the dread 
 of the publicity of a trial and the probability of a convic- 
 tion, and, in that case, the certainty of punishment, may, 
 and does frequently, overcome the desire to commit a 
 wrong act, where the desire is merely strong but not 
 irresistible ; and in that way the law prevents or lessens 
 crime. If the desire be stronger than the fear, then the 
 crime is committed, and the law imposes its penalty 
 not so much as an avenger as for the purpose of deterring 
 others, through that same law of counteracting forces, by 
 showing that the result of the crime is actual, practical 
 pain and suffering; and for the purpose of separating 
 from his fellows, for his own and their good, one who has 
 shown that he cannot with safety be left at large. No 
 one attaches the idea of crime to a mad dog, but never- 
 theless he must be put out of the way. So with certain 
 classes of criminals. They may not be morally respon- 
 sible for their acts, but if their acts are dangerous to the 
 persons or property of the community they should be 
 put where they can do no more harm even if they can do 
 no good. 
 
62 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 From his argument the Bishop seems to think that free- 
 will is the only theory that can reconcile the existence of 
 evil with the goodness of God, and that that theory does 
 it, because by that theory evil comes from the free-will of 
 man and not from God. This does not solve the diffi- 
 culty, it only temporizes with it ; for if sin and its atten- 
 dant and consequent evils arose from free-will, then they 
 arose because God chose to give men free-will, and the prop- 
 osition is presented in this light : God is omnipotent and 
 prescient ; He made man, including his character and dis- 
 position ; He knew that if He gave him free-will he would 
 sin, and that, as a consequence, evil would come into the 
 world ; He need not have given him free-will, but could 
 have controlled his will so that all his desires should have 
 been pure ; but He deliberately acted otherwise, and so 
 made man that He knew sin and evil would result 
 from it. 
 
 It seems to me that this is very far from solving the 
 difficulty and carries us just where we did not want to go. 
 The object of the theory is to remove the responsibility 
 of sin from God ; but clearly it does not do it. 
 
 Another effort in the same direction was inventing the 
 devil ; for it seems to have been thought that if putting 
 the origin of sin on man did not relieve God from respon- 
 sibility for it, putting it on the devil would. But that 
 helps the matter no more than does the other theory, un- 
 less it be held that God did not make the devil, that the 
 devil is the more powerful of the two, and that God can- 
 not control him ; otherwise he must be acting by the 
 permission of God, doing just what God permits and 
 wishes, for if He can without trouble or danger stop him, 
 and does not, He must wish him to continue as he is doing ; 
 and the responsibility for all his acts would be with God. 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 63 
 
 None of the Church theories helps us, for in order to 
 make any of them available God must be shorn of His 
 chiefest attributes, or be dethroned. 
 
 But nature helps us a little — not very much. As I 
 have indicated before, the Hozu is within our reach. The 
 Why must necessarily remain beyond. 
 
 God has made a set of laws which we may divide into 
 physical and moral, the two covering all the phenomena 
 of nature — physical, mental, and psychological. 
 
 The violation of any physical law carries punishment 
 with it without reference to intention. Poison will pro- 
 duce sickness or death, whether taken ignorantly, inten- 
 tionally, or accidentally. A law of nature has been 
 violated, and all the consequences of violation follow. As 
 I have said elsewhere in this discussion, nature warns with 
 a blow, but the blow is usually given after, not before, the 
 violation of her laws. This punishment, if we may so call 
 it, is nature's protest against ignorance, and is her com- 
 mand to study her phenomena and learn her laws. Try 
 to change, disguise, or explain it as we may, this is God's 
 law. in physical nature. No revelation is claimed to have 
 ever been attempted in this direction : experience is the 
 only teacher, reason the only guide ; and they have 
 been found to be sufficient when left free to assert them- 
 selves. 
 
 Now what warrant have we for assuming that God's 
 moral law is so totally different from His physical law 
 that it must be studied and learned in a totally different 
 way ; that in the place of experience and reason we 
 must rely upon revelation and faith? 
 
 So far as I have been able to ascertain, only a supposed 
 revelation to the Jews, a revelation which, like an ancient 
 deed, is assumed to prove itself, and manifestly for the 
 
64 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 same reason — there is no other way to prove it. Proof 
 being out of the question, it is taken for granted rather 
 than raise perplexing and annoying questions and 
 controversies. A revelation which was seemingly so 
 unimportant that they were permitted to lose it, and be 
 without it, until it was found by Hilkiah; a revelation of 
 which the rest (and by far the largest part) of the world 
 were permitted to be in entire ignorance until the trans- 
 lation at Alexandria against the will of the Chosen 
 People. 
 
 And what did the rest of -the world do during all this 
 time? Why, nearly every nation had a " revelation " of 
 its own, and so similar, in many instances, to that of the 
 Jews as to suggest the idea of a common origin, the 
 Jewish being about the youngest, and to a great extent 
 the most repulsive. That common origin seems to have 
 been the mind of man endeavoring to explain phenomena 
 which he could not comprehend, by referring them to a 
 Deity who was always only an exaggerated copy of the 
 ideal man of the people over whom He was supposed to 
 preside. 
 
 I think we are therefore authorized to assume that 
 what has been called " revelation " is nothing more, 
 nothing less, than an expression of the theories of the 
 past based on imperfectly, or not at all, understood 
 natural, mental, and psychological phenomena, and crude 
 ideas of ethics and sociology, derived from limited experi- 
 ence and worked up by uncultivated minds. Hence, if this 
 view be correct, as I think it is, the value of revelation as 
 a guide is not particularly great, and it would be safer 
 to look for the moral law as we do for the physical, by 
 accurate observation and careful deduction. We may go 
 astray, and most assuredly often do, but not so far as 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 65 
 
 the Church would lead us, for that would carry us back 
 to the dawn of civilization and keep us there. But the 
 errors of the past lead to the truths of the future ; past 
 failures make future successes, when investigation and 
 study are not annulled by dogmatism. 
 
 I see no reason, then, for supposing that the moral law, 
 in its action, differs in any respect from the physical, 
 and I deduce that an infraction of it is assuredly punished, 
 in this world or the next, or both, whether the violation 
 be voluntary, forced, or through ignorance. Every viola- 
 tion of the physical law, as we have seen, is followed by 
 what we may call punishment, as the natural result of the 
 act, without reference to how or why the violation was 
 caused ; and it seems exceedingly probable that in the 
 same way, and for the same reasons, any violation of the 
 moral law, equally without reference to why or how the 
 violation was caused, will be followed by what we do call 
 punishment, though equally only the natural result of the 
 act. So, even without free-will, infractions of the law 
 would result in evil (or punishment) enough to at least 
 teach us better, and the consequences would be repeated 
 and increased, with each infraction, until we did better, 
 here or hereafter. In other words, my idea is that God is 
 never vindictive, and never inflicts punishment, as the 
 word is usually understood, but that He has so arranged 
 His plan of human progress that man can work his way 
 upward only through much tribulation and sorrow, the 
 pains and penalties visited on him being only apparent 
 evils, but really necessary educators to enable him to work 
 out his own salvation, and teach him not to rely on others 
 to do it for him ; that it is only in Jewish and Christian 
 (or other) fiction that there can be a scape-goat, and that 
 man must bear the consequences of his ignorance and 
 
66 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 work out his own redemption, advancing step by step in 
 knowledge, and growing better as he grows wiser, the 
 same law of growth applying to his moral, that applies to 
 his physical and mental nature. 
 
 This seems to be HOW God works. WHY He should 
 have adopted such a plan ; why growth and decay should 
 have been made a law of nature in every department — 
 physical, mental, psychic ; why we should be left to our 
 own efforts to learn the lessons necessary for our being 
 and progress, I cannot even guess. It is sufficient for me 
 to know that He has adopted, it, and that in this view 
 there is no conflict between His goodness and our tempo- 
 rary sufferings. 
 
 For I gather from these theories (though they are but 
 imperfect at best) that evil is the result, in physical, 
 mental, and psychological nature, of ignorance, and is 
 the means of instruction and progress. Sin is ignorance, 
 evil is instruction, study the remedy, and knowledge the 
 reward : and all are but the means of carrying out God's 
 great laws — Evolution and Compensation. 
 
 Physical pain and disease are the results of the viola- 
 tion of physical laws, and are warnings against further 
 infractions ; and the unpleasant results of the violation of 
 the moral law, whether the suffering be here or hereafter, 
 serve to recall us to our duty : and all are educators, as I 
 have just said. Grief, and pains of that character, are the 
 price we pay for purification, progress, and the capacity 
 to rejoice. They are the minor chords that give a tender 
 melancholy to, and soften the asperities of, the music of 
 our lives ; the. sharp dissonances which, harsh and unpleas- 
 ant by themselves, yet lead to higher harmonies than we 
 have known before. Without contrasts pleasure would 
 only pall ; happiness itself would cloy. 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 6 1 / 
 
 Death is considered a fearful evil. So it is to the living, 
 but I doubt if it be so to the dead. Could the worm 
 formulate its thoughts, it would probably think death an 
 unmixed evil, but the butterfly would probably regard it 
 as a wondrous blessing. And I think it is so with man. 
 It is but a " going before " ; the birth of the spirit. And 
 the grief and desolation of those who stay behind are the 
 result in a great measure of the fearful teachings of the 
 Church. Could we but believe that the parting was 
 merely temporary, and that while punishment was inevita- 
 ble, it was not endless, that it was proportionate and just 
 (and nature points in that direction) rather than vindic- 
 tive, and that it would certainly finally result in the eternal 
 benefit and happiness of the dead, many of the pangs of 
 grief would be assuaged. 
 
 I believe, therefore, that much of what we call sin and 
 evil are so but seemingly, and are the means, in God's 
 providence, of working out the progress of man here and 
 hereafter ; and in this view of the case the existence of 
 evil and the goodness of God, though mysterious, and 
 in a great degree incomprehensible, are not necessarily 
 inharmonious. 
 
 Another very serious objection to the doctrine of free- 
 will, in connection with the theory of the Devil, is that it 
 forces the Church to represent God on the one hand and 
 the Devil on the other, each engaged in endeavoring to 
 lead mankind to himself : the one urging upon him the 
 advantage of a life of temporary self-denial here, to be 
 followed by an eternity of bliss hereafter ; the other sug- 
 gesting the wisdom of making the most of the present 
 rather than trusting to an unknown future ; and as in the 
 only other instance in which the Devil is represented as 
 contradicting God it turned out that the Devil was right 
 
68 DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 (Gen. ii., 16, 17 ; iii., 4), men are disposed to listen to the 
 blandishments of the Enemy, and accept present pleasure 
 rather than postpone their enjoyment to an uncertain 
 hereafter. All of which — this idea of strife between the 
 supreme God and the supreme Devil — this struggle for 
 supremacy, this electioneering, so to speak, on the part of 
 the almighty Ruler of heaven and earth, with the advan- 
 tage rather on the side of the Devil — is to my mind sheer 
 blasphemy, pure and unadulterated, unworthy of the age 
 in which we live, degrading to those who believe it. 
 
THE ARGUMENT. 
 
 PROPOSITION III. 
 
 III. The councils of the Church, by which her creeds 
 were formulated, were not inspired, but very fallible, 
 assemblies of exceedingly natural men; and their 
 decrees are conflicting, unreasonable, and utterly 
 without authority. 
 
 I give the remarks contained in my first communication 
 to the Bishop which, with his reply, brought on the 
 discussion of this point : 
 
 Nearly every dogma of any of the Churches has been 
 established through debate, by argument and discussion, 
 and determined by vote. Reasoning is permitted, nay, 
 encouraged, so long as it is on the side of the majority. 
 The subject only becomes too sacred for discussion after 
 it has been voted a dogma. Reason may be used to de- 
 termine what is true, but having once been decided to be 
 true, by a majority vote, Reason must be ever after 
 silent, unless a majority " go back" on the old truth, 
 and so declare by another vote, when the old truth 
 becomes error, and the old error, by the magic of numeri- 
 cal strength, becomes truth, and, in its turn, sacred and 
 unassailable. 
 
 To which the Bishop said : 
 
 " Your remarks about dogmas are to me extremely 
 novel. You assert that what at one time have been held 
 
 69 
 
7<3 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 to be dogmas ' too sacred for discussion,' have in the lapse 
 of time been ' by the magic of numerical strength ' de- 
 clared errors. I reply to this assertion by simply challen- 
 ging you to show one solitary dogma which the Roman 
 Catholic Church taught in one age as a dogma of revealed 
 religion, and which she afterwards repudiated as an error ; 
 or that what she repudiated in one age as an error, she in 
 a succeeding age propounded as a dogma." 
 
 This drew from me the following reply which I give, 
 changing the pronouns so as to relieve it from its episto- 
 lary character, and making some merely verbal alterations : 
 
 I am challenged to adduce one solitary dogma which 
 the Roman Catholic Church taught as true and afterwards 
 repudiated ; or to show that she repudiated as error in 
 one age what she afterwards propounded as a dogma. 
 
 I think that examples may be found in the facts which 
 I give below, but I give them with a full knowledge that 
 they may be explained away in a manner highly satisfac- 
 tory to the faithful by either denying the authority of the 
 council, or claiming that the view was always held, though 
 not made a dogma. I will endeavor to anticipate such 
 explanations as I go along, to save time. 
 
 My authority for the facts which follow is Voltaire's 
 Dictionnaire Philosophique, Edition-Touquet, Paris, 1822, 
 titles " Conciles," " Christianisme," from which I translate 
 freely. I know that Voltaire is in very bad odor with ortho- 
 dox Christians, but these facts are, I believe, undisputed, 
 and can be found stated by other authors. I have used 
 Voltaire because his book is the most convenient to my 
 hand. 
 
 The first oecumenical council was convoked by Con- 
 stantine (not a very exemplary Christian) at Nice in the 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 71 
 
 year 325. The occasion of this council seems to have 
 been certain disputes among the clergy of Alexandria 
 touching the divinity of Jesus. Constantine sent a letter 
 to them by Hosius, Bishop of Cordova, remonstrating 
 with them for quarrelling over so small a matter ; but his 
 letter not having the effect he expected, he convoked the 
 council to set the matter at rest. At that council some 
 held the opinions of Origen, as set forth in his 6th chapter 
 against Celsus : * " We present our prayers to God by Jesus, 
 who holds the middle between natures created and natures 
 uncreated, who brings us the grace of his father, and pre- 
 sents our prayers to the great God in the quality of our 
 Pontiff." They based their position on Jesus' saying 
 " My father is greater than I "; and they regarded Jesus 
 as the first-born of the creation, and the purest emanation 
 of the Supreme Being, but not precisely as God. Their 
 opponents, on the strength of the text " My father and I 
 are one," took the position that Jesus was God, in spite 
 of the explanation that, in view of the other saying, this 
 last meant : " My father and I have the same design, the 
 same will; I have no other desires than those of my 
 father." But Eusebius of Nicomedia, with seventeen 
 other bishops, and a number of priests, including Arius, 
 were voted down by a vote of 299 to 18, and the council 
 decided that " Jesus is the only son of God, begotten of 
 the Father, God. of God, light of light, very God of very 
 God, consubstantial with the Father. We believe also in 
 the Holy Ghost," etc. 
 
 Up to this time the priests of the Church certainly 
 taught different views upon the subject (or it were un- 
 necessary to call the council), and it is to be hoped that 
 some of both sides were saved. But this council, not 
 
 1 Cf. Bk. v., ch. iv. ; Bk. vi., ch. xlvii.-xlviii. ; Bk. viii. , ch. xiii.-xxvi. 
 
72 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 convoked by the Church, but by an Emperor who was at 
 that time not even baptized (that ceremony having been 
 performed on his death-bed), decided that henceforth the 
 belief thus formulated must be held under pain of dam- 
 nation. 
 
 In 359 the Emperor Constantius assembled the two coun- 
 cils of Rimini and Seleucis, corresponding with each other, 
 and composed of 600 bishops and a large number of priests, 
 and these councils undid the work of the council of Nice, 
 and rejected the word " consubstantial "; but these two 
 councils are not recognized as valid by the Church ; why, 
 I know not, except that their action was afterwards found 
 to be distasteful to a majority. Be that as it may, a grand 
 council met, by order of the Emperor Theodosius, at 
 Constantinople in 381, with 150 bishops, and this council 
 anathematized that of Rimini. That is to say, these 150 
 bishops undid what the 600 bishops had done. St. 
 Gregory Nazienzen presided, — the same who wrote to 
 Procopius : " I fear these councils ; I have never known one 
 which did not do more harm than good, or which had a 
 good end ; the spirit of disputation, vanity, ambition, rule 
 in them ; he who wishes to reform the wicked exposes 
 himself to be denounced without succeeding in his 
 corrections." 
 
 This council added to the Nicene creed : " Jesus Christ 
 is incarnate by the Holy Ghost, and of the Virgin Mary. 
 He was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate. He was 
 buried, and rose again the third day, according to the 
 Scriptures. He is seated on the right of the Father: We 
 believe in the Holy Ghost, vivifying Lord, who proceeds 
 from the Father, and is glorified with the Father and 
 the Son." 
 
 Here again we have more things made necessary to be 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 73 
 
 believed, which, while perhaps taught by many before, 
 were not declared essential until then. And remark that 
 this council did not find out that the Holy Ghost pro- 
 ceeded from both the Father and the Son, but announces 
 it as proceeding only from the Father ; so that we might 
 then have been saved without believing that it proceeded 
 from both. It was toward the ninth century that the 
 Latin Church discovered, by degrees, that the Holy Ghost 
 proceeded from both the Father and the Son, when it 
 so announced, though Pope John VIII. had declared " Ju- 
 das " those who so believed. 
 
 In 431 Theodosius II. convoked the grand council of 
 Ephesus. Nestorius, Bishop of Constantinople, who had 
 persecuted many for not agreeing with him in theology, 
 was, in his turn, persecuted for holding that the Holy 
 Virgin, mother of Jesus Christ, was not the mother of 
 God, because, as he said, Jesus being the Word, Son of 
 God, consubstantial* with the Father, Mary could not be 
 at the same time, mother of God the Father and God the 
 Son. St. Cyril bitterly opposed him. Nestorius de- 
 manded and obtained an oecumenical council. Nestorius 
 was condemned ; but Cyril was deposed by a committee 
 of the council. 
 
 The Emperor undid what the council did, but per- 
 mitted it to reassemble. Rome sent deputies, but they 
 arrived very late. Trouble increasing, the Emperor 
 arrested both Nestorius and Cyril, and ordered all the 
 bishops to their respective churches, and no conclusion 
 was reached. Such was the famous council of Ephesus. 
 
 Another grand council at Ephesus in 449. The bishops 
 said that those who would divide Jesus in two should 
 themselves be torn in two. Dioscorus, Bishop of Alex- 
 andria, presided. The two natures of Jesus were anathe- 
 
74 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 matized. The disputants fought in full council ; neither 
 the first nor the last attempt to determine questions of 
 faith by physical force. 
 
 In 451 the grand council of Chalcedon established 
 that Jesus had two natures and one person. 
 
 Having established one person and two natures, it be- 
 came necessary to determine how many wills Jesus had. 
 So, in 680, more than two hundred years later, a general 
 council at Constantinople decided that Jesus had two 
 wills, and condemned Pope Honorius I., who held that 
 Jesus had but one. This was before the Pope had been 
 ascertained to be infallible. 
 
 In 787 was convoked the second council of Nice, by 
 Irene, mother of Constantine, but in the name of her son. 
 Her husband had abolished the adoration of images as 
 contrary to the simplicity of the first centuries, and favor- 
 ing idolatry ; Irene re-established it ; she spoke in the 
 council. Two legates of Pope Adrian IV. were present, 
 but did not speak, as they did not understand Greek. 
 
 In 794 Charlemagne called a numerous council at 
 Frankfort. It characterized the second council of Nice 
 as an impertinent and arrogant synod held in Greece for 
 the adoration of pictures. 
 
 In 842 another grand council at Constantinople, con- 
 voked by the Empress Theodora, where the adoration of 
 images was solemnly established. 
 
 Omitting the numerous intervening councils as not 
 being necessary to the present discussion, we find that the 
 dogmas of transubstantiation and confession were first 
 announced at the council of Lateran, in 121 5, under Pope 
 Innocent III. 
 
 However much the doctrine of penance, as it is now 
 called, may have been taught or practised by the Chris- 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 7$ 
 
 tian Church (as it was, and is, by many others) before 
 that time, it was then that confession was made obligatory. 
 Before that time God would forgive sins without confes- 
 sion to a man, be he priest or otherwise, or an infallible 
 Church would surely not have waited twelve hundred 
 years to inform the faithful to the contrary ; but from and 
 after that time confession, at least once a year, became 
 necessary to attain that forgiveness. 
 
 And so, to be brief, with the very modern dogmas of 
 the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary, 1854, 
 and papal infallibility, 1870. 
 
 I here stated that I knew that the Bishop would say 
 that some of these councils were good and some bad, and 
 that the good councils have always agreed, and were 
 called to crush out heresies which had taken possession of 
 some priests, and only announced what had always been 
 believed. But in that case how are we to tell the true from 
 the false ? Called by the same power, consisting of the 
 same class of men, some recognized by Rome and con- 
 demned by Constantinople, others recognized by Constan- 
 tinople and condemned by Rome, who is to decide ? The 
 Roman Catholic Church accepts what pleases it ; the 
 Greek Catholic Church adopts what it likes. According 
 to Hefele, Bishop of Rottenberg, the Roman Church 
 recognizes twenty councils, while, according to the En- 
 cyclopedia Britannica, the Greek Church recognizes but 
 seven, and the English Church practically only the first 
 five. Of course the Bishop would claim that the Roman 
 Catholic Church must be right, as it is infallible. But 
 as that infallibility is one of the points at issue, that would 
 hardly be an answer. 
 
 Let us try to look at the question by the aid of a little 
 unfettered reason, outside of these councils and the 
 
76 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 Church where it has been hampered and tied down by 
 edicts, dogmas, and creeds, made by other mortals like 
 ourselves, and forced down our throats under the most 
 fearful penalties. 
 
 A council is, necessarily, either to establish or con- 
 demn — that is, its object and result must be either to 
 establish as a dogma, or belief, of the Church something 
 which had not before been a dogma, or belief ; or to 
 stamp with the seal of its disapprobation some idea or 
 belief which was becoming sufficiently prevalent to be 
 dangerous. In the first case, that is if the object be to 
 establish, it follows, necessarily, as I think, that it is con- 
 voked because in the course of time theologians have 
 diverged in their views, some one or more entertaining a 
 doctrine that the others did not. His or their views were 
 adopted at first by a few, then by more and more, until 
 in the course, perhaps, of centuries they were entertained 
 by a majority of the bishops, the views of the lesser 
 priests counting for little or nothing. New ideas being 
 always aggressive, those who held such, as soon as they 
 felt sure that they were a majority and could therefore 
 control it, called a council, and the new idea then became 
 a dogma, and belief in it an essential of salvation. 
 
 Or, in the second case, that is, where the council is con- 
 vened to condemn, it means nothing more or less than 
 that those with the old idea, finding the new idea gaining 
 ground so rapidly as to threaten to become dangerous to 
 the old, were shrewd enough to call a council while they, 
 the old-idea men, were yet in the majority, and therefore 
 had a certainty of success on their side. 
 
 In either case the will of the majority is declared to be 
 the will of God. An idea prevails, and is true, not from 
 its inherent qualities, but from the number of adherents 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. J J 
 
 it can muster, no matter what the motive may be that 
 prompts men to its support. Many men lack the moral 
 and physical courage to boldly express their views when 
 they have the full assurance that, because they differ from 
 the majority, or controlling power, they will be certainly 
 anathematized, and probably banished or condemned to 
 death ; and in the " ages of faith " such a fate was by no 
 means unusual to a man who followed his own conscience 
 instead of the wishes of his superiors. Therefore, if God 
 would not allow His councils to err, it would seem that He 
 has permitted the successors of His apostles to use some 
 exceedingly human, but not very creditable, methods of 
 convincing ; and has not hesitated to allow His cause to 
 be supported and advanced by the crimes of His most 
 prominent and honored adherents, rewarding them with 
 riches and power in this life, and glory and saintship in 
 the next. Or, if this be not true, if God did not sanction 
 such methods of argument, then it would perhaps be 
 difficult to accurately determine which of the councils He 
 was with and which were controlled by another power. 
 
 But leaving out of view the means used to influence 
 votes, which, as we have seen, history would seem to indi- 
 cate were not always entirely reputable, there is another 
 view to be taken of these councils. 
 
 Belief is, as I have already argued (Prop. I., I?.), an 
 involuntary condition of the mind, influenced and con- 
 trolled, it may be, by argument and facts, but entirely 
 free from the control of the mere will. All that the will has 
 to do with it is that it may cause one to seek for or avoid 
 facts or reasons to influence it. Those facts or reasons 
 may be mere confidence in another, which is the case 
 generally. But having once formed a belief (and I do not 
 mean a mere acceptance of a fact or idea), that belief can- 
 
?$ AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 not be gotten rid of by a mere desire, no matter how 
 strong that desire may be. We are forced to believe 
 much that is disagreeable, much that we would give 
 worlds to disbelieve ; but nothing short of proof, or what 
 is considered proof, to the mind, will change belief to 
 doubt, or doubt to belief. And this is particularly the 
 case with educated thoughtful persons, not because they 
 are under a different rule, but because they require 
 stronger reasons and better attested facts. Therefore 
 those who in the discussions in the general councils remain 
 unconvinced and vote according to their consciences, if 
 they are the minority, must not only outwardly conform 
 to the new order of things, and teach as truth what in 
 their souls they condemn as error, but they must actually 
 forcibly change their belief, not from reasons or facts, 
 but by the command of the majority, or be forever 
 damned. 
 
 And is this the law of God ? Justice, mercy, truth, all 
 of His attributes forbid. That which for centuries was 
 not a dogma, and not a necessity of salvation, has by the 
 force of numbers, and nothing else, become essential to 
 save us in the future ; for if not necessary, why should the 
 Church insist upon it ? The task of salvation, taught by 
 the Church to be only possible through the mercy of God 
 and the atoning blood of Jesus, has still more difficulties 
 thrown around it by a Church, which claims that it 
 bears God's own and only commission to lead the world 
 to Him. Millions have been saved without believing in 
 it in the past, but in the future there is to be one more 
 requirement, one more difficulty to conquer, one more 
 strain on an already severely taxed faith, one more thing 
 (and that frequently an impossibility) to be believed, be- 
 fore it will extend its all powerful and only aid to poor, 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 79 
 
 weak, erring humanity. If the Church's ways are God's 
 ways, truly the peace of God passeth understanding. 
 Such are my reasons for saying, in my first paper : 
 
 " Nearly every dogma of any of the Churches has been established through 
 debate, by argument and discussion, and determined by vote. Reasoning is 
 permitted, nay, encouraged, so long as it is on the side of the majority. 
 The subject only becomes too sacred for discussion after it has been voted a 
 dogma. Reason may be used to determine what is true, but having once 
 been decided to be true, by a majority vote, reason must be ever after silent, 
 unless a majority ' go back ' on the old truth, and so declare by another 
 vote, when the old truth becomes error, and the old error, by the magic 
 of numerical strength, becomes truth, and, in its turn, sacred and unas- 
 sailable." 
 
 Councils of the bishops of the Church have decided 
 points, and other councils of the same sort have reversed 
 their decisions. Popes have held views which other popes 
 have condemned. The Church requires, as essential, that 
 its children now believe what in former years they were 
 not required to believe ; for when a dogma is established 
 by a council, belief in it is essential, though until so 
 established disbelief is countenanced. Notably is this the 
 case with the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. 
 Pope Sixtus IV. directed that those who held different 
 views on the subject should be tolerant towards each 
 other under pain of excommunication. I hardly think 
 Leo XIII. would issue such a bull. 
 
 It does not seem to me to be a sufficient answer to say 
 that this or that council should not be recognized ; or that 
 this or that pope was not authority as he spoke only as a 
 man, and not as the head of the Church — not ex cathedra. 
 I should suppose 600 bishops at Rimini and Seleucis as 
 apt to have God with them, and be right, as 1 50 bishops 
 at Constantinople twenty-two years later. I should think 
 that St. Gregory's opinion of such councils is entitled to 
 
80 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 some respect inasmuch as he had presided over one of 
 them. I should consider Honorius I. as infallible as 
 Pius IX., and would not expect either to have announced, 
 as the head of the Church, that to be true which as a man 
 he did not believe. 
 
 In fact I would be afraid to blindly believe in any pope 
 or council for fear that some other pope or council might 
 hereafter condemn the one I followed — for if I had gone 
 to heaven for agreeing with Honorius I., I might have 
 been translated to hell for differing from Pius IX. 
 
 So, as this whole question of religion is, in my opinion, 
 by far the most important a man can consider, I have 
 preferred to do my own thinking. 
 
 This is called an " infidel age." If that means that it is 
 disposed to be unfaithful to creeds that have no other 
 claim to respectability than age, and the names of those 
 who have held them, I think the age correctly named. 
 Modern cultivated thought tends to reject anything and 
 everything which depends alone upon "authority" — that is, 
 on any man's or men's dictum. And this I think is because, 
 as the mind of man is developed by contact with others, 
 and enlarged by experience and more extended observa- 
 tion and study ; as it finds that the ideas so reverently 
 held by one are utterly disbelieved by others who are as 
 well informed, as intelligent, as learned, as good ; as it 
 realizes the fact of the utter inability of a man to control 
 his belief, it begins to doubt the correctness of a theology 
 which teaches that salvation is dependent upon that which 
 is beyond the man's control ; it refuses to believe that a 
 pure, just, all powerful God will condemn the man who 
 hears, who thinks, who prays, who reasons, who seeks for 
 truth with all the means at his command, and finds that 
 which he in his soul holds true, because forsooth the truth 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 8 1 
 
 thus found is not accepted by a self-complacent fraction 
 of His people; and doubt thus entering into the mind, 
 freeing it from the thraldom of the past, the whole sub- 
 ject has been taken up by classes of people who had 
 hitherto been blind followers of precedent, and more true 
 thought is now given to theology, in its largest sense, 
 than ever before. 
 
 And this, I think, accounts for the increased and in- 
 creasing opposition, in quantity and quality, to modern 
 dogmatic Christianity. 
 
 I have thought it best to give the whole of this part of 
 the correspondence, including my numerous very freely 
 translated excerpts from Voltaire, though I might have 
 cited the same facts from more generally approved 
 writers : because it permits me to show by the Bishop's 
 next letter, and my reply, the sort of personal arguments 
 used by the Church when she is hard pressed, and because 
 I wish to vindicate by the simple truth one whom I regard 
 as an able, earnest, and conscientious friend of humanity, 
 who battled gloriously in behalf of truth and free-thought ; 
 and whom, because he was such, and therefore her enemy, 
 the Church, taking advantage of and magnifying defects 
 and weaknesses without which he would hardly have been 
 human, has pursued with relentless vindictiveness and 
 unscrupulous malignity into his grave, and whose memory 
 she has striven to blacken by scandalous falsehoods 
 fabricated and uttered in the name of God. 
 
 To which the Bishop replied : 
 
 "You have treated me, in your second paper, to a long 
 history of Church councils. You triumphantly exclaim, 
 here are councils in which one contradicts what another 
 has asserted ; and you add : ' I know that you will say 
 
 6 
 
82 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 that some of these councils were good and some were bad, 
 and that the good councils have always agreed. But how 
 are we to tell the true from the false? ' I am astonished 
 that you should take as your guide in matters of Christian 
 Church history such a writer as Voltaire. You seem to 
 have the luck of falling in with very unreliable authors. 
 Viscount Amberly is bad enough for theology — but he is 
 a cherub when compared with Voltaire on Christian 'his- 
 tory. Were a man to quote the descriptions of Thaddeus 
 Stevens and Ben Butler as a reliable history of the coun- 
 cils of the leaders of the late Confederacy, every sensible 
 man would smile at his simplicity. But the well-known 
 prejudice and blind passion of T. Stevens and B. F. But- 
 ler against the leaders of the Confederacy are as nothing 
 when compared to the demoniacal hatred towards Chris- 
 tianity borne by that Voltaire whose constant expression 
 was ' ecrasez Vinfame? I don't wish, however, to com- 
 plain of the unfairness of asking me to take as unbiased 
 honest history the garbled accounts of this sworn enemy 
 of Jesus Christ, and whose private life was, if possible, 
 more shameful than his public career in the courts of 
 Prussia and France ; but what does surprise me is that 
 you should thus place on the witness-stand a liar and 
 modestly ask me to admit, as unqualified truth, his tes- 
 timony. That Voltaire is a liar, it suffices for me to 
 refer to the American Encylopcdia — which in its very 
 moderate and impartial article on Voltaire is compelled 
 to declare him utterly untrustworthy as an historian. But 
 you would have been saved all reference to Voltaire had 
 you been acquainted with the organization of the Catholic 
 Church. The Catholic Church is the kingdom of Christ 
 in this world. Christ chose as the visible head of that 
 Church St. Peter. For Christ said : ' I will give to thee 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 83 
 
 the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatsoever thou 
 shalt bind upon earth shall be bound in heaven — and what- 
 soever thou wilt loosen on earth shall be loosened in 
 heaven.' Hence St. Peter and his lawful successors have 
 always been held to be the visible head in that great 
 kingdom — the Catholic Church. No parliamentary as- 
 sembly, however numerous, would be considered a legal 
 body unless legitimately convoked by the sovereign's ap- 
 probation ; — and even 600 members assembling without 
 the royal writ would not be regarded as a legal body, and 
 their enactments would be worthless in point of law. 
 Had you remembered this you would not have said : ' I 
 suppose the 600 bishops at Rimini as apt . . . to be right 
 as 150 bishops at Constantinople '; Rimini was wanting in 
 its most essential characteristic. For the enactments of 
 the bishops at Rimini were all rejected by the head of 
 Christ's kingdom on earth, — the successor of St. Peter, — 
 the Bishop of Rome. But the comparison between earthly 
 kingdoms and Christ's immortal kingdom on earth ' clau- 
 dicatj like all comparisons. For Christ not only placed 
 Peter at the head in giving him the keys of his kingdom, 
 but he gave Peter the command to strengthen in their 
 faith all, even the apostles, — ' con fir ma fratres tuos.' That 
 Peter might be able to do that, Christ assured them that 
 he had prayed himself for Peter's faith, which consequently 
 would never fail. For that reason the successors of Peter 
 have often, in assembling bishops, written to them 
 directing and ordering them the manner in which they 
 should treat subjects which were to be broached in the 
 councils. Hence when you ask, ' How shall we tell the 
 true from the false councils? ' you need not have added 
 the nonsense : ' I know that you will say some of these 
 councils were good and some were bad, and the good have 
 
84 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 always agreed ' — I will say no such foolishness. It was 
 perfectly gratuitous in you to place such assertions in my 
 mouth. For like every true Catholic I will say that only 
 those councils are good whose decrees have met the sanc- 
 tion of the Vicar of Christ, the visible head of the Church. 
 Hence Rimini, and many others which you cite from 
 Voltaire, have always been rejected by Catholics because 
 they have been rejected by the head of the Church. 
 
 " When again, copying from the worthless statements of 
 Voltaire, you say : ' Dogmas of transubstantiation and 
 confession were first announced at the council of Lateran, 
 in 1 2 1 5,' you must thank such a guide for leading you into 
 a most palpable untruth. Into a falsehood equally absurd 
 has Voltaire led you, when you assert in ' 842 another grand 
 council at Constantinople . . . the adoration of im- 
 ages was solemnly established.' But I have not the time 
 to follow all the crude ideas and infinitely false assertions 
 contained in Voltaire's account, and quoted by you. Nor, 
 in logic is it at all necessary. For a lying witness is no 
 witness. We believe that there is a God. Consequently 
 the question comes, What must I do to please and serve 
 God ? Man of himself can have but a faint knowledge of 
 God. None of us have seen the things of the next world. 
 Consequently what can we, when left to ourselves, know 
 of the mysterious things of that dark eternity which none 
 of us have ever seen — and from whose bourne no traveller 
 has returned to tell the tale. If man cannot of himself know 
 the things of the next life ; if he cannot know what he 
 must do to please God — then God must Himself impart 
 such knowledge of Himself and the next world as may 
 be necessary for man. And this God has done ; first of 
 all to Adam and Eve in Paradise ; after, by the ministry 
 of Moses ; and finally, God has sent his only begotten 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 85 
 
 son, Jesus Christ. He, taking on human nature, walked 
 on earth and taught with unerring certainty what man 
 should do to please God ; and revealed not all things of. 
 eternity, but as much concerning them as it was pleasing 
 to God that we should know in this brief transit through 
 time to eternity. We believe, therefore, all the doctrines 
 of Christ. But the question arises, How are we to know 
 the genuine doctrines of Christ? What means did Christ 
 adopt, by which all of his doctrines might be conveyed to 
 future ages, pure and unadulterated ? Christ formed a 
 corporate body. He chose the first twelve of that body 
 himself. He organized that body by selecting and pla- 
 cing at their head one called Peter. These he carefully 
 instructed himself for several years ; and even stayed 
 forty days on earth after his resurrection instructing them. 
 Now, having fully imparted to them his doctrines before 
 leaving the earth, he gave them the broad commission : 
 * Go ye therefore and teach all nations.' ' I am with you 
 all days, even until the end of the world.' These indi- 
 vidual twelve men could not teach all nations, could not 
 live * till the end of the world.' It was therefore a cor- 
 porate body formed by Christ, the individuals of which 
 might die, but their successors in the corporate body were 
 to teach all nations ' until the end of the world.' This 
 body corporate was made by God, not by man. God can 
 impart perpetuity to His works — man cannot. This cor- 
 porate body is not an institution gotten up by man. 
 For the one who established it, being God, could say : ' I 
 am with you all days, even to the consummation of the 
 world.' The constant, perpetual, in-dwelling and abiding 
 of Christ, in and with that corporate teaching body, was 
 promised by Christ repeatedly, and under a variety of ex- 
 pressions. We believe, therefore, that Christ is with this 
 
86 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 corporate teaching body, constantly upholding, preserv- 
 ing, and keeping it from error — even as the soul dwells in 
 the body and gives it life. Consequently, we have only 
 to look around and see where have been the legitimate suc- 
 cessors in that corporate body, established by Christ, and 
 to which Christ gave the commission to teach all nations, 
 even until the end of the world. In all days, from the 
 time when Christ instituted that corporate body, have there 
 been the bishops who can trace their line of succession 
 from the present time back to the apostolic age. This 
 corporate body, always existing under the guidance and 
 leadership of one visible head as Christ had in the be- 
 ginning established it, has the commission from Christ to 
 teach, and has taught the world. This corporate body is 
 not an institution of man — else it would have shared the 
 fate of the rest of human institutions, and would have 
 gone to pieces long ago. But it is a divine institution, 
 and hence has resisted the shock of ages. Hence, Christ 
 said : 'I am with you all days.' Now this corporate 
 body is the means established by Christ to teach all 
 nations his doctrines. It is, therefore, to teach his doc- 
 trines — nothing more — nothing less. Hence, you will 
 understand my expression, which is of such frequent oc- 
 currence with Catholic writers from the beginning — 
 i.e. l the sacred deposit of doctrines.' By this sacred 
 deposit of doctrines, we mean the doctrines deposited 
 with the apostles — this corporate teaching body. 
 Hence the Catholic tradition — which is the doctrine 
 handed down from age to age by the ministry of the cor- 
 porate body of teachers established by Christ. Hence 
 the Catholic Church makes no new revelation of doctrines 
 — she adds nothing and takes away nothing from those 
 original doctrines. She teaches those doctrines — but 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 87 
 
 makes no new doctrines. But when, in the long course 
 of ages, men ask for fuller explanations of these same 
 doctrines ; or when assertions are made in enmity to these 
 doctrines, she must, in her capacity and divine commis- 
 sion be also able to. speak with infallible authority. Just 
 as a judge makes no new law, but simply expounds what 
 is law — and has been law. For a decision we must take, 
 not the popular reports or accounts concerning judicial 
 decisions, but the very matter of fact of the law decided. 
 To exemplify what I say, take the famous Arian heresy. 
 What was really decided by the council of Nice ? Why, 
 that the Son was ' consubstantialis ' — ofxovawi — ' consub- 
 stantial ' with the Father. Arius was willing to call 
 Christ the Son of God, the only-begotten — and, indeed, 
 read the creeds drawn up from time to time by the Arians, 
 and almost any person would say that they were identical 
 in meaning with the famous Nicene creed. In fact, the 
 learned do not yet agree as to what Arius really believed 
 about Christ. One thing is certain — Arius denied that 
 the Son was consubstantial with the Father, and it was 
 just this which the Nicene council insisted upon. For 
 read the speeches and works of an Athanasius, and the 
 other fathers of that council, and the gist of their whole 
 discourse is — the constant tradition and teaching of the 
 Church, the sacred deposit of doctrine, has always been 
 that Christ is divine. That Christ himself taught ; that 
 the apostles taught ; for that the countless army of martyrs 
 died ; that the Church has always taught. If then Christ 
 is divine, how can Arius assert, argued the fathers of the 
 Nicene council, that Christ is not ' consubstantialis ' with 
 the Father? For if not consubstantial, then He must 
 have another and a different nature from the Father. If 
 another, then not a divine, nature — for there cannot be 
 
88 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 two divine natures. If Christ had not a divine nature, he 
 was in no sense of the word divine. Hence the council 
 declared ' anathema ' to any one who would assert that 
 the Son was not consubstantial with the Father. Hence, 
 too, the terrible war which the Arians waged against the 
 word ■ consubstantial.' That word was a clincher. It 
 admitted no cavilling. The Arians were willing to give a 
 Pacific Ocean of high-sounding titles to the Son. For 
 they were all susceptible of interpretation which taught 
 that the Son of God is not divine. But the word, con- 
 substantial, admitted of no such interpretation. For if 
 consubstantial to the Father, then the Son had one and 
 the same nature with the Father, whose nature was the 
 divine — and consequently the Son had a divine nature. 
 This, therefore, was a fuller, more explicit teaching of a 
 doctrine which had been held from the beginning. But 
 not a new doctrine brought about by the force of num- 
 bers, as you have assserted, and which was to be foisted 
 upon an unwilling world. 
 
 " I might go through with all the doctrinal decisions of 
 the various councils, and demonstrate this uniform con- 
 duct of the Church. For brevity's sake, however, I will 
 examine the famous infallibility question. 
 
 " The council of the Vatican, in 1870, published the de- 
 cree : ' We declare the Roman Pontiff when he speaks, 
 ex-cathedra possesses that infallibility promised by Christ 
 to His Church, and therefore such definitions are of 
 themselves, and not merely when they shall have received 
 the consent of the Church, unalterable.' Now the decree 
 itself gives us the cue to the history of the case. Louis 
 XIV., King of France, not satisfied with having absorbed 
 in himself all the powers of the French government 
 {I'etat c'est moi), yielded also to the temptation which has 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 89 
 
 so often assaulted kings in every age, to dabble in the- 
 ology. Hence was gotten up what was known as the 
 Gallican party. They were Catholics — of course — for 
 was not their patron — the king — his most Catholic Ma- 
 jesty? They acknowledged the Pope to be the vicar of 
 Christ — the visible head of the Church — the one to pre- 
 side in all the oecumenical councils — the supreme judge 
 in questions of faith and morals — the successor to St. 
 Peter's place and rights and prerogatives for the govern- 
 ment of Christ's kingdom on earth — the one for whose 
 faith Christ had prayed that it should never fail — the one 
 who had received the command to strengthen in the faith 
 all his brethren — the divinely appointed shepherd to feed, 
 not only all the lambs, but the sheep also. Well, the un- 
 sophisticated reader will say : What more do you desire? 
 But with all their grand titles the Gallicans foisted in one 
 little clause. That little clause was the following: The 
 decrees of the Pope had first to be accepted by all the 
 bishops of the Catholic world before they had the legiti 
 mate binding force in conscience. How nicely did this 
 little clause destroy the high-sounding titles given to the 
 Pope. The cunning subtlety of the Gallicans reminds us 
 of the serpentine spirit of the Arians. Christ, said the 
 Arians, was the Son of God, Light of light, begotten be- 
 fore all ages, etc., etc., but then you see he was not con- 
 substantial with the Father. The Pope, said the Gallicans, 
 is the head of the Church, the supreme judge, the shep- 
 herd to rule the lambs and the sheep — but then, you see, 
 before his decisions as supreme judge, and regulations 
 for the flock, are binding, the community must accept 
 his decisions, the sheep must endorse the arrangements of 
 the shepherd. Hence the decree of the Vatican Council 
 was necessary, and hence, too, it was worded : ' The defi- 
 
90 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 nitions of the Roman Pontiffs are of themselves, and not 
 merely when they shall have received the consent of the 
 Church, unalterable.' For that reason many of the fathers 
 of the Vatican considered it unnecessary to pass the above 
 decree. For if the Pope is truly the vicar of Christ, as 
 all believe, does it not seem superfluous to say that his 
 decrees are not to be reformed by the bishops of the 
 Church at large ? Nor was this decision of the Vatican 
 council a new doctrine brought about by mere discussions 
 of the learned, as you suppose ; a mere new doctrine that 
 the unfortunate world had not dreamed of before, but 
 now was compelled to believe under pain of damnation. 
 Or rather, was it not just like the Nicene and other cases? 
 Before the council of Nice, Christ was called the Son of 
 God, worshipped, adored, and honored with every divine 
 honor. When the Council of Nice issued its decree as- 
 serting against Arius that Christ was consubstantial with 
 the Father, this was a broader explanation of an old doc- 
 trine — but not a new one. Before the Vatican, had not 
 the Church taught that the Pope was the successor of St. 
 Peter, was the visible head of the Church ; had not the 
 Popes decided question after question ; had they not pre- 
 sided in oecumenical councils? And if, for a moment, 
 doubt of all this arise, we need but refer to the writings 
 of that Corypheus of the opposition to the Vatican Coun- 
 cil, Dr. Doellinger. What, therefore, was this much 
 calumniated and misrepresented decree, but a clearer ex- 
 position of what had always been the teaching of the 
 Church — a putting down a sophistry which, if admitted, 
 destroyed her doctrine concerning the Pope. 1 The judge 
 
 1 In this connection the following, from pp. 182, 183 of Plain Reasons 
 Against Joining the Church of Rome, by Richard Frederick Littledale, 
 London and New York, 1880, is interesting : 
 
 " It may serve to show what divergence there was quite lately on this 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 9 1 
 
 on the bench does not make a new law ; but the judge must 
 be there to decide what is the law, when ignorance or the 
 sophistry of unprincipled men would put interpretations 
 which would destroy the law. Christ has established a 
 corporate body, duly organized, under one visible head, 
 and has given it the commission to teach all nations. It 
 must evidently be able to teach when, in the course of 
 ages, factions and bad men, as it is to be expected, may 
 bring up their quibbles, their sophisms, which would tend 
 to corrupt that sacred deposit of doctrine entrusted by 
 Christ to her to be taught to the world. And that this 
 corporate body has done, from the days of the apostles 
 down to the present time. It has received the commission 
 to teach, not politics, not the physical sciences, but ' what- 
 soever I [Jesus Christ] have commanded you' ; in other 
 words, to impart to all nations those doctrines which it 
 has pleased God to reveal to the world. While these 
 truths are many, and sufficient for us in this life, eternity 
 will, no doubt, reveal countless others to our eyes when 
 we see Him face to face who is infinite perfection — when 
 we see God just as He is. [This omission is ex- 
 
 plained farther on, and is of purely personal matter, not 
 affecting the discussion on either side.] 
 
 head (Infallibility) from the now current teaching, to cite a question and. 
 answer from an anti-Protestant work, Keenan's Controversial Catechism. 
 This book received the approval and license of Archbishop Hughes, of New 
 York, and the editions published here (London) bear the formal approbation 
 of the four Roman Catholic Bishops in Scotland, dated 1846 and 1853. 
 " ' Q. Must not Catholics believe the Pope himself to be infallible ?' 
 " 'A. This is a Protestant invention ; it is no article of the Catholic Faith : 
 no decision of his can bind, on pain of heresy, unless it be received and en- 
 forced by the teaching body — that is, by the bishops of the Church.' 
 
 " Since the Vatican decrees, this question and answer have been quietly 
 dropped out of the volume by a clever re-arrangement of the type, but 
 pains have been taken to make it seem the very same edition, nay, the very 
 same thousand of that edition, and no hint of any change is given." 
 
92 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 " To your charge then that her doctrines have arisen by 
 the discussions of men, and what has not been known in 
 one age has by the mere force of numerical majorities 
 been made new articles of faith, you have my answer. 
 
 " In your first paper you had asserted that what had been 
 held as a sacred truth in one age she had rejected as error 
 in another, and vice versa. I challenged you to show one 
 instance of such conduct on her part. In your second 
 paper, unable to accept the challenge, you back down 
 from that proposition, and ask me to accept your new 
 charge, which is : ' She [the Church] failed to recognize as 
 truth in one age what she afterwards propounded as a 
 dogma.' Does the definition made at Nice of ' consub- 
 stantial ' offer any proof that she had hitherto failed to 
 recognize the truth that Christ was divine ? Does the 
 definition of the Vatican council that the decree of the 
 sovereign Pontiff was unalterable, offer any proof that she 
 failed to recognize the Pope as the head of the Church, 
 the supreme judge on earth, the vicar of Christ, etc. ? So 
 far from this, by the councils of Nice, Ephesus, Chalce- 
 don, Rome, Constantinople, and all the way down to the 
 council of Trent and the Vatican they are and have 
 been recognized. What the fathers then taught she still 
 teaches. 
 
 " You conclude by kindly insinuating that we blindly 
 believe in the Pope and councils. I have shown you that 
 ours is not a blind belief in any man or men. You say 
 that ' I have preferred to do my own thinking.' Now, as 
 a matter of fact, all this boast which, with the modern 
 infidels, you make about ' rejecting authority,' and doing 
 your ' own thinking,' is both unfounded and irrational. 
 It is utterly unfounded, for you and all of us, in the daily 
 concerns of life even, believe many things on the author- 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 93 
 
 ity of others, and let others do the thinking for us. The 
 Catholic Church does not ask us to suppress or reject 
 reason in order to be a member of her Church. Quite 
 the contrary. She has ever produced such master-minds 
 as a St. Augustine, a John Chrysostom, an Anselm, a 
 Thomas Aquinas, a Bossuet, a Fenelon, and in our own 
 days she can point to a Bronson, John H. Newman, Man- 
 ning, and other illustrious children. It is just my intel- 
 lect which tells me there is a God. In accepting this 
 truth I am only uniting with the great intellects of every 
 age — aye, with the voice of all the human family. It is 
 not suppressing my intellect, but following its luminous 
 rays, when I again acknowledge that with regard to the 
 things of God, whom I have never seen — with regard to 
 the things of the next world, which I have never visited — 
 my intellect cannot be expected to tell me much. It is 
 by following my intellect, therefore, that I conclude that 
 if we are to have in this world a knowledge of God, and 
 the things of eternity, God must by some means make 
 known to us the knowledge of Himself, and the things of 
 the other world. My own intellect tells me that man, by 
 the mere efforts of his own intellect, can never have a 
 knowledge of God and eternity sufficient for his spiritual 
 wants. Now God sent Jesus Christ to teach us the truths 
 of God and the hidden realities of eternity. Not a blind 
 acquiescence in others' opinions, but the calm exercise of 
 my reasoning faculties, the honorable searching of the 
 historical evidence, prove a demonstration to my intellect, 
 and myriads of other greater intellects than mine ever 
 will be, that Jesus Christ was a messenger from God, 
 that not only he did what no other man ever did, but 
 that he did what a mere man could not do, or attempt 
 to do. Having established the fact that Christ was the 
 
94 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 messenger sent into this world by God to teach us and 
 instruct us, it is my intellect which tells me that I must 
 accept as truths all that he will ask me to believe. But 
 to convey his doctrines to all ages, he duly organized a 
 corporate body of men who were to hand down from age 
 to age, and spread abroad to all men, these his doctrines. 
 Were Jesus Christ a mere man, then this corporate body 
 might yield like other human institutions, might be 
 broken to pieces in the shock of ages, and might fail 
 to convey his genuine doctrines to the world. But as I 
 said before, the abundant testimony at hand shows me 
 that Jesus Christ is God. He therefore can do what a 
 mere man cannot do. I know, therefore, that there is 
 truth in his doctrines and stability in his works. This 
 corporate body has been entrusted with the duty of en- 
 lightening the world with truth by the same God who 
 commanded the sun to shed its life-giving rays upon us. 
 We may as little fear the one to fail us as the other. 
 This truth is made doubly certain by His assurance, ' I 
 am with you all days, even till the end of the world. 
 They that hear you hear me' It is, therefore, my own 
 intellect which tells me that this corporate body, insti- 
 tuted by God, and in which He says that He ever dwells, 
 guiding, preserving, animating it, should be listened to in 
 telling me Christ's doctrines. Because God has set it up to 
 shine the moral truth upon the world, and because God is 
 ever with it to enable it to do so, my intellect accepts un- 
 hesitatingly its blessed light. 
 
 " You may ' prefer to do your own thinking ' — but how 
 much will your own thinking alone teach you about God, 
 or the next world ? Or what certainty will your own 
 thinking give you of that infinite Being whom you have 
 never seen, and never will see in this life? Or what 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 95 
 
 knowledge will your own thinking give you of the things 
 of eternity ? Why, about as much knowledge as a man 
 would acquire of China, who, never having visited China, 
 and being too strong-minded to trust to the authority of 
 travellers' books concerning China, would lock himself up 
 in his room, and, perched on a high chair, would prefer to 
 do his own thinking about China ! And even you do not 
 do your own thinking ; for even in religion you have been 
 allowing others to do a great deal of thinking for you. 
 Unfortunately, instead of the grand old doctors of the 
 Church, it is such fellows as Viscount Amberly and Vol- 
 taire whose thinking you have adopted ! As a gentleman 
 of culture and possessing much leisure you may be tempted 
 to try your own thinking. But how many even in our 
 own age of cultivation are capable to rely on their, solely 
 on their, own thinking in matters of religion ? And God 
 help them if they did ! You, even, do not rely on your 
 own thinking for medicine, mechanics, jurisprudence, and 
 many other sciences which I might mention. And, strange, 
 you single out the highest, and consequently the most 
 profound, of sciences wherein to laugh at authority, and 
 say that you will believe only what you acquire by your 
 own thinking. 
 
 " And all this free-thinking that has so deeply your sym- 
 pathy, what is it leading to ? Is it to greater peace, happi- 
 ness, law, order, and true enlightenment ? Let the socialism 
 and communism, unknown in ages of faith, answer. Let 
 the socialism and communism of that eminently rational- 
 istic and anti-Catholic government of Prussia answer. In 
 fact it is just the truly cultivated intellect of our age which 
 is paying homage to the Catholic Church as never before. 
 The splendid literary achievements of a Voigt, Gfrorer, 
 Huebner, Roscoe, Strickland, and other Protestants have 
 
9 6 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 wiped away the filthy calumnies of Voltaire and his 
 gang, and drawn the admiration of genius upon that 
 glorious teaching corporate body established by Jesus 
 Christ; there stands that corporate teaching body — the 
 Catholic Church — doing now what it was founded to do 
 nineteen centuries ago. Macaulay, bigoted Protestant as 
 he was, has in his famous essay grandly depicted her 
 triumphs over the effects of time and fearful persecu- 
 tions. She has faithfully taught the same doctrines. The 
 decisions of her councils were merely the anathemas 
 against the impudent denial of her doctrines, as in the 
 case of the image breakers of the East ; or they were the 
 fuller declarations of her doctrines made necessary by the 
 sophism of artful men, as in the ' consubstantialis' of 
 Nice, and the ' unalterable ' of the Vatican council. Bold, 
 bad men, like Leo the Isaurian — and other crowned ty- 
 rants — have tried by brute force to destroy her doctrines ; 
 the artful Arius, the Gallicans, and others have sought 
 the same by their sophisms. The Catholic Church has 
 met the one and the other kind of enemy with the 
 anathema that defended and explained the doctrines en- 
 trusted to her ever faithful custody. Just the cultivated 
 intellect of the age has, I say again, done the Catholic 
 Church an homage unparalleled in the history of the 
 world. For amid the decay and wreck of other systems, 
 philosophical and religious, there she stands, the city 
 on the mountain — the house built on the rock, more 
 numerous, more widespread,, more intensely united than 
 ever. The persecutions of a Bismarck and Victor Emman- 
 uel have confessedly resulted in their outrageous loss and 
 her glorious gain. The cultivated intellect of our age 
 has paid her another homage. Great Britain, the United 
 States, France, Germanv, are the countries which our aee 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 97 
 
 is constantly holding up as the models of intellectual re- 
 finement and culture. Now just in these countries has 
 the Church met with a success that seems marvellous. 
 Who, a hundred years ago, would have been so rash as to 
 predict that instead of a few lowly chapels where in 
 fear and trembling a handful of priests and laity were 
 keeping alive the faith in England, Scotland, and Wales, 
 we would now have hundreds of grand churches and the 
 full hierarchy of bishops ! Who would have been so rash 
 as to predict the wonderful number of converts in Great 
 Britain, and their high rank and brilliant intellects. Who, 
 journeying one hundred years ago through New England 
 and the other parts of our present Union, could have pre- 
 dicted that in less than a century the Catholic Church 
 would be by far the most numerous body of Christians in 
 the Republic ! And she who then had not one bishop 
 within the limits of our borders would in so short a space 
 of time have nearly seventy bishops«and would cover the 
 land with her churches, colleges, and other institutions. 
 And America has rivalled Great Britain in the number 
 and in the distinguished qualities of the converts who 
 have acknowleded her truth. Let any one compare the 
 condition of the Church in France at the present hour 
 with the condition one century ago, and he will ac- 
 knowledge how great are the strides which she has made 
 in that truly wonderful country. Now let us cast a glance 
 at Germany, the acknowledged home of all modern free- 
 thinking, and of the wildest socialistic ideas — never before 
 has the Church put forth such valor — never before has 
 she shown such an illustrious martyr-clergy, and a people 
 so devoted with genuine German heartiness to the glorious 
 old Church ! Prince von Bismarck and Kaiser William in 
 the hour of the grandest triumph recorded in history, and 
 
98 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 standing in reality at the head of Europe, began their 
 attack with fearful cunning and force against the Church. 
 Seven long years has the attack raged. 1 Hundreds of the 
 pastors of the flock have been imprisoned and banished. 
 And now who is the winner and who is the loser? 
 Steady as Alexander's bristling phalanx stands the un- 
 conquered Church ; wider, far wider, has she extended 
 her lines ; closer than Caesar's legions, in battle array, 
 stand her compact forces. On the other hand, how is it 
 with the German Empire ? An exhausted treasury, a dis- 
 contented people, and a divided empire, a lost popularity, 
 and, above all, the pandemonium of socialism and com- 
 munism, looming up to its fright, make the Boulevard 
 1 Unter den Linden ' unsafe for the Emperor William and 
 his henchman Bismarck. 
 
 " I have simply hinted here at the fact. But the pen 
 of the future historian will show that in our age deistic 
 and infidel writers have added nothing to the rule of law, 
 peace, and happiness, but on the contrary are building 
 up the lawlessness of socialism and communism in Europe 
 and America ; while just in the nineteenth century culti- 
 vated intellect has rendered the Catholic Church the 
 highest homage." 
 
 Such is the whole argument on the side of the Church ; 
 at least it is all the Bishop has ever given me, it seems to 
 include all that could be urged in that connection, and I 
 know of no other. 
 
 I give my reply^ again changing the pronouns, and 
 dropping the epistolary form. 
 
 Before discussing the answer to my argument deduced 
 from the history of the oecumenical councils, I consider 
 
 1 This was written some twelve years ago. 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 99 
 
 the remark which so exercised the Bishop that he refers 
 to it more than once. 
 
 After having shown the contradictory actions of various 
 of these councils and which he has not pretended to deny, 
 I said, as already stated, that I knew he would say that 
 some of these councils were good and some bad, and that 
 the good have always agreed. He replied in a portion of 
 his letter which, being purely personal, I have omitted, 
 that he " has never said and never will say any such 
 thing," and wished to know why I put such a " silly 
 assertion " in his mouth, and then wondered why he should 
 utter so " foolish " a defence. 
 
 My reasons for attributing such a defence to the Bishop 
 were these : I have heard others use that defence ; I have 
 understood that there was a list in the Vatican of such 
 councils as were considered binding; that a number of 
 councils considered valid by the Roman Church were con- 
 sidered invalid by the Greek Church, and vice versa ; that 
 therefore the Roman Church considered some of the 
 councils good and some bad — that is, some valid and some 
 invalid. I assumed that the Bishop would hold the same 
 views as did his Church : the more especially as his first 
 paper was to the effect, as I understood it, that there was 
 no disagreement between the councils ; so that I was in a 
 measure forced to conclude that in his opinion, and the 
 opinion of the Church, the valid, or good, councils all 
 agreed. If the Bishop would admit that the councils 
 recognized as valid by the Church of Rome have disagreed 
 and differed, the one from the other, I would withdraw 
 that portion of my remarks which would make him say 
 that the good councils have always agreed. Otherwise it 
 must stand. It will be observed that I did not pretend to 
 say why the Bishop would claim that some were good and 
 
IOO AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 some bad ; I only declared my belief that he would assert 
 such to be the case. It was a little prophecy, the reasons 
 for making which I have just given. Let us see how it 
 has been fulfilled. 
 
 Referring to the argument which has just been given we 
 find that the Bishop, after so fully and clearly explaining 
 the organization of the Catholic Church, says : " Had you 
 remembered this you [I] would not have said ' I suppose 
 the 600 bishops at Rimini as apt . . . to be right 
 as 150 bishops at Constantinople/ For the enactments 
 of the 600 bishops at Rimini were all rejected by the head 
 of Christ's kingdom on earth — the successor of St. Peter 
 — the Bishop of Rome." 
 
 Here is one oecumenical council pronounced bad by 
 him. 
 
 After further explanation of the Church's organization, 
 the Bishop says : " Hence when you ask : ' how shall we tell 
 the true from the false councils,' you need not have added 
 the nonsense, ' I know that you will say some of these 
 councils were good and some were bad, and the good have 
 always agreed.' I will say no such foolishness. It was per- 
 fectly gratuitous in you [me] to place such assertions in my 
 mouth. For like every true Catholic I will say that only 
 those councils are good whose decrees have met the 
 sanction of the vicar of Christ, the visible head of the 
 Church. Hence Rimini, and many others which you copy 
 from Voltaire, have always been rejected by Catholics 
 because they have been rejected by the head of the 
 Church." 
 
 If this is not saying that some of these councils (cited 
 by me) are good and some bad, then I do not understand 
 English : and these extracts are full, not garbled. As to 
 the reasons why I thought he would set up such defence, 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. IOI 
 
 and pronounce some of the councils valid and others 
 invalid, I had said nothing. He denied more than once 
 that he ever had said or ever would say such " foolish- 
 ness " (the word is his own) and then said it, giving his 
 reasons. And unless he would say that I have miscon- 
 strued his views, and that he believes that the councils 
 which he does consider good have disagreed among 
 themselves, which of course is not to be expected, I must 
 insist that my little prophecy has been more exactly 
 and literally fulfilled, as I meant it, and as I understand 
 my native tongue, than any he can point to in Holy 
 Writ ; and his condemnation of the predicted explanation 
 as " foolish " is his condemnation of his actual defence. 
 
 And I enter so fully into this seemingly trivial matter 
 because it illustrates the theological system of argument 
 — bold and re-iterated denial in the face of even the most 
 apparent facts. 
 
 The Bishop has been especially severe on Voltaire. He 
 has hit so often, so hard, and in such vulnerable points, 
 that I cannot blame any Churchman, whether Catholic or 
 Protestant, for not loving him. But they should remem- 
 ber that if we wish to know the truth about ourselves we 
 should consult our enemies. But I doubt if the Church 
 wishes to hear the truth about herself: certainly she did 
 not like it formerly. As the Bishop suggests, I would not 
 care to go to B. F. Butler and Thaddeus Stevens as my 
 sole authorities for facts as to the late Confederacy ; but 
 if they stated publicly as fact any disagreeable thing about 
 our people, I would not content myself with saying that 
 the statements were incorrect, nor in branding them as 
 " liars," as the Bishop does Voltaire, but I would disprove 
 the facts first, if I could, and then I might use such terms 
 as the circumstances and my taste warranted. I have no 
 
102 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 doubt but that both of the persons alluded to have made 
 inaccurate statements about the Confederacy, perhaps 
 unintentionally, possibly designedly. But the statements 
 would be true or false as the facts were, and not because 
 of the men who made them. If they have made any 
 statements which have been published and brought to the 
 attention of those affected by them, and they have not 
 been disproved, any one has the right to treat such state- 
 ments as true. I do not believe that Voltaire was either 
 untrustworthy or bad. There are two accounts of him, 
 one making him both great and good, and the other, the 
 Church's, making him all that is vile. But the Church 
 hated him, and resolved to destroy him as far as she 
 could, body, soul, and reputation ; and when the Church 
 has an object to attain she is not wont to be particular as 
 to either her epithets or her statements. 
 
 The Bishop says, as a reproach, that Voltaire's constant 
 expression was " fcrasez Vinfame" meaning the Church. 
 Not polite, certainly ; too vigorous to be strictly parlia- 
 mentary ; but when we take into consideration that he 
 knew all about her in her then condition, the character 
 of her priesthood at that time, her persecution and abuse 
 of him, and that he was raised a Christian and therefore 
 probably a good hater, can we blame him ? Another 
 •' infidel," now living, R. G. Ingersoll, in his oration on 
 Paine, says : 
 
 " But the Church is as unforgiving as ever, and still wonders why any 
 infidel should be wicked enough to endeavor to destroy her power. 
 
 " I will tell the Church why. 
 
 "You have imprisoned the human mind ; you have been the enemy of 
 liberty ; you have burned us at the stake — wasted us with slow fires — torn 
 our flesh with iron ; you have covered us with chains — treated us as outcasts ; 
 you have filled the world with fear ; you have taken our wives and children 
 from our arms ; you have confiscated our property ; you have denied us the 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 103 
 
 right to testify in courts of justice ; you have branded us with infamy ; you 
 have torn out our tongues ; you have refused us burial. In the name of your 
 religion you have robbed us of every right ; and after having inflicted upon 
 us every evil that can be inflicted in this world, you have fallen upon your 
 knees, and, with clasped hands, implored your God to torment us for ever. 
 
 "Can you wonder that we hate your doctrines — that we despise your 
 creeds — that we feel proud to know that we are beyond your power — that 
 we are free in spite of you — that we can express our honest thought, and 
 that the whole world is grandly rising into the blessed light? 
 
 " Can you wonder that we point with pride to the fact that Infidelity has 
 ever been found battling for the rights of man, for the liberty of conscience, 
 and for the happiness of all ? Can you wonder that we are proud to know 
 that we have always been disciples of Reason, and soldiers of Freedom ; that 
 we have denounced tyranny and superstition, and kept our hands unstained 
 with human blood ? " 
 
 So speaks Ingersoll ; to the same effect wrote Voltaire ; 
 and, if history be true, both were justified in their state- 
 ments; and the only blame I can attach to Voltaire for 
 his energetic war-cry is its lack of courtesy. 
 
 But Voltaire was a brave man, as is shown by his out- 
 spoken, fearless writings at a time very different from our 
 own, and such are not usually liars. He may have been 
 occasionally inaccurate, may have, under excitement, 
 exaggerated, may have been misled ; but I do not believe 
 he ever intentionally misrepresented ; I think he was will- 
 ing to leave the monopoly of that weapon to the Church, 
 which could plead high authority for the practice, as we 
 shall see when we compare the ethics of the Pagans, the 
 Jews, and the Church — Prop. IV. Certainly the Bishop 
 has not established any misrepresentation in what I have 
 cited on his authority. 
 
 The Bishop cites the American Encyclopedia as 
 declaring Voltaire " utterly untrustworthy as an historian." 
 If he were, that would only show that we should not rely 
 on any facts related by him alone; his stating a fact 
 
104 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 which was well established by other writers would hardly 
 be claimed as destroying it ; and, as we shall presently 
 see, the facts which I have cited from him, and which are 
 denied by the Bishop, are all of that character. But the 
 Bishop seems to rather overstate what the American 
 Encyclopedia says. What I find there is this : " his 
 histories are sprightly, entertaining, but not authentic." 
 It does not say in what ; it probably means in his anec- 
 dotes and incidents of a personal nature ; it is altogether 
 unlikely that he would have published any important 
 facts as history without their being authentic, for they 
 could so easily be disproved, and I know of hardly any 
 historian writing of affairs which are at all near the time 
 of the writer who is not claimed by those whose interests 
 or inclinations run counter to his statements to be unre- 
 liable. Nor do I think he could be the vile wretch 
 depicted by the Church whose last words were (on the 
 authority of the same article, quoted by the Bishop), " I 
 die worshipping God, loving my friends, not hating my 
 enemies, but detesting superstition " ; — evidently not yet 
 reconciled with the Church. 
 
 The Bishop in very general terms calls Voltaire a " liar," 
 but directly denies only three of his many statements 
 cited by me. The denial is in these words : " When 
 again, copying from the worthless statements of Voltaire, 
 you say dogmas of transubstantiation and confession 
 were first announced at the council of Lateran in 12 15, 
 you must thank such a guide for leading you into a most 
 palpable untruth. Into a falsehood equally absurd has 
 Voltaire led you when you assert ' in 842 another grand 
 council at Constantinople . . . the adoration of 
 images was solemnly established.' But I have not the 
 time to follow all the crude ideas and infinitely false 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 105 
 
 assertions contained in Voltaire's account and quoted 
 by you." 
 
 Here again, in general terms, the whole account is 
 declared to contain many untruths, but as only three 
 instances are specifically pointed out by the Bishop it is 
 fair to assume that they (transubstantiation, confession, 
 adoration of images) are the most glaring falsehoods. 
 
 I had warned him that the facts stated by Voltaire were 
 also stated by other authors, and that I used Voltaire for 
 convenience only ; but the indignation aroused by the 
 hated name seems to have caused the Bishop to over- 
 look that fact. 
 
 I now consult, on these three points, other, and to the 
 Church perhaps less objectionable authorities: and first I 
 quote from the American Encyclopedia, whose article on 
 Voltaire the Bishop called " very moderate and impar- 
 tial," as to transubstantiation, title " Lord's Supper." 
 
 " The first great eucharistic controversy was called forth by a book of 
 Paschasius Radbertus in 831 (De Corpore et Sanguine Domini) in which he 
 advanced the doctrine that the substance of the consecrated bread and wine 
 in the eucharist was changed into the very body of Christ which was born 
 of the Virgin. This was declared to be an act of creation by almighty power, 
 though invisible to any but an eye of faith. He was especially opposed by 
 Ratramnus, a monk of Corbie, who adhered to the view that in the Lord's 
 supper there is a communion of the earthly with the heavenly. The con- 
 troversy was brought before the highest authorities, when Berangarius, Arch- 
 deacon of Angers, maintained that there was a change in the sacramental 
 elements only in a figurative sense." 
 
 The article then shows how this controversy lasted until 
 it was finally decided when " the 4th council of Lateran, 
 in 121 5, declared transubstantiation an article of faith." 
 Thus this authority confirms the statement made by 
 Voltaire. 
 
106 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 Next, as to confession, I quote the Encyclopedia Bri- 
 tannica, gth edition, an universally recognized authority, 
 title " Confession." 
 
 " Passages from the fathers, such as St. Cyprian, St. Basil, St. Gregory of 
 Nyssa, and others, recommending the practice (confession) have to be con- 
 fronted with the small prominence given to it in the works of St. Augustine, 
 and the strong declarations of St. Chrysostom on the sufficiency of confession 
 to God ; but the practice gradually became more common, especially in the 
 west, and more a matter of rule and precept, until at length, in the fourth 
 Lateran Council, held under Pope Innocent III. in 1215, it was enjoined 
 upon all members of the Church of Rome once a year, by the famous 21st 
 canon, beginning with the words, ' omnis utriusque sexus Jidelis.' 1 " 
 
 Which also confirms Voltaire. 
 
 And in support of my position as to the councils, gen- 
 erally, I quote from the same book, title " Council : " 
 " These prevailing practices were approved or reprehended, 
 and the dim persuasions of the few or the many were 
 sharpened into dogmatic statement binding on all." 
 
 Third, about the establishment of the adoration of 
 images by the council of Constantinople in 842. The 
 articles bearing on the subject are too. long for quotation 
 here. But I refer to CJiambers's Encyclopedia, titles " Icon- 
 oclasts," and " Image Worship," and the Dictionary of 
 Sects, Heresies, etc., by J. H. Blunt. 
 
 The undoubted facts seem to be simply these. For a 
 long time no pictures or images were allowed in the 
 churches, but by degrees they were introduced. Then 
 some objected to the practice, and such, the " Iconoclasts," 
 as they were called, gained such strength and influence 
 that those who favored the practice concentrated their 
 strength and at the second council of Nice, convoked by 
 Irene in the name of her son Constantine, the adoration 
 of images was decreed. This was in 787. In 794 Charle- 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 107 
 
 magne convoked the council of Frankfort, as cited by 
 me, and that council condemned the action of the second 
 council of Nice so far as it related to images. But the 
 Pope explained that there was a mistake in translating 
 the proceedings of the council of Nice, which were in 
 Greek, into Latin, and that the adoration to be given to 
 images was douleia, and not latreia — that is to say, was of a 
 different sort from that given to God, and therefore was 
 not idolatry. This was, of course, eminently satisfactory, 
 and at the council of 842 the adoration {douleia) of images 
 was firmly established ; and of course no Roman Catholic 
 ever gives to the images the same sort of adoration that 
 he gives to God, for, since the explanation of the Pope, 
 even the most superstitious and ignorant now fully com- 
 prehend the precise difference between douleia and latreia, 
 though the learned translator of the proceedings of the 
 council seemingly did not ; and their image-worship in no 
 manner partakes of the nature of idolatry — if we would 
 believe the Church. 
 
 Thus the only three statements which the Bishop 
 distinctly brands as false are fully corroborated and 
 sustained by the authorities now cited ; and if Voltaire is 
 untrustworthy in his statements of fact — as to these in- 
 stances — so are many others who have not hitherto had 
 that reputation ; and the evidence seems strong enough 
 to call for a better refutation than a mere denial, a mere 
 plea of not guilty, unsustained by proof ; but I strongly 
 suspect that the Church will not admit the truth of any 
 history, secular or ecclesiastical, which does not bear her 
 own imprimatur, unless the narrated facts coincide with 
 her views. 
 
 The explanations of the " consubstantialis " and Papal 
 infallibility dogmas, given by the Bishop with so much de- 
 
108 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 tail and clearness, are not only interesting, but are, in this 
 controversy, exceedingly valuable ; because, on his own 
 showing, a majority vote explained, interpreted, broad- 
 ened, enlarged, contrary to the wishes, views, and belief of 
 the minority ; and the majority sometimes voting under 
 instructions from the Pope, were therefore not neces- 
 sarily nor probably voting always in accordance with their 
 own opinions. 1 
 
 Some tenet of the Church, some text of Scripture, had 
 come to have different interpretations put upon it. The 
 bishops met ; if they were allowed to discuss the matter 
 at all some said the tenet or text meant one thing, 
 some said it meant another, the majority declared its in- 
 terpretation to be the true one, the one that always was 
 right, and, to prevent future misunderstandings, the tenet 
 or text was enlarged, broadened, changed, re-explained, or 
 re-defined, to suit the views of the majority ; and if the 
 majority had happened to think the other way, the broad- 
 ening would have been in the other direction. And then 
 to clinch the matter, and settle the question beyond all 
 cavil, the doctrine with its new interpretation, certainly 
 with its new wording, is made a dogma ; and when the 
 majority declared anything to be a dogma which was not 
 a dogma before, but only a practice or belief, it put a new 
 obstacle in the road to heaven and forced the minority to 
 clamber over it ; which is just what I was contending for, 
 and the Church's own argument establishes my theory. 
 
 But an argument based on history alone is compara- 
 tively worthless, for to destroy the argument it is only 
 necessary to deny the history ; and when two histories 
 
 1 See ante, p. 83, where the Bishop says: "For that reason the succes- 
 sors of St. Peter have often, in assembling bishops, written to them directing 
 and ordering them the manner in which they should treat subjects which were 
 to be broached in the councils." 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 1 09 
 
 have been written from two different standpoints recount- 
 ing events happening many centuries ago, it is difficult 
 sometimes to establish which is correct, especially to the 
 satisfaction of those who hold opposite views. So after 
 giving an historical sketch of the councils I made an 
 argument based on the necessities of the case. The only 
 reply to this argument is an indirect- one deducible from 
 the assertion that the Church was organized and consti- 
 tuted by Jesus — that is to say, by God. This point is fully 
 argued, and, I trust, fully met, in Prop. IV., in discussing 
 the divinity of Jesus. So I merely here call attention to 
 the fact that as I use the history of the councils as one of 
 the arguments against the divinity of Jesus, any argument 
 based solely on the assumption of that divinity is entirely 
 without force ; for it assumes, as a starting-point, the very 
 point at issue : the same old argument in a circle — the 
 Church is infallible because Jesus, who is God, organized, 
 and promised to be with it all days ; and we know that 
 Jesus is God, because an infallible Church tells us so. 
 
 As to the Bishop's remark that I had been unable to 
 accept his challenge to prove the proposition contained 
 in my first paper, and had " backed down " from that 
 position and offered another proposition, I have only to 
 say that my learned friend is mistaken. The proposition 
 which I changed was his way of putting it, and I simply 
 preferred to formulate my own propositions ; and I put it 
 in the form I did to make it conform nearer to my origi- 
 nal statement and to more fully meet what I anticipated 
 (correctly, as it turned out) would be his explanation. 
 But the facts cited by me not only support the proposi- 
 tion as modified by me, they sustain the proposition as 
 formulated by him in his challenge. 
 
 The argument by which the Bishop attempts to show 
 
IIO AN INQ UIR Y IN TO 
 
 that " rejecting all authority," and " doing one's own 
 thinking" is "unfounded and irrational," is so obviously 
 erroneous that I give it only a passing notice. Either he 
 did not understand my position, or he cannot rid himself 
 of the clerical habit of using utterly illogical arguments. 
 Of course, I " believe many things on the authority of 
 others " in every-day life, — when I know the persons, and 
 the statements are not unreasonable ; but I also disbelieve 
 much of what I hear. And I also allow " others to do the 
 thinking for " me to a certain extent ; that is, if their 
 thoughts as expressed by them, their arguments, convince 
 my mind, I adopt them. I let any one who will think for 
 me and give me the benefit of his thoughts ; but I decide 
 for myself. 
 
 It is a little instructive to hear the Bishop just after 
 speaking so regretfully of the past and gone *' ages of 
 faith," as compared with the present condition of the 
 world, refer to the great advances which Roman Catholi- 
 cism is making at the present day. In those " ages of 
 faith," as he calls it, " dark ages " as others put it, Europe 
 was all Roman Catholic ; but advancing thought so tri- 
 umphantly combated the Church, driving her from strong- 
 hold after stronghold, that now it is a matter of boast 
 that she is seemingly regaining a little of her lost power. 
 But this need not comfort her. She has been so improved 
 by her conflict and contact with the spirit of truth that 
 she is no longer a semblance of her former arrogant self, 
 and has become politic and tolerant, using sophistry where 
 she once used force, fawning where she was wont to com- 
 mand. Besides, old beliefs, under the pressure of free 
 thought, are becoming unsettled, and, as a consequence, 
 men shift from one faith to another. But the end is com- 
 ing, very slowly, perhaps, but very surely. The Church 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. Ill 
 
 must live and flourish for a long time yet : so long as 
 ignorance and superstition exist in this world, so long will 
 the Church hold her own. And by ignorance I mean 
 theological ignorance. A man may be deservedly emi- 
 nent in any of the learned professions of law, medicine, 
 and divinity, and yet profoundly ignorant of anything 
 theological beyond the Christian creed. Very few scien- 
 tists now hold to the creeds of the Church, and even on 
 those who are not scientists her grasp is weakening. I 
 know personally numbers of people who are nominal 
 Christians, Catholic or Protestant, and who believe very 
 little more of their Church's creed than I do. They con- 
 form from habit, from pride, for respectability, for fear of 
 public opinion ; but they have admitted, in strict confi- 
 dence, that in their souls they reject much that is taught 
 by the Church : and here is another evidence of the 
 decadence of the Roman Church. She seeks new 
 converts, and so long as she is not understood she 
 will get them ; but while she is seeking to extend her 
 own peculiar faith among those of other denominations, 
 many born and bred in the fold believe but from the 
 teeth outwards. 
 
 The Bishop's question : " All this free-thinking that has 
 so deeply your [my] sympathy, what is it leading to ; is 
 it to greater peace, happiness, law, order, and true 
 enlightenment ? " I answer, most emphatically, yes ; 
 and refer to my remarks in discussing the influence of 
 the Church on civilization, Proposition I. (a). The 
 Bishop says: " Let the socialism and communism, un- 
 known in the ages of faith, answer." 
 
 Just after the third Napoleon's coup d'etat, Punch pub- 
 lished a cartoon representing a woman, labelled " France," 
 bound and chained, hand and foot, lying at the feet of a 
 
112 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 soldier who held a bayonet to her breast ; underneath was 
 the legend, " France is tranquil." So in the " ages of 
 faith " was Europe tranquil — but it was the tranquillity 
 of the dove in the talons of the hawk, of the lamb in the 
 clutches of the lion — it was the tranquillity of death ; and 
 if it had not been for free thought she would never have 
 known an awakening. The socialism, communism, nihil- 
 ism, and other revolutionary " isms " of the day are but 
 the reactions of the human mind so long held down by 
 the unyielding, unpitying, iron despotism of superstition, 
 ignorance, intolerance, and tyranny. Light is dawning 
 on the benighted mind, and it is blinded by the unaccus- 
 tomed glare ; hope has come to the despairing heart, and 
 it strives to realize its flattering tale ; what wonder that 
 with the example of their despots, State and Church, 
 before them, men, bewildered by such novel mental con- 
 ditions, and just beginning to realize their strength and 
 to know their rights, should use force to repel aggression, 
 organized secrecy to combat organized power, violence to 
 resist tyranny, assassination to terrorize their foes. True, 
 this is all wrong and deeply to be deplored, but the 
 people are not alone to blame. Improperly educated, 
 ignorant — except where by their own exertions they have 
 picked up just enough knowledge to be dangerous to, 
 and mislead, them ; instead of being permitted to urge 
 their vagaries in the open air where they could be met 
 and combated and their fallacies refuted, they have been 
 forced to hold their peace in public, and have had to 
 meet and discuss in darkness and secrecy. No wonder 
 that pernicious ideas, like noxious weeds, should grow 
 apace under such conditions. The Church has taught the 
 gospel of might, her pupils are putting her precepts into 
 practice. She has used force to attain her ends, they are 
 
THE TRUTH OF DO GMA TIC CHRIS TIA NITY. 1 1 3 
 
 ■*- 
 
 but following her example. She has sown the wind, the 
 whirlwind is being harvested. 
 
 But time will correct all this. Truth, now that the 
 Church has lost her temporal power, is free to combat 
 error, and truth will ultimately prevail ; but so long as 
 authority, of itself alone, without the consent of the 
 governed, whether it be authority of State or authority 
 of Church, shall seek to oppress mankind, just so long 
 will men rebel, and in rebelling advance the cause of 
 liberty and truth. 
 
THE ARGUMENT. 
 
 PROPOSITION IV. 
 
 IV. Jesus of Nazareth was not God, nor the son, in the 
 sense of offspring, of God ; he never claimed to be 
 either, nor did others claim it for him until long 
 after his death ; and during his life he never sought 
 or received divine honors. 
 
 He taught no new ethics; and the ethics of many 
 of the " Pagans " were superior to those of the Jews, 
 and equal to those of the Church. 
 
 I am aware that there are many, very many passages 
 in the Bible which are cited to prove the opposite of this 
 proposition ; and that many better and wiser men than I 
 believe firmly in the divinity of Jesus Christ. But this is 
 to be expected. All of the New Testament was written 
 long after the death of Jesus, and such passages were 
 evidently inserted in the interest of the new sect that was 
 struggling to attract the attention and win the sympathy 
 of mankind ; and are the embodiment of such of the cur- 
 rent traditions and superstitions as concurred with the 
 opinions, or met the views, of the compiler or writer. And 
 such persons as I have spoken of believe as they do partly 
 from habit, partly from an indisposition to interpret, 
 study, and reason for themselves ; partly because they 
 have accustomed themselves to allow others to think for 
 them on this subject, but principally because they start 
 
 114 
 
DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. I I 5 
 
 out in life with the idea, drawn in with their mother's 
 milk, that the Bible is a sacred book emanating from God 
 Himself, and not to be examined or scrutinized except with 
 the determination to believe anything and everything, no 
 matter how contradictory or unreasonable it may be. 
 
 I will be as brief in my discussion of this subject as its 
 importance, and the necessity of stating my arguments 
 clearly, will permit. 
 
 If I should undertake to examine the five Gathas of 
 Zoroaster 1 (or any other of the world's many sacred 
 books) to determine if they are, as many millions believe, 
 of Divine origin or authority, it will hardly be denied by 
 any one that it would be my duty, before accepting them 
 as such, and becoming a Parsee, to examine carefully and 
 critically the internal evidence of the book itself, as well 
 as its surrounding history, to compare its majestic truths 
 with its obvious myths, and to weigh the whole well and 
 thoroughly by the aid of all the powers of mind with 
 which I am endowed ; that if I must use my reason and 
 think deeply before undertaking an ordinary business 
 scheme which might affect my whole present life, so much 
 the more should I think, and study, and hesitate before I 
 took a step which would affect my future life through all 
 eternity. 
 
 I see no reason why I should not pursue the same 
 course with reference to the Christian Bible. The Gathas 
 are as sacred to the Parsee as the Bible to the Christian, 
 and for the same reason — and no other : they have been 
 taught as children to so regard them. Therefore I inves- 
 
 1 These Gathas are a portion of the Zend-avesta, the Parsee scriptures, 
 and are spoken of as " of Zoroaster " in the text, not to indicate that they 
 were composed by him (though Dr. Haug thinks portions were), but because 
 they are the most important portions of the scriptures of the faith of which 
 he may be considered, if not the founder, the greatest teacher and prophet. 
 
1 1 6 AN INQ UIR Y INTO 
 
 tigate the sacred book of my own race as I do the sacred 
 books of other races, many of them older, and teaching 
 very similar ethics. 
 
 Looking;, then, at the Bible as a book to be studied as 
 any other book, I am struck with the very flagrant contra- 
 dictions put into the mouth of Jesus by those who wrote 
 of him after his death. He, so far as it appears, taught 
 orally entirely, writing nothing, certainly nothing perma- 
 nent ; so that we are compelled to rely on the reports 
 of others, and where these reports are contradictory, as 
 both cannot be true, we must endeavor to determine 
 which is entitled to our credence. I cannot believe that 
 Jesus would say such very contradictory things, for in- 
 stance, as " I and my father are one," and " My father 
 is greater than I " ; or to his disciples " Go and preach 
 the gospel to every creature," while saying of himself " I 
 am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of 
 Israel." Hence we must examine the evidence under the 
 same rules and tests that we employ in ordinary legal or 
 critical investigations. 
 
 There are recognized in law two classes of statements, 
 representations and admissions. Statements made in one's 
 own favor, for the purpose of advancing one's interests, 
 are called representations, and are of themselves alone 
 entitled to very little weight ; statements against one's 
 interests are called admissions, and, while they should be 
 closely scanned and cautiously received, are, if clearly 
 established, of overwhelming weight. This is not an 
 arbitrary rule, but is the result of long experience, and is 
 founded upon an accurate knowledge of human nature. 
 While one may be tempted to represent himself in a more 
 favorable light than he is justly entitled to, he is not at all 
 apt seriously and deliberately to admit that he is not what 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 117 
 
 he claims to be, unless the admission be true. Such is 
 universal experience, such is universal law. The seeming 
 exceptions are only seeming ; as where one confesses to a 
 crime of which he is innocent, to save the life, liberty, or 
 reputation of another whom he loves more than himself. 
 In such case the statements, while apparently admissions 
 as against the seeming interest of the one making them, 
 really are not such, but are representations made to 
 further his actual intentions. 
 
 Hence, when the question is as to who and what Jesus 
 was, and it is claimed that he was God, his admissions 
 that he was not, are entitled to more weight than his 
 representations that he was, even if he ever made any such 
 representations, which I do not believe. And I do not 
 believe it, apart from any question as to the authorship, 
 date, and validity of the books of the New Testament, 
 because I think Jesus was too pure, too honest, too ear- 
 nest, in his efforts to teach his fellows the truth that was in 
 him to play fast and loose, to be double-tongued, or to try 
 to perplex or deceive. Therefore, while his admirers might 
 falsely attribute to him many things and sayings tending 
 to elevate him higher than he really was, or wished to be, 
 they would never invent and put into his mouth words 
 which plainly mean the reverse of what they claim for 
 him. Hence, when they say that he admitted that he was 
 not God, it may be safely believed that he did so admit ; 
 but when they say that he also claimed that he was God, 
 it may be most capitally doubted, for it is much easier to 
 believe that they would, in endeavoring to further their 
 own ends, manufacture testimony unskilfully, than that 
 Jesus would teach one thing to-day and the contrary 
 to-morrow. 
 
 I therefore cite such passages of Scripture as occur in 
 
I 1 8 AN INQ UIR Y INTO 
 
 the course of my argument on this point of the divinity 
 of Jesus as admissio?is, and, for the reasons just given, un- 
 undoubtedly authentic, and good evidence against the 
 doctrine that Jesus is, or ever claimed to be, God. 
 
 And it will be no answer to say that these contradictory 
 statements are proof that the gospels were honestly 
 written as otherwise these contradictions would never 
 have been allowed to appear, because it is not so much 
 a question of honesty as of correctness, and my position 
 is that those which represent Jesus as he really was — an 
 inspired teacher and reformer — were the original state- 
 ments of the gospels, or the traditions on which the 
 gospels are founded, and that the other class of state- 
 ments representing him in a different and higher position 
 were the result of exaggeration, accidental or intentional 
 — natural or fraudulent, — of his followers, and were injec- 
 ted into the previous accounts without those who did it 
 realizing, as it was realized later, the irreconcilable contra- 
 dictions — those contradictions only becoming really 
 glaring as we elevated our conception of God. 
 
 Jesus said, Matt, xv., 24: "I am not sent but unto the 
 lost sheep of the house of Israel." Does this mean that 
 the great God of the universe cared for none of His 
 creatures except those who have been called His " chosen 
 people ? " Or does the " house of Israel " include all the 
 earth? Or did not Jesus merely mean to tell them that 
 he was a Jew working for the reformation and advance- 
 ment of his own people? 
 
 The evangelists Luke and Matthew, in their desire to 
 prove that Jesus was the Messiah looked for by the Jews, 
 and who, the prophecy said, was to be of the line of David, 
 proceed to give genealogies to show Jesus to be descended 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 1 1 9 
 
 from David through Joseph, while still claiming that no 
 blood of Joseph was in his veins, — a strange way to prove 
 kinship. And in these genealogies it is a curious and 
 pregnant fact that while the two evangelists agree in 
 making Joseph the father of Jesus, they each give him a 
 different paternal grandfather. And from David to Jesus, 
 through Joseph, Matthew makes twenty-eight generations, 
 while Luke makes forty-three, being a difference of fifteen 
 generations, amounting to, say, 400 to 450 years ; certainly 
 a rather startling discrepancy to occur in inspired writings. 
 But perhaps these evangelists were not inspired on this 
 particular subject. 
 
 At any rate, as they claim Jesus as the son of David, 
 through Joseph, and as this could not be unless Jesus was 
 the physical, natural, son of Joseph (as his contemporaries 
 believed), this admission is stronger than the implication 
 conveyed in the statement in Matthew that Joseph was 
 the " husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus "; or the 
 statement in Luke, in parentheses (and which looks very 
 much like an interpolation), as follows: " Jesus being (as 
 was supposed) the son of Joseph." 
 
 Besides, Luke traces his genealogy through David to 
 Adam " which was the son of God "; and yet I believe 
 that it is held that Adam was the son of God only figura- 
 tively, as the true believers are called the " children of 
 God," though where the same expression is used of Jesus 
 it is claimed that it must be taken literally. 
 
 Again, if Jesus was God, and his disciples knew it, it 
 seems strange that they never worshipped him as such ; 
 yet I know of no passage of Scripture that shows that they 
 ever worshipped him as God, or that he ever desired, 
 expected, or received divine honors. 
 
 I have said that Jesus' contemporaries believed him to 
 
120 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 be the son of Joseph, and the natural brother of his four 
 brothers and two (at least) sisters. The parenthesis of 
 Luke above quoted " as was supposed " would show that 
 such was the case ; but we have more. 
 
 That his neighbors and fellow-townsmen so regarded 
 him, and had so regarded him for more than thirty years, 
 is shown by Matt, xiii., 55, 56: " Is not this the carpen- 
 ter's son? is not his mother called Mary? and his 
 brethren, James, and Joses, and Simon, and Judas? And 
 his sisters, are they not with us? " 
 
 And again, Mark vi., 3 : " Is not this the carpenter, the 
 son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joses, and of Juda 
 and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us ? " By 
 which, also, it would seem that Jesus had grown up and 
 worked at his father's trade at home. 
 
 Again, Luke iv., 32 : " And they said, Is not this Joseph's 
 son?" And John vi., 42 : " And they said, Is not this 
 Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we 
 know? " 
 
 So it is certain that his immediate fellow-citizens did 
 not believe in him either as God, or as the son of God ; 
 further, his brothers did not believe in him — John vii., 5. 
 
 Strange that with all the wonders of the " immaculate 
 conception," the visits of angels, and what, if all we read be 
 true, their mother must have told them, his very brothers 
 did not believe in him ; and yet the apostle admits it. 
 
 But, stranger still, the probabilities are strong that even 
 his mother, Mary, did not believe in him. 
 
 "While yet he talked to the people, behold his mother and brethren 
 stood without desiring to speak with him. Then one said unto him, Behold 
 thy mother and thy»brethren stand without desiring to speak with thee. But 
 he answered and said unto him that told him, Who is my mother? and who 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 121 
 
 are my brethren ? And he stretched forth his hand towards his disciples and 
 said, Behold my mother and my brethren, for whosoever shall do the will of 
 my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and 
 mother."— Matt, xii., 46-50 ; Mark iii., 3i"35- 
 
 It is true Luke says (viii., 19) that they could not get at 
 him for the press, but as he, as well as the other apostles, 
 represents them as standing outside, and some one calling 
 his attention to them, the*fact of Mary's being outside 
 with her unbelieving sons (for their being Jesus' brothers 
 and Joseph's sons would show them to be either 
 Mary's sons or step-sons, I care not which) striving 
 to interrupt him while he was preaching, and that Jesus 
 would have nothing to do with them, seems to point very 
 strongly towards Mary's unbelief also. And this view is 
 strengthened by the fact that although the names of some 
 of his female followers are given, his mother is not named 
 among them. It is true that John represents her, at the 
 last, as at the crucifixion, at the foot of the cross, but if 
 she was there, the other evangelists either did not know 
 of it or thought it not worth mentioning. But her pres- 
 ence on such an occasion was natural, without its being 
 necessary to suppose her a believer in the extraordinary 
 views now held of her son. 
 
 Further, Jesus said, speaking of himself : " A prophet is 
 not without honor but in his own country, and among his 
 own kin, and in his own house."— Mark vi., 4. And he 
 lived at Capernaum, and not with his family.— Matt, iv., 
 13. And he did not or could not perform his miracles at 
 Nazareth because of the unbelief of the people : " And he 
 did not many mighty works therebecause of theirunbelief." 
 —Matt, xiii., 58. " And he could there do no mighty work, 
 save that he laid his hands on a few sick folk, and healed 
 
122 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 them. And he marvelled because of their unbelief." 
 — Mark vi., 5, 6. 
 
 Does it not seem strange that God could be affected or 
 influenced by, or should marvel at, men's belief or un- 
 belief? Does God's ability to perform mighty works 
 depend more on the mental condition of the beholders 
 than on His own powers ? Surely such an idea is absurd. 
 
 Again, Jesus himself declares that he is inferior to God 
 in knowledge : " But of that day and that hour knoweth 
 no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither 
 the son, but the Father" — Mark xiii., 32; in power: 
 " But to sit on my right hand and on my left hand is not 
 mine to give, but it shall be given to them for whom it 
 is prepared" — Mark x., 40; in virtue: "And Jesus 
 said unto him, Why callest thou me good ? There is none 
 good but one, that is God " — Mark x., 18. 
 
 And, finally, his cry on the cross : " My God, my God, 
 why hast Thou forsaken me ? " Mark xv., 34, declares in 
 the most emphatic manner, and at a time when, if ever, 
 all striving for effect, all false pretensions would cease, and 
 the truth rise to the surface, that he is not the same with 
 God. 
 
 All of this, with many other passages and circum- 
 stances, — such, for instance, as his prayer in the garden of 
 Gethsemane, that the cup, if possible, might pass from 
 his lips, but " not as /will, but as Thou wilt " ; and numer- 
 ous other instances, — would seem to indicate that if Jesus 
 was God, or the son, in the sense of offspring, of God, co- 
 eternal and consubstantial, co-equal and divine, he himself 
 was ignorant of the fact ; for we have no right to assume 
 that on such an important subject as who and what he 
 was, he would knowingly mislead the very people he had 
 come to save. 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 1 23 
 
 And this argument is based entirely upon the internal 
 evidence of the Gospels without reference aliunde, and 
 without appealing to natural reason, which would seem to 
 abhor the idea that the great Almighty God, Ruler of 
 the entire universe, could or would engender a physical 
 son to be borne and born, in a purely human way, by 
 and of a woman, His own handiwork, upon this speck of 
 matter which we call earth. 
 
 I do not care to discuss, at least at this time, the 
 theories devised to explain and reconcile the contradic- 
 tions and admissions just given. As I have said, I cannot 
 believe that Jesus would utter contradictions, and I accept 
 in its literal sense the text which is consistent with his 
 character and with common-sense, and reject the other as 
 being a pure invention, or a figure of speech. For, had 
 they really been said as reported, though the theories of 
 the Church may explain away, in the minds of learned 
 theologians, these seeming contradictions so that they are 
 no longer contradictions to them, at the time they were 
 uttered, and to the common people to whom they were 
 said, they would have been as contradictory and as con- 
 fusing and misleading as they are to the mass of men now. 
 
 Nor do I care to discuss the questions as to how much, 
 if any, of the accounts in the Gospels are original with the 
 evangelists, or interpolated by later writers, nor how much 
 of that which is original may be incorrectly reported owing 
 to the desire to prove a point, and the inexactness conse- 
 quent upon reducing to writing events and words seen and 
 heard long before. These matters will be touched on, to 
 some extent, in my Concluding Remarks. 
 
 The foregoing is about what I wrote to my friend, the 
 Bishop, in my first attempt to show him why I could not 
 
124 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 agree with ,his Church in its doctrine as to Jesus; and I 
 closed that branch of my letter with the following beauti- 
 ful tribute to Jesus from An Analysis of Religions Belief, 
 by Viscount Amberly. After speaking of Jesus being 
 called the " Man of Sorrow," and showing that the term 
 was not particularly appropriate to him, he says, page 368 : 
 
 " While, then, I see no proof of the peculiar sorrow ascribed to him on the 
 strength of a prophecy, I freely admit that he had the melancholy which be- 
 longs to a sympathetic heart. His words of regret over Jerusalem are un- 
 surpassed in their beauty. At this closing period of his career we may indeed 
 detect the sadness of disappointment, and in the bitter cry that was wrung 
 from him at the end, ' My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me ? ' we 
 look down for a moment into an abyss of misery which it is painful to con- 
 template : physical suffering and a shaken faith, the agonies of unaccom- 
 plished purposes, and the still more fearful agony of desertion by the loving 
 Father in whom he had put his trust. 
 
 But Jesus, though he knew it not, had done his work. Nay, he had done 
 more than he himself had intended. After-ages saw in him— what he saw 
 only in his God — an ideal to be worshipped, and a power to be addressed in 
 prayer. We, who are free from this exaggeration of reverence, may yet con- 
 tinue to pay him the high and unquestioned honor which his unflinching 
 devotion to his duty, his gentle regard for the weak and suffering, his uncor- 
 rupted purity of mind, and his self-sacrificing love so abundantly deserve." 
 
 I give the Bishop's reply textually, merely correcting 
 some palpable verbal errors of his amanuensis, because if 
 any of it were omitted it might be thought that the 
 omitted part was important. 
 
 The quotation from Amberly seems to have had any- 
 thing but a soothing effect, and he comments on it, before 
 replying to my argument on the divinity of Jesus, in the 
 following words : 
 
 x " Your quotation from Viscount Amberly is taken, you 
 say, from page 368 of his book. Christ is called by the 
 prophet : the man of sorrows and acquainted with infir- 
 mity. — Is. ch. liii. 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 1 25 
 
 " The learned Viscount can see no claim that Jesus has 
 to this prophetic title. He can only see the ' melancholy 
 of a sympathetic heart.' Christ was dragged before dif- 
 ferent tribunals, in each of which every form of law and 
 justice was outraged in His person ; uncondemned, He was 
 struck in the face in open court. He was blindfolded ; 
 they gave Him blows, and spat in His face. Innocent, He 
 was rejected as more worthy of death than a thief and 
 murderer. The judge in open court declared Him inno- 
 cent, and yet condemned Him to the cruel and shameful 
 scourging. He was given over to an entire cohort of sol- 
 diers who treated him as they pleased. . Stripped naked, 
 He was crowned as a mock king ; clad in a purple rag, and 
 sceptre in hand, He was plunged into a sea of taunts and 
 scoffs. Dragged through the streets of the capital city, 
 between two thieves, He was brought to the place of pub- 
 lic execution, and there put to the most shameful death 
 ever invented by man. Naked on a gibbet which insult- 
 ingly bore a mock title of His royalty, He was, with 
 unheard of barbarism, insulted in His dying moments. 
 And yet with all this before Him, and much more which I 
 have not put down, the Viscount Amberly cannot see any 
 claim of Christ to be the prophetic ' man of sorrows.' 
 Were the Viscount Amberly 's physical sight as dull as his 
 mental vision then truly his would be a hopeless case of 
 blindness. 
 
 " Having stripped Christ of His touching title of ' man of 
 sorrows,' the Viscount smears over Him some balderdash 
 about ' melancholy of a sympathetic heart.' But Viscount 
 Amberly would lower Christ still more. He dares assert 
 that Christ died with a ' shaken faith — the agonies of un- 
 accomplished purposes.' 
 
 " Christ naked to the gaze of an indecent mob is not so 
 
126 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 much humiliated as these words would make Him. His 
 mission was not a failure. That mission was to teach the 
 world ; — Before Christ we find everywhere the most shock- 
 ing paganism in religion ; we find woman a slave ; the 
 child, when allowed to be born, often used for the most 
 hideous purposes ; and a slavery terrible to read of. Now, 
 if there is anything clear, it is that Christ, so far from 
 having a ' shaken faith ' or sorrowing over unaccomplished 
 purposes, was perfectly conscious of the success of His 
 great mission to this world. Christ had taught as no one 
 had ever taught. He had preached those beautiful truths 
 which had made paganism flee. The last act in the drama 
 of His wonderful career had come. His own all-atoning 
 sacrifice so often predicted by Him was to commence that 
 night. The immortal one for sinners, the just for the un- 
 just, was to suffer. And like a lamb that openeth not his 
 mouth, He was led to the slaughter. Instead of dying 
 with ' a shaken faith — the agonies of unaccomplished pur- 
 poses,' — Christ says that night, addressing the Father: 
 ' I have accomplished the work which Thou didst give me 
 that I should do.' ' Instead of a ' shaken faith,' He 
 says : ' Do not fear, I have conquered the world.' And 
 when, hanging upon the cross, and about to die, instead 
 of the ' agonies of unaccomplished purposes,' it is He who 
 tells us with His latest breath : ' consummatum est ' — it is 
 consummated. 
 
 " The greatest of works was accomplished by Christ. 
 Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and other great men of Antiquity, 
 shocked at the paganism of their countrymen, endeavored 
 to teach the truth about God, and a pure morality. But 
 their teachings, while containing some truths, were all 
 
 1 Another illustration of the fact that he was not God, but merely God's 
 faithful servant.— W. D. H. 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 1 27 
 
 deeply alloyed with many grave mistakes. They were 
 failures, not only as teachers, but they had not the power 
 to make the multitude accept their teachings. As a 
 modern writer has sarcastically said, they ' could not per- 
 suade those who lived in the same street with them.' A 
 mere handful of followers was their only success. Not so 
 Jesus Christ. His pure and sublime teachings, unalloyed 
 by error, have been the admiration of the greatest ge- 
 niuses. Where His doctrines — where Christianity — has 
 been accepted, polytheism has disappeared ; woman has 
 ceased to be the ignoble being that she was, and still is 
 among nations that have Him not ; the child has been 
 protected ; slavery, with its countless abuses, has disap- 
 peared, and just those nations have attained a perfection 
 in just laws, true liberties, and in all the arts and sciences, 
 unrivalled in the history of mankind. Compare China, 
 Turkey, Africa, with the Christian nations of Europe and 
 America, and all that I have asserted is abundantly proved. 
 Christ taught not only by His doctrine, but these doc- 
 trines were illustrated by His own most brilliant example. 
 And nowhere does even Christ preach sublimer truths 
 than during His blessed sufferings and death. Every age 
 has endorsed the saying of that stupendous genius of 
 Hippo : ' Signum illud, ubi fixa erant membra morientis, 
 etiam cathedra fuerit magistri docentis.' And what 
 name on earth has been so tenderly loved by all the pure 
 and gifted ornaments of our race as the name of Jesus? 
 To countless myriads of the most enlightened men and 
 noblest of women the name of Jesus has been like sweet- 
 est strains of angelic music, or as strong wine firing the 
 heart to heroic deeds and every virtue. And yet with all 
 this as clear as the noontide, your deistic Viscount repre- 
 sents Christ as a failure, and as avowing His utter failure 
 
128 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 at the very moment when He was asserting His grandest 
 victory over the world, sin, and hell. Surely to put any 
 truth into the Viscount's skull, it would require a surgical 
 operation. 
 
 " You deny the divinity of Jesus Christ. Your argu- 
 ments are, in the main, the following, viz. : J 
 
 " ist. Such passages of the Bible which could not be 
 attributed to one who is God — as ' The Father is greater 
 than I,' etc. 
 
 " 2d. The disciples ' never worshipped Him ' — and it 
 does not appear that ' He ever desired, expected, or re- 
 ceived divine honors.' 
 
 " 3d. That His contemporaries and His relatives did 
 not believe Him to be God. 
 
 "4th. The 'probabilities are strong that even His 
 mother, Mary, did not believe in Him.' 
 
 " Permit me to say, that the whole of your first argument 
 shows that your mind, so honest, has not as yet learned 
 that cardinal doctrine of Christianity — the Incarnation. 
 Without the doctrine of the Incarnation, I entirely agree 
 with you that the Gospels would represent Christ as saying 
 of Himself contradictory things. 
 
 " You endeavor to escape the dilemma — God or impostor 
 — by saying that those passages of the Bible referring to 
 Christ as God are interpolations. We could not have 
 recourse to such a subterfuge. For the passages of the 
 Bible showing Christ to be God, are not a few fugitive 
 pieces scattered here and there through the New Testa- 
 ment, and which we might have supposed to have crept 
 in by interpolation ; but, on the contrary, tear out these 
 texts and we will be obliged to destroy an immense part 
 
 1 These were not my arguments, but merely some of the corroborative 
 points.— W. D. H. 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 1 29 
 
 of the Gospels. We need not, however, have recourse to 
 this subterfuge ; for the doctrine of the Incarnation 
 not only shows that Christ did not utter contradictory 
 statements, but that without such statements we would have 
 only a one-sided view of Christ. Christ is not man only 
 — nor God only. The Christian doctrine of the Incarna- 
 tion is that the Word, the second person of the ador- 
 able Trinity, the Son of God — who is consubstantial 
 with the Father — and who was with God — and who is 
 God — and by whom all things were made — assumed hu- 
 man nature in its entirety. The Holy Ghost formed in 
 the spotless womb of the ever Virgin Mary a human 
 body and a human soul. In this human body and human 
 soul from the first instant of its creation, the Son of God 
 thus assumed our human nature. While preserving His 
 own divine nature entire and undiminished, He took a 
 human body and a human soul with their infirmities and 
 weaknesses — sin only excepted. Thus Christ was a divine 
 person with a human nature. Two distinct natures — the 
 human and divine — were united in one personality — i. e. y 
 the person of the Son of God. In this each nature re- 
 tained all of its respective attributes and laws. Christ 
 therefore possessing each nature in its entirety, possessed 
 the attributes of each nature. To illustrate this union of 
 two distinct natures in one person, we can refer, in a 
 qualified sense, to man. For our body is a material sub- 
 stance like the animals — while the soul is a spirit and im- 
 material. Like the animals our body suffers hunger, 
 thirst, etc. But united to this gross material substance 
 there is the soul. The soul is a spirit, and therefore of a 
 nature entirely different from the body. The soul can 
 reason and think. It can soar to the loftiest heights of 
 philosophy and theology, and contemplate God Himself. 
 
130 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 It will not be satisfied with the lower sensual cravings of 
 the body — but seeks higher spiritual pleasures. It finds its 
 delight in knowledge, the sciences, and in the pursuit of 
 learning. It has its own fair realm of pleasures, sufferings, 
 and ambition, to which the body — our animal nature — is an 
 utter stranger. Yet these two natures, so entirely different 
 from one another, are intimately united by laws mysterious. 
 The operations of the two natures go on daily ; and 
 each person speaks indifferently of the operations of each 
 nature. Every one says : /hunger, / think, though it is the 
 body, the material substance, which hungers in its craving 
 for food, and not the soul ; and it is the soul which thinks, 
 our animal nature, flesh and blood, being incapable of re- 
 flection. In thus speaking we do not utter contradic- 
 tory statements, for we have only one personality with 
 two different natures. Now in Christ there are two dis- 
 tinct natures united in one person, each with its proper 
 laws and operations. The entire human nature and the 
 divine are united in one personality. We say of Christ 
 that He slept, and we say of Him that He is the ever- 
 vigilant. We do not contradict ourselves. For Christ's 
 human body slept, while His divine nature knows no such 
 weakness. Christ, therefore, speaks indifferently of the 
 operations and laws of each nature. ' I thirst,' said 
 Christ, ' and before Abraham was made, I am.' Christ 
 certainly could say : ' I and my Father are one,' when 
 speaking of His divine nature. For no one would be so 
 foolish as to think that Christians supposed the finite 
 body, the material flesh and blood, of Jesus Christ to be 
 anything with the Infinite Spirit, God the Father. And 
 when He in human flesh and blood said that He was going 
 to the Father, ' for the Father is greater than I,' the 
 whole context showed that He was speaking of His 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 131 
 
 human nature. For there can be no talk of the divine 
 nature going from one place to another, since it is every- 
 where. But the human nature of Christ, like any other 
 human body and soul, is not everywhere, and must leave 
 one place to go to another. And therefore when He said 
 that He was going to the Father, ' for the Father is 
 greater than I,' He spoke in His human nature, of which 
 it must be truly said that it went from one place to 
 another, and was inferior to God the Father. 1 All 
 these texts serve only to prove that Christ had a true, 
 real human nature, a body exactly like ours, capable of 
 suffering, and a soul like ours, subject to all the emotions 
 of our human soul, and which suffered from all the griefs, 
 the agonies, the abandonments of God's sensible presence, 
 and the other sorrows that souls have endured in this 
 world. 
 
 " The Bible gives a true history and representation of 
 Christ. Now it would be only a one-sided view of Christ 
 did the Gospels represent Him as a man only, or as God 
 only. But the workings of each nature give us the true 
 view of Christ ; therefore your first argument against 
 Christ's divinity, based upon texts of the Bible which 
 show Him to be a man, falls to the ground. For Christ 
 was truly man. He was also truly God. The divine 
 nature was really united to a real human nature. Hence 
 Christ calls Himself the son of man — and also the Son of 
 God. A correct history of Christ must therefore repre- 
 sent to us scenes in Him which were merely human, and 
 attributes which belong only to God. And this the Gos- 
 
 1 If God is everywhere — if Christ was God — why should his human nature 
 wish to go to the Father ? How could his human nature go to the Father ? 
 Where would it find Him any more distinctly than where it then was? 
 Was not the Father with it there and then ? Was not Christ that Father 
 — W. D. H. 
 
132 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 pels do. Therefore those texts which you suppose 
 to be contradictory, are not only not contradictory, 
 but are necessary to show us that Christ had really 
 two distinct natures united in one person. Indeed 
 there have been many heretics who deny that Christ 
 had really a body of flesh and blood. They asserted that 
 He had a body only in appearance. And, strange to say, 
 the first heresies against the doctrine of the Incarnation 
 nearly all deny that Christ had really a body and soul — 
 while they did not doubt for a moment that He was God. 
 Consequently your first argument amounts to nothing, 
 and only betrays a forgetfulness of the grand, fundamen- 
 tal doctrine of Christianity, the Incarnation. 
 
 " Your next argument to prove that Christ is not divine 
 is, that ' it does not appear that Christ ever desired, ex- 
 pected, or received divine honors,' and ' the disciples 
 never worshipped Him.' You say that a great deal of 
 what you have written you owe to Viscount Amberly's 
 book. I had suspected that you had trusted too much to 
 that worthless book. Had you trusted to your own good 
 judgment and followed reliable authors, you would have 
 seen the overwhelming proof that Christ really did expect 
 to receive divine honors, and that the disciples believed 
 Him to be God and worshipped Him as such. 
 
 " First of all, Christ claims for Himself the same honors 
 as those paid to the Father : ' That all men may honor 
 the Son as they honor the Father ' — John v. Now we wor- 
 ship the Father by faith, hope, and charity — and Christ 
 asked the faith, hope, and charity which the creature can 
 give to God only. I will now make this evident. Christ 
 claims that faith : ' He that believeth in the Son hath life 
 everlasting, but he that believeth not the Son, shall not 
 see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him' — John iii., 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 1 33 
 
 36. 'He that believeth in Him is not judged. But he 
 that doth not believe is already judged, because he be- 
 lieveth not in the name of the only begotten Son of God ' 
 — John iii., 18. 'Jesus said to him, Dost thou believe in 
 the Son of God ? and he said, I believe, Lord. And 
 falling down he adored Him ' — John ix., 35. Christ claims 
 thus the faith which the creature can give only to one 
 who is God. But He also claims the hope and charity due 
 to God alone, and holds out promises which God alone 
 can make. t If any man love me, he will keep my word, 
 and my Father will love him, and we will come to him, 
 and will make our abode with him' — John xiv., 23. What 
 man can claim a love which will be rewarded by the pos- 
 session of God the Father? And who else but a God can 
 promise to come with the Father and dwell in the soul, 
 not of one, but of all men who will love him ? ' He that 
 loveth father or mother more than me, and he that loveth 
 son or daughter more than me, is not worthy of me.' 
 — Matt, x., 37. 
 
 " Every one that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, 
 or father, or mother, or wife, or children for my name's 
 sake shall receive an hundred-fold, and shall possess life 
 everlasting ' — Matt, xix., 29. Christ repeatedly declares 
 that on the judgment day He will judge all men ; in Matt. 
 xxv., 32, He gives the very sentence which as supreme 
 Judge of the living and the dead He will pass upon the 
 good and the wicked. The giving of life — an attribute 
 of God — Christ claims repeatedly, ' For as the Father 
 raiseth up the dead and giveth life, so the Son giveth life 
 to whom He will' — John v., 21. ' Every one who seeth 
 the Son and believeth in him may have life everlasting, 
 and I will raise him up in the last day' — John vi., 40. ' And 
 / give them life everlasting ; and they shall not perish for- 
 
134 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 ever — and no man shall pluck , them out of my hand ' 
 — John x., 28. ' All my things are thine [Father's] and 
 thine are mine' — John xvii., 10. 'For what things so- 
 ever He the [Father] doeth, these the son doth in like 
 manner' — John v., 19. 'I am the resurrection and the 
 life. He that believeth in me although he be dead shall 
 live, and every one that liveth and believeth in me shall 
 not die forever' — John xi., 25. 'He knew all men . . . 
 He knew what was in men ' — John ii. Christ says : ' I am 
 the light of the world. He who followeth me, walketh 
 not in darkness, but shall have the light of life ' — John 
 viii. All these here claimed by Christ are beyond the 
 slightest doubt divine attributes, and in demanding of men 
 to recognize in Him, and believe Him to be endowed 
 with, such attributes, Christ claimed, in the highest sense 
 of the word, divine honors. 
 
 "Your assertion that Christ never was adored by His 
 disciples is equally reversed by the facts of history. ' And 
 they [the disciples] adored Him ' — Matt, xxviii. St. 
 Thomas exclaimed: ' Dominus mens et Dens mens.' '0 
 KvpwS juov nai 6 QeoZ juov,' John xx. My Lord and my 
 God. I have quoted the Latin and the Greek text to 
 show that this is not an exclamation, for then it would be 
 in the vocative case ; but as in both languages the nomi- 
 native case is used, St. Thomas adored Jesus as his Lord 
 and God when using the above-quoted expression. Christ 
 not only did not rebuke St. Thomas for giving Him divine 
 honors, but gently rebuked him for being so tardy in 
 yielding to His divinity. As other evidences that Christ 
 was worshipped by His disciples, I will quote you a few 
 more texts. ' I believe, Lord, and falling down he adored 
 him ' — John ix. ' Neither is there salvation in any other 
 name under heaven given to men whereby we must be 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 1 35 
 
 saved ' — Acts iv. ' Thou hast the words of eternal life. 
 And we have known and have believed that Thou art the 
 Christ, the Son of God '—John vi. ' Thou art Christ the 
 Son of the living God '—Matt. xvi. That St. John be- 
 lieved Christ to be God, I simply refer you to the first 
 chapter of St. John's Gospel. The entire chapter is a 
 demonstration that Christ was God. St. Paul everywhere 
 in his epistles shows his belief that Christ is God. A few 
 quotations will suffice to make good this assertion. ' For 
 in Him [Christ] dwelleth all the fulness of the God- 
 head corporally '—Col. ii. ' When He bringeth the first- 
 begotten into the world he saith, And let all the angels of 
 God adore him [Christ]. And of the angels indeed he 
 saith : He that maketh his angels spirits. But to the son : 
 Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever'— Heb. i. ' Of 
 whom is Christ according to the flesh, who is over all 
 things, God blessed forever '—Rom. ix. I might bring 
 many, very many other texts from the Gospels and writ- 
 ings of Christ's disciples, but these will suffice to show, 
 beyond the shadow of a doubt that His disciples believed 
 Christ to be God and adored Him as such. 
 
 " Your next argument against the divinity of Christ is, 
 that His contemporaries did not believe Him to be God. 
 If you say that some of Christ's contemporaries did not 
 believe in Him, I consent. But if you mean to assert that 
 all of Christ's contemporaries did not believe in Him, you 
 are asserting what is absolutely false. Christ did not all 
 at once hold up His divinity to the astonished gaze of an 
 unexpecting world. But as the sun rises not with the full 
 splendor of meridian brilliancy, but with a certain grada- 
 tion and progressive increase of light from dawn till noon, 
 —so with the Sun of justice. He remained hidden and 
 retired under Joseph's roof, His sacred humanity grow- 
 
I36 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 ing in the natural way, like any other human body, from 
 infancy to childhood, and from youth to its full bloom in 
 manhood. He kept the great purpose of His mortal career 
 concealed all this time under the veil of His seclusion 
 in Nazareth. That wonderful wisdom spoke not ; His 
 mighty powers were hidden under the apparent weakness 
 of His human nature. During the perioqj of His hidden 
 life of thirty years He quietly attended the Church ser- 
 vices, ami not a sermon fell from His silent lips to tell 
 of the lore of wisdom that lay concealed under that quiet 
 exterior. There were doubtless the sick, the infirm, and 
 the dying during that long period. But nothing was done 
 by Him to manifest the power which He possessed. But 
 all this is no argument against His possessing the powers. 
 The rank weeds and grass had flourished and withered 
 for ages, and the savage Indian and the Spaniard and 
 American had roamed and chased over the fields of Cali- 
 fornia, and little was dreamed of the mines of gold that 
 lay hid beneath. But the hour came when to the eyes of 
 an astonished world was revealed the huge mine of gold. 
 Christ lived in retirement under His foster-father's roof. 
 Little did the ignorant villagers of boorish Galilee dream 
 of the wonderful treasure hidden away in Nazareth. He 
 concealed His divinity, and He appeared to their eyes as 
 only the carpenter's son. But when He would reveal 
 that He was the Son of God, it was in other towns and in 
 other places than the home of His hidden life that the 
 golden eloquence and prodigious miracles were displayed 
 as proofs of His claims. That therefore some of the peo- 
 ple of Galilee would not believe Him to be the Son of 
 God is of no consequence for us. For we would not be- 
 lieve Him to be the Son of God had we no other proof 
 than that the ignorant peasants of Galilee believed it. 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 1 37 
 
 And we will not reject His claim to be the Son of God, 
 because, forsooth, they refused to admit it. What we 
 wish to know is, Did Christ claim to be the Son of God ? 
 And that Christ seriously made that claim, the proof is 
 simply overwhelming. For we read in John x. that the 
 Jews took up stones wherewith to stone Him — and why ? 
 ' Because thou, being a man, makest thyself God.' And 
 in John v., ' Hereupon, therefore, the Jews sought the 
 more to kill him, because he did not only break the 
 sabbath, but also said God was his Father, making him- 
 self equal to God.' That the disciples of Christ fully 
 admitted His claim to be the Son of God is beyond all 
 doubt, as I have shown above. Now they surely were 
 His contemporaries, and certainly in a better condition, 
 being the daily witnesses of His teachings and miracles, 
 to know what Christ claimed, and the justice of that 
 claim. But besides the testimony of the disciples and of 
 the Jewish people that Christ really claimed to be the 
 Son of God, we have the judicial proceedings against 
 Christ — His trial and condemnation. In open court wit- 
 ness after witness charged Him with claiming to be the 
 Son of God. At length the judge officially interrogates 
 Him. And when amid the solemnities of the trial Christ 
 declares Himself to be the Son of God, the entire court 
 and assembled witnesses united in declaring Him guilty 
 of blasphemy, and, consequently, according to their law, 
 deserving of death. When, again, Christ was taken into 
 the court over which presided the Roman governor, the 
 legal accusation brought against Him was that He 
 claimed to be the Son of God. Your training as a lawyer 
 will doubtless teach you that the legal proceedings of two 
 courts of justice are certainly ample proof that the con- 
 temporaries of Christ knew that He claimed to be the 
 
138 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 Son of God. That many of His contemporaries, while 
 acknowledging that Christ claimed to be the Son of God, 
 still refused to believe in Him, is no proof against His 
 divinity. There are many atheists who deny God's very 
 existence ; but it is not proof that God does not exist. 
 You asserted that Christ did not claim to be divine, and 
 that His contemporaries knew nothing of the claim. I 
 have shown you that there is overwhelming proof that 
 Christ claimed to be God, and demanded divine honors ; 
 that the disciples — surely His contemporaries — admitted 
 His claim, and gave Him divine honors; and that the 
 Jewish people and the courts of the land fully acknowl- 
 edged that Christ claimed to be the Son of God. 
 
 " Now as to your remarks about Christ's relatives ; your 
 words are as follows : ' Strange that with all the wonders 
 of the immaculate conception, the visits of angels, and 
 what, if all we read be true, their mother must have told 
 them, his very brothers did not believe in him.' This is 
 a medley indeed. What has the conception of the Blessed 
 Virgin Mary to do with Christ's Incarnation ? And will 
 you please tell me what was the necessity, physical or 
 moral, which acted so irresistibly on Mary that she ' must 
 have told them.' Far from your view, the Gospels por- 
 tray Mary as quietly keeping everything in her own heart. 
 They tell us that she very prudently said nothing, even 
 to her spouse St. Joseph, of the miraculous conception of 
 Christ in her womb. Her silence exposed her to sus- 
 picions the most galling to a chaste woman's heart. 
 Where, then, is your proof for asserting that Mary must 
 have told all this to others? That the brothers and 
 sisters of Jesus were not brothers and sisters to Him in 
 the narrow sense of our English words, can easily be 
 shown. That the ever Blessed Mary was a Virgin having 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 1 39 
 
 no other child than the miraculously born Jesus, has been 
 the constant teaching of all Christians from the com- 
 mencement. The title of ' the Virgin ' has been given 
 her in all ages; the writings of all history are here to 
 prove this ; and therefore perfectly unknown to any age 
 the high honor of being the carnal son or daughter of the 
 Blessed Virgin. The Bible was not written in English, 
 but was written in the Hebrew and Greek. We must . 
 therefore consult the ' modus loquendi ' of the Bible to 
 ascertain its definite meaning. Any one translating from 
 the German would, on coming across the word ' Vetter,' 
 or ' Gebruder,' or ' Geschwester,' be obliged to consult 
 the context of the book. For these words mean 
 brother, sister; and also a much wider relationship 
 is just as often expressed by them, and which can be 
 determined only by the context. And this is exactly 
 the peculiarity of the Bible in using these words. 
 In Genesis, chap. xi. and xii., we are shown that Lot is 
 the son of Abraham's brother ; yet in the next chapter, 
 verse 8, Abraham says to Lot, ' fratres enim sumus '—for 
 we are brothers. Again, Paralipomenon, chap, xv., we 
 again see the word ' fratres,' brothers and sisters, used 
 evidently in the sense of relatives. ' Wiel et fratres ejus 
 centum viginti ' — Wiel and his one hundred and twenty 
 brothers ; and so repeatedly in this chapter is the word 
 thus used. In Job xlii. : ' Venerunt autem adeum omnes 
 fratres sui et universal sorores suae,'— and there came to 
 Job all his brothers and all his sisters. When, therefore, 
 the brethren of Christ are spoken of in the Bible, the well 
 known idiom of Bible language implies thereby 'kinsfolk ' 
 — relatives — and not the brothers of Christ as in our lan- 
 guage, and such has always been thus taught in all ages 
 from Hegessippus, Origen, and other Christian writers of 
 
I40 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 the very first days of Christianity down to our own. And 
 even of those who are called the brothers of Christ, it is 
 the Bible itself which shows us that they were not his 
 brothers in the English sense of the word. For the Apos- 
 tle James the less is called by pre-eminence the brother of 
 the Lord, but is always styled the son of Alpheus whose 
 wife was Mary — the sister of Christ's mother— Matt, 
 xxvii., Mark xv. That many of Christ's relatives accord- 
 ing to the flesh believed in Him we know for a certainty 
 from the fact that Judas, Thaddeus, James, and others 
 were his most devout disciples. That some of Christ's 
 kinsfolk may not have believed in Him, counts for less 
 than nothing in an argument against Christ. It can only 
 be adduced as a proof of their stupidity or malice — and 
 nothing else. All your talk, therefore, about the unbe- 
 lieving sons and daughters of Mary is wanting in point. 
 " Your last argument against the divinity of Christ is 
 expressed in the following words : ' But, stranger still, 
 the probabilities are strong that even his mother, Mary, 
 did not believe in him.' You must permit me to say that 
 I believe that you have here quoted from Viscount Amber- 
 ly's book. It is his researches (!) and not your own honest 
 study of the question which have made you fall into such 
 a charge. For where is the logical proof for ' the strong 
 probabilities' of Mary's unbelief? The only fact for 
 such an assertion you base on a scene related in the life 
 of Christ. Our blessed Lord was one day preaching to 
 large crowds. His mother came and desired to speak to 
 Him. Is there anything surprising or unnatural in that ? 
 A son might be intensely engaged in the grave duties of 
 his official position, on the bench or in the Church. His 
 mother, not knowing all the circumstances as he does, 
 might, listening only to a mother's love, desire to speak 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 141 
 
 to him when it would be inconvenient. The mother's 
 desire would surprise no one, and the refusal of the son 
 to interrupt the grave business of his office to converse 
 with his mother, would only be expected by sensible men. 
 Christ is preaching, and his mother comes and desires to 
 speak to him — and therefore ' the probabilities are strong 
 that even his mother, Mary, did not believe in him ! ! ! 
 Hence I say that just here you must be quoting again 
 from Viscount Amberly's book ; it is so like his style. 
 Your own honorable mind, accustomed to reasoning, 
 would never have led you into such conclusions. More- 
 over, it is so in keeping with the noble Viscount to make 
 such brazen assertions while coolly ignoring the over- 
 whelming proofs of just the reverse. For the proofs of 
 Mary's faith are beyond all cavil. In chap, i., Luke, we 
 are told that the archangel Gabriel appeared to the ever 
 blessed Mary. This great archangel tells her that she is 
 to conceive in a most miraculous manner. She, a virgin 
 who never ' knew man,' was to bring forth a son. This 
 son was to be the long-expected Messiah, the ' Emmanuel,' 
 who, as she knew, is so often called by the prophets to be 
 divine ; and who, Gabriel himself tells her, ' will be called 
 the son of the Most High,' — and 'who will reign for ever 
 in the house of Jacob.' She certainly could not doubt an 
 angel's word — and therefore when she saw in her miracu- 
 lous pregnancy the fulfilment of the angelic promise, she 
 had the most absolute proof that she was the favored 
 mother of the Messiah God. St. Elizabeth, on the occa- 
 sion of the Blessed Mary's visit, exclaimed under inspira- 
 tion of the Holy Ghost, ' Whence is this to me that the 
 mother of my Lord should come to me ? ' Here though her 
 son is called divine by one who speaks under the influence 
 of the Holy Ghost, Mary does not decline the high title 
 
1 4 2 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 given her, but on the contrary, in that sublime canticle, the 
 Magnificat, confesses her faith, and gives thanks to God 
 for the great things which He has done for her. She also 
 makes the astounding prophecy, whose boldness is only 
 surpassed by its wonderful fulfilment : ' For behold from 
 henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.' For 
 truly in all generations the modest Virgin of insignificant 
 Galilee has been blessed by poets, orators, sculptors, 
 artists, and peoples of every tongue, as never woman had 
 been praised. 
 
 " Thus from the very first moments of the Incarnation 
 there is every proof that the Blessed Mary believed in 
 Him. The apparition of the angels at His birth, the visit 
 of the Magi who prostrated themselves and adored Him, 
 the great things which the holy old man Simeon and 
 Anna said of him in the Temple, would alone have been 
 sufficient to make her believe that her son was God. 
 
 " In speaking of Mary's presence at the foot of Christ's 
 gibbet, you say : ' Her presence on such an occasion was 
 natural, without its being necessary to suppose her a believer 
 in the extraordinary views now held of her son.' I confess 
 that I am astounded to see that you look upon the pres- 
 ence of Mary at the foot of the bloody cross as something 
 very ' natural' I have read something of history ; but I 
 must avow that in all the history of modern Europe and 
 America, I have never yet met a case where a mother 
 voluntarily stood on the gibbet while her son was put to 
 the cruel and bloody death. 'T is true history is full of 
 heartrending farewell scenes between the victim and his 
 relations — but even these did not take place at the scaf- 
 fold itself. Perhaps Viscount Amberly can get up some 
 for the occasion. Strange, if the presence of the mother 
 at the bloody gibbet was but ' natural,' history cannot pro- 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. I43 
 
 duce other examples. If you would put the question to 
 a mother, would she stand at the gibbet of her son — it 
 would be but natural for her to reply that it is hard 
 enough for a woman's tender heart to witness the execu- 
 tion of any criminal, but from the gibbet on which is 
 hanging the bloody body of her only son, it would be but 
 natural for the tender, dear mother to remain away. The 
 presence, therefore, of the Blessed Mary at the fearful 
 execution of her son, while not a conclusive proof of her 
 belief in Him — for we don't need it in the abundance of 
 other proof, — offers a strong probability that she, with 
 woman's fidelity, still clung to Hirmas God, when men had 
 crucified Him for asserting it. 
 
 " You conclude your attack on the divinity of Christ 
 with the following remarks : ' And this argument is based 
 entirely on the internal evidence of the Gospels without 
 reference aliunde, and without appealing to natural rea- 
 son which would seem to abhor the idea that the great 
 Almighty God, Ruler of the entire Universe, could or 
 would engender a physical son to be borne and born, in a 
 purely human way, by and of a woman, His own handi- 
 work, upon this speck of matter which we call earth.' I 
 have said before, it is a pity that you do not seek for 
 knowledge from purer sources. This definition of the 
 Incarnation you have, I presume, drawn from such worth- 
 less authors as Viscount Amberly ; for no Christian writer 
 on Catholic theology ever got off such nonsense. Your 
 definition of faith was ludicrous enough [see Prop. I. (a), 
 note], but the above definition of the Incarnation goes 
 infinitely beyond it for absurdity — is what might be 
 called the sublimely absurd ! You wish to know how could 
 God engender ' a physical son ' — born in a purely human 
 way ' of a woman.' A physical son, i. e., a son having a 
 
144 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 mere human body and soul, and engendered by God ' in 
 a purely human way, by and of a woman ' — is merely a hor- 
 rible caricature of the doctrine of the Incarnation. A son, 
 to be the son of his father, must have the same nature as 
 his father. When therefore you talk of God, the Infinite 
 Spirit, ENGENDERING ' a physical son, of a woman,' you are 
 guilty of a ' contradictio in terminis.' We have not the 
 right to exact a profound knowledge of theology in 
 laymen — though many illustrious names of laymen both 
 living and dead could be mentioned who acquired a vast 
 and deep knowledge of that sublimest of sciences. But 
 natural reason would seem to abhor the idea that a gen- 
 tleman, loving books and study, should entertain such 
 utter misconception of the Incarnation — the very funda- 
 mental doctrine of all Christianity. 
 
 " The testimony of the Holy Gospels shows beyond all 
 doubt that Christ claimed to be the Son of God. I have 
 shown that such was the belief of Christ's contemporaries, 
 the apostles and disciples. Now I might show how their 
 successors in age after age down to our own time have 
 believed the same. For we have the writings of a Cle- 
 ment, a Justin, an Origen, a Tertullian, an Irenaeus, and 
 other writers who lived in the very first ages of Christian- 
 ity. I might prove Him to be the Son of God from the 
 exact fulfilment of His prophecies. I might establish it from 
 the foundation and perpetuity of His wonderful works — 
 but to do all this would require me to write a volume. 
 And, moreover, our controversy has been upon the fact 
 —Did Christ claim to be the Son of God ?— Do the 
 Scriptures represent Him to be the Son of God ?" 
 
 Such is the reply and argument of the Bishop. I have 
 given it in full, omitting nothing for the reason already 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 1 45 
 
 stated, even where the argument seems based on a mis- 
 conception of my position, which is the case in several 
 instances. 
 
 I now give my answer to his argument, departing very 
 slightly from the reply sent to him, and which has re- 
 mained unanswered. 
 
 The Bishop is, perhaps not unnaturally, quite indignant 
 with Viscount Amberly for saying that he saw " no proof 
 of the peculiar sorrow ascribed to him [Jesus] on the 
 strength of a prophecy," and to show that the Viscount is 
 wrong, he cites all the sufferings and indignities under- 
 gone by Jesus towards the last. But the Viscount spoke 
 of his whole career, including the last. He thinks, appar- 
 ently (and I see nothing in the facts cited by the Bishop 
 to show the contrary), that Jesus suffered in no extra- 
 ordinary way during his life until his arrest ; and though 
 he suffered much then, it does not appear that he suffered 
 more than any one else ever had, and if others had suffered 
 as much as, not to say more than, he had, he could not 
 properly be considered as deserving the u touching title " 
 of the " man of sorrows " : — that is, he had no peculiar and 
 especial claim to it. And it seems to me that there can 
 be no doubt that, before as well as since Jesus, men have 
 suffered as much as he did, mentally and physically, and 
 equally unjustly, and without having the consciousness 
 which (on the Church's theory) he must have had, that he 
 was God, and his sufferings were but the necessary details 
 of his own plan to save mankind. 
 
 The sufferings of Jesus are trivial as compared with the 
 tortures inflicted by the Holy Inquisition, and I hardly 
 think that the Christians of that age, when the Church was 
 supreme, cruel as they were, were more merciless, or more 
 
I46 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 ingenious in devising tortures, than their predecessors, the 
 religious fanatics of the East. So I think that the Vis- 
 count, admitting all the suffering which the Bishop claims 
 that Jesus underwent, was fully justified in concluding 
 that he had not suffered more than any other, and was 
 therefore, so far as he could see, not entitled to any title 
 which implied that he had ; and I think that all who are 
 free from what the Viscount calls " this exaggeration of 
 reverence," will agree with him. It is the sacred halo 
 which has been thrown around him by " after ages " which 
 dazzles the eyes of man, and prevents so many from see- 
 ing what, when that halo is once removed, is so very 
 obvious. 
 
 The Bishop says : " The Viscount smears over him 
 some balderdash about ' melancholy of a sympathetic 
 heart.' But Viscount Amberly would lower Christ still 
 more. He dares assert that Christ died with ' a shaken 
 faith — the agonies of unaccomplished purposes.' Christ 
 naked to the gaze of an indecent mob, is not so much 
 humiliated as these words would make him." 
 
 What means the cry from the cross, " My God, my God, 
 why hast Thou forsaken me ?" 
 
 To the ordinary mind, construing the sentence as if it 
 were spoken by a mere man suffering for his faith — a 
 martyr to what he believed to be his duty, — it would cer- 
 tainly seem to imply that he believed himself to be for- 
 saken by God, or why ask God such a question ? Was 
 that a time for trifling ? If he was forsaken by his God, 
 then must his faith have been shaken, for the question 
 shows that he did not expect to be forsaken, and that his 
 expectation — his faith — was disappointed. If his being 
 allowed to be sacrificed was the reason — and no other 
 appears to be even suggested — why he thought he was 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 1 47 
 
 forsaken by his God, then it is clear that it was his purpose 
 to have lived longer, and that he did not consider his 
 mission ended, and he must necessarily have considered 
 his purposes unaccomplished. This is, of course, on the 
 theory that Jesus was but man. If he was man, and man 
 only, the above conclusions are irresistible. The only 
 answer to it, as it seems to me, is the theory of the Incar- 
 nation. The Bishop's texts do not help the matter. 
 Whatever may have been thought and said before that 
 time — whether by Jesus, or by others, and attributed to 
 him, — in that supreme moment, when all disguise or de- 
 ception (if any ever existed) would be thrown aside, from 
 the very depths of the man's soul comes the bitter, de- 
 spairing cry that tells the whole story in a manner beyond 
 the power of metaphysics or sophistry to explain away. 
 
 And even the Incarnation, if that horrible theory were 
 true, would be of little or no help. If Jesus were God, his 
 human mind, his human soul, would have been aware of 
 the fact, — for he certainly was intelligent, and if he did 
 not believe in himself how can we be expected to believe 
 in him ; and as the soul was immortal and sinless, the 
 God-head eternal, deathless, and omnipresent, even the 
 human part of Jesus could not have been guilty of the 
 absurdity of asking such a question at such a time, — of 
 considering himself as man forsaken by himself as God 
 because his own previously arranged plan was being con- 
 summated as he wished it to be. 
 
 But to proceed : the Bishop says that Jesus' mission 
 was not a failure ; so does the Viscount. He says Jesus had 
 done more than he himself knew or intended ; here they 
 diverge. The Bishop says, " that mission was to teach 
 the world," and gives a picture of the outside world, and 
 the effect of Jesus' teachings on it. I think the Bishop, 
 
148 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 of course, unintentionally, very seriously exaggerates both 
 the condition of the outside world, and the beneficial 
 effect to it of Jesus' teachings (as taught by the Church). 
 The effect of the Church's teachings, which I suppose the 
 Bishop and all other good Churchmen would consider the 
 teachings of Jesus, has already been fully considered in 
 discussing Prop. I., but we may now consider the con- 
 dition of the outside world at the time of Jesus' coming, 
 in connection with the Bishop's assertion that " Christ 
 taught as no one had ever taught. He had preached those 
 beautiful truths which had made paganism flee " : this 
 being urged as one of the proofs of his Godhood. 
 
 It is much to be regretted that the Bishop did not 
 specify some particular moral truth which Jesus taught, 
 and which Had not been taught before his coming, for 
 I have been led to believe that he taught none such. 
 And it would have been edifying, to say the least, to have 
 learned what were the " beautiful truths " which " made 
 paganism flee." Certainly not his ethics, for most of 
 them, as beautiful as they really are, were old before he 
 was born, and all, I think, had been taught before he 
 came. 
 
 It will not do to compare the best of Christians with 
 the worst of pagans ; it would not be fair. There were 
 many pagans false to the teachings of their religion, as 
 there were, and still are, many Christians false to the 
 moral teachings of Jesus ; and the one system is no more 
 to be judged by those who do not keep its command- 
 ments than is the other. We should compare the worst 
 with the worst and the best with the best. 
 
 I believe the greatest moral teachings of Jesus were : 
 " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, 
 and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 1 49 
 
 first and great commandment. And the second is like 
 unto it. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On 
 these two commandments hang all the law and the 
 prophets." — Matt, xxii., 37-40. 
 
 This should be, as Jesus evidently intended it, the 
 whole of religion, for he says : " On these two command- 
 ments hang all the law and the prophets." All that 
 could be taught by law-givers and prophets is summed up 
 in that sublime utterance, and if this were all of Chris- 
 tianity it would be a grand religion indeed ; and there 
 would have been no need of a Church to act as deposi- 
 tory of all those " sacred truths " which are either cov- 
 ered by these two commandments or useless ; and, 
 consequently, no necessity for pious frauds and forgeries 
 to convince its friends, or useless wars and cruel tortures 
 to punish its enemies, that the Church might flourish, and 
 its hosts of bishops, priests, and deacons be sustained. 
 And though this would have been very bad for the " cor- 
 porate teaching body," humanity would have been greatly 
 the gainer. 
 
 Then we have the " Golden Rule " : "As ye would that 
 men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise." — Luke 
 vi., 31. This is, of course, included in the two great 
 commandments, but it is so beautiful an illustration of it 
 that I think the world is better off for its having been 
 said. 
 
 But while these sayings are, as I believe, the embodi- 
 ment of all true religion, and are probably the grandest 
 ethical conceptions of the human mind in any age, they 
 were not new. The same ideas seem to have prevailed 
 among the heathen, or pagans, and consequently it was 
 not these teachings which " made paganism flee." If 
 paganism fled I should rather attribute its flight to the 
 
150 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 saying ascribed to Jesus, " I came not to send peace, but 
 a sword" (Matt, x., 34), a singular utterance to be as- 
 cribed to the " Prince of Peace," and " Lamb of God who 
 taketh away the sins of the world." 
 
 Jesus also taught the immortality of the soul, and the 
 doctrine of future rewards and punishments in another 
 life, neither of which seems to have been known to Moses. 
 These also were pagan doctrines. 
 
 I now proceed, still discussing the second part of my 
 proposition, and the Bishop's reply to it, to inquire into 
 what the pagans really thought, that we may see if I am 
 correct in saying that none of these doctrines, above set 
 forth, were originally taught by Jesus, and if the Bishop 
 is right in saying that Jesus " taught as no one had ever 
 taught," and that the " beautiful truths " tau'ght by him 
 " made paganism flee." 
 
 As this is a matter of history in which we are neces- 
 sarily dependent upon others, I must rely upon the facts 
 as I glean them from those who are recognized as author- 
 ities. I quote (p. 39) from a little pamphlet by J. M. Peebles, 
 entitled Jesus: Myth, Man, or God, and I quote him 
 principally for the authorities which he cites, and to many 
 of which I have not had access. 
 
 "Those intuitive truths and moral precepts that bubbled, up from 
 the sensitive soul, and dropped like pearls from the inspired lips, of 
 Jesus, were the frequent enunciations of that common consciousness which 
 relates to the universal Religions of the races. The immortality of the soul, 
 taught in the Egyptian Book of the Dead and the Brahminical Vedas, shone 
 with increased brightness in the matchless sayings of Pythagoras, and Soc- 
 rates, Thales, Zeno, Plato, Anaximenes, Empedocles, Persian Magi and 
 Indian Sages, long before the birth of the Asian Teacher Jesus. This will 
 not be denied. On the other hand, if there is a doleful book in existence 
 relating to immortality and the future life, it is the Old Testament, a part of 
 the Christian Scriptures. 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 151 
 
 " Bishop Warburton, and other candid Church writers, admit the absence 
 of all allusion to a future life in the Mosaic system. The Book of Job is a 
 Drama. The oft quoted passage, ' I know that my Redeemer liveth,' etc., 
 gives not a hint even of a future conscious existence. Rightly translated 
 from the Septuagint it reads thus : ' For I know that he is eternal who is 
 about to deliver me on earth, to restore this skin of mine which endures 
 these things ; for by the Lord these things have been done to me, of which 
 I am conscious, to myself, which mine own eye hath seen, and not another, 
 but all was fulfilled in my own bosom.' (Weymes, Job and His Times, 
 chap, xiii.) 
 
 " Consider the following Bible texts : 
 
 " ' The dead praise not the Lord.' David (Ps. cxv., 17). 
 
 " 4 They sleep with their fathers.' Moses (Deut. xxxi., 16). 
 
 " ; Whose end is destruction.' Paul (Phil, iii., 19). 
 
 "'There is no work nor device nor knowledge in the grave.' (Eccl. 
 ix., 10.) 
 
 " ' For to him that is joined to all the living there is hope ; for a living 
 dog is better than a dead lion. The dead know not anything, neither have 
 they any more a reward, for the memory of them is forgotten. Also their 
 love and their hatred is now perished.' (Eccl. ix., 4-6.) 
 
 "Isaiah evinces an equal destitution of faith in a future life and resurrec- 
 tion when he says : ' They are dead| they shall not live ; they are deceased, 
 they shall not rise.' (Isa. xxvi., 14.) 
 
 " ' As the cloud is consumed and vanisheth away, so he that goeth down 
 to the grave shall come up no more.' (Job vii., 9.) 
 
 ' ' Job expresses his lack in future hope by such disconsolate expressions as : 
 ' If I wait, the grave is mine house, I have made my bed in darkness. I have 
 said to corruption, Thou art my father ; to the worm, Thou art my mother 
 and my sister, and where is now my hope ? As for my hope, who shall see 
 it ? ' (Job xvii., 13-15.) He inquires : ' If a man die, shall he live again ? 
 Man giveth up the Ghost, and where is he ? ' (Job xiv., 10-14.) 
 
 " ' They shall be as though they had not been.' (Obadiah 16.) 
 
 " ' For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth the beasts ; even 
 one thing befalleth them ; as the one dieth, so dieth the other, — yea, they 
 have all one breath, so that a man hath no pre-eminence above a beast ; all 
 go into one place ; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again.' (Eccl. 
 iii., 19, 20.)" 
 
 It may be claimed that these Biblical writers were 
 speaking of the body alone, not of the soul. I think that 
 
152 AN INQUfRY INTO 
 
 is true ; for they do not appear to have ever heard of a 
 soul. Examine the five books ascribed to Moses, and I 
 do not think a single instance can be found where either 
 the immortality of the soul or the doctrine of future 
 rewards and punishments can be fairly said to be taught. 
 All the rewards and punishments promised or threatened 
 by Moses are, so far as I have seen, temporal, of this 
 world. The Old Testament is the foundation on which is 
 built the New, and is, so to speak, the basement story of 
 the Church. It is claimed to be the only revelation made 
 by God to man prior to the coming of Jesus. Jesus 
 taught the immortality of the soul, and the doctrine of 
 future rewards and punishments. So did the pagans. 
 How comes it that God concealed, or permitted Moses to 
 conceal, these wonderful and all-important facts from His 
 chosen people, and yet permitted them to be known to 
 the pagans, His so-called enemies. 
 
 The Bishop has failed to answer this question. I will 
 be grateful to any one who will. 
 
 Now for the pagans. I quote again from Dr. Peebles, 
 p. 41. 
 
 In referring to Max Miiller's third lecture before the 
 Royal Institution upon the " Science of Religion," he 
 says Miiller placed them in order of time as " The 
 Turanian, the Aryan, the Semitic." 
 
 " These primitive religions were ultimately reflected in the Sacred Books 
 of the Chinese, Hindoos, and Hebrews. . . . They (the Turanians) 
 also ' reverenced their ancestors, believed in the immortality of the soul, 
 and in blissful reunions in heaven with those they had known upon earth.' 
 Herodotus thinks the Egyptians ' were the first who distinctly taught that 
 the soul of man is immortal.' That they believed in future rewards and 
 punishments is testified by the paintings on the tombs, in which Osiris sits 
 as judge, looking intently upon the balances weighing the ' quick and the 
 
t 
 THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 1 53 
 
 dead.' Diogenes Laertius affirms that Thales taught that 'Divinity was 
 infinite and the souls of men immortal.' Pythagoras, living in the sixth 
 century before the modern era, believed in the divine existence and the im- 
 mortality of the human soul. To this end the classical Millman declares that 
 many of our Christian writers who repudiate this ' Heathen Philosopher ' 
 repeat his ' golden sentences ' as if they were ' originally uttered by the more 
 learned of the Christian Fathers, not knowing that those fathers enriched 
 themselves at the expense of pagan thought.' 
 
 "Zoroaster, after speaking of Ormuzd, that God who is 'indestructible, 
 eternal, indivisible, the celestial, and the dispenser of all-good,' adds, ' The 
 soul, being a bright fire, by the power of the Father remains immortal, and 
 is mistress of life.' (Euseb., Prccp. Evan., lib. i., 10.) 
 
 " Crito, asking Socrates, another ' Pagan Philosopher,' how he would be 
 buried, the heaven-inspired philosopher smilingly answered : ' As you 
 please, if only you can catch me — if I do not escape from you.' He further 
 said : ' I cannot persuade Crito, my friends, that I am that Socrates who is 
 now conversing with you, and who methodizes each part of the discourse ; 
 but he thinks I am he whom he will shortly behold dead, and asks how he 
 should bury me. But that which I sometime since argued at length, that 
 when I have drunk the poison I shall no longer remain with you, but shall 
 depart to some happy state of the blessed, this I seem to have argued to him 
 in vain ; though I meant at the same time to comfort both you and myself.' 
 After arguing that the soul, being invisible, is not separable into parts, but 
 goes into the presence, at death, of a good and wise God, he asks, ' Does 
 not the soul then, when in this state, depart to that which resembles itself, 
 the invisible, the divine, immortal, and wise ? And on its arrival there, is 
 not its lot to be happy, free from error, ignorance, fears, wild passions, and 
 all the other evils to which human nature is subject, and, as is said of the 
 initiated, does it not in truth pass the rest of its time with the Gods ? When, 
 therefore, death approaches a man, the mortal part of him, as it appears, 
 dies, but the immortal part departs safe and uncorrupted, having withdrawn 
 itself from death.' 
 
 " ' The soul, therefore,' he said, ' Cebes, is most certainly immortal and 
 imperishable.' 
 
 " Cicero, born 106 B.C., teaches in one of his books, written just after his 
 daughter's death, these beautiful truths : 
 
 " ' The origin of the soul of man is not to be found upon earth, for there 
 is nothing in the soul of a mixed or carnate nature, or that has any appear- 
 ance of being made out of the earth. The powers of memory, understanding, 
 and thought, imply that these principles must have been derived from God. 
 . . . Do not consider yourself, but your body, to be mortal. For you 
 
!54 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 are not the being which this corporeal figure evinces ; but the mind of every 
 man is the man, and not that form which may be delineated with a finger. 
 Know, therefore, that you are a divine person. Since it is the divinity that 
 has consciousness, sensation, memory, and foresight — that governs, regu- 
 lates, and moves the body over which it has been appointed, just as the Su- 
 preme Deity rules this world ; and, in like manner, as an Eternal God guides 
 this world, which in some respect is perishable, so an Eternal spirit animates 
 your frail body. The good man does not die, but departs, as the inextin- 
 guishable and immortal nature of his purified soul demonstrates, which goes 
 from him into heaven, without that dissolution or corruption which death 
 appears to induce.' (Tusciil. Qncest., lib. I.) 
 
 " Christian writers who assert that these doctrines of the divine existence', 
 the immortality of the soul, and the reward of virtue were derived from the 
 ' chosen people ' — the Jews — manifest an ignorance only excelled by their 
 impudence. The Father-hood of God, enriching the Rig-Veda and the 
 Talmud, was taught also by Homer, Hesiod, Philo, Horace, Seneca, Epic- 
 tetus, in the Socrates of Xenophon, the Song of Cleanthes, and in the Hymn 
 of Aratus, quoted by Paul in his appeal to the Athenians. The Rev. Dr. 
 Collier {Lee, xii., p. 499) makes Pythagoras to say : 'God is neither the 
 object of sense, nor subject to passion, but . . . invisible and supremely 
 intelligent. ... All beings receive their light from Him. He is the 
 light of Heaven— the Father of all.' The Brotherhood of Man, with the 
 moral duties growing out of such humanitarian instruction, was taught by 
 Diodorus, Menander, Zeno, Epictetus, Terence, the learned Philo-Judneus, 
 and others, in these words : ' All men everywhere belong to one family.' 
 ' No man is a stranger to me providing he be a good man, for we have all 
 one and the same nature.' ' All men are our friends and fellow-citizens, — 
 Greeks and barbarians drink from one and the same cup of brotherly love.' 
 ' Will you not bear with your brother? He is born of the same divine seed 
 that thou art. Wilt thou enslave those who are thy brothers by nature and 
 the children of God ? ' asks Epictetus. 
 
 " Pythagoras, after enjoining trust in God, adds : ' Yield to mild 
 words, and to deeds that are useful. Do not hate your friend for a trifling 
 fault. Do nothing base, either with another, or in private ; and, most of 
 all, have a respect for yourself. Next practice uprightness both in deed and 
 word. And accustom yourself to have a diet simple and non-luxurious. 
 And guard against doing that which begets envy. Do not expend beyond 
 what is reasonable, like a person ignorant of what is honorable. Nor be 
 illiberal. Moderation in all things is best. And do those things which will 
 not injure you : and calculate before the act : nor receive sleep upon your 
 softened eyes before you have thrice gone over each act of the day, what 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. I 55 
 
 have I passed by ? What have I done ? What necessary act has not been 
 done by me ? and, beginning from the first, go through them. And then, 
 if you have acted improperly, reproach yourself ; but if properly, be glad. 
 So labor, so practice : these precepts it is meet for you to love. These will 
 place you on the footsteps of divine virtue.' (Greek Anth.) 
 
 " No scholar at this day of historic research will assume the proposition 
 that Jesus was the first to voice the ' Golden Rule.' It was a common pro- 
 verb among Chinese, Syrian, and Grecian thinkers before the dawn of the 
 Christian Era. These are the forms in which it was announced by Hillel, 
 Isocrates, and Confucius : 
 
 " ' Do not to another what thou wouldest not he should do to thee : this 
 is the sum of the law.' 
 
 " ' Thou wilt deserve to be honored if thou doest not thyself what thou 
 blamest in others.' 
 
 " ' What thou dost not wish done to thyself, do not do to others.' 
 
 " In the Rev. J. Williams' work upon the Bards Druidic Creed, treating 
 of the religion of the Ancient Britons, several hundred years before Christ, 
 occur these Druid teachings : 
 
 " ' Three things evince what God has done and will do : infinite power, 
 infinite wisdom, and infinite love.' 
 
 " ' The three divine qualities of man are liberality, love, and forgiveness 
 of injuries.' 
 
 ' ' ' The three great laws of man's actions are, what they forbid in another, 
 what they require from another, and what they care not how is done by 
 others.' 
 
 " Monsignior Bigandet, Catholic Apostolic Bishop of Ava, in his Life of 
 Buddha? says : 'It must not be deemed rash to assert that most of the 
 moral truths prescribed by the Gospels are to be met with in the Buddhist 
 Scriptures,' while elsewheres this Roman prelate writes : ' In the particulars 
 of the life of Buddha-Guatama, it is impossible not to feel reminded of 
 many features of our Saviour's character and course.' 
 
 " Will anyone, assuming the superior title of ' Christian ' . . . specifiy 
 one — just one — ' primal truth' that flashed upon the world for the first time 
 through the instrumentality of Jesus Christ." 
 
 Again, on p. 46, occurs this quotation from the " candid 
 yet soundly orthodox," Rev. J. B. Gross Introduction to 
 HeatJicn Religion. 
 
 1 The Life or Legend of Gatidama, the Buddha of the Burmese, etc., by 
 the Rt. Rev. P. Bigandet, Rangoon, 1866. 
 
156 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 " Perhaps on no subject within the ample reign of human knowledge have 
 so many fallacious ideas been propagated as upon that of the gods and the 
 worship of heathen antiquity. Nothing but a shameful ignorance, a pitiable 
 prejudice, or the contemptible pride which denounces all investigations as a 
 useless or a criminal labor, when it must be feared that they will result in 
 the overthrow of pre-established systems of faith or the modification of 
 long-cherished principles of science, can have thus misrepresented the theol- 
 ogy of heathenism, and distorted — nay, caricatured — its forms of religious 
 worship. It is time that posterity should raise its voice in vindication of 
 violated truth, and that the present age should learn to recognize in the 
 hoary past at least a little of that common-sense of which it boasts with as 
 much self-complacency as if the prerogative of reason was the birth-right 
 only of modern times." 
 
 And Max Miiller, perhaps the best living authority on 
 the subject, says there were none of the old religions 
 which did not teach men " to do good and shun evil." 
 
 I have no apology to make for this long quotation, nor 
 for the others which I have made, and will yet make, in 
 the course of this discussion. My facts must necessarily 
 be chiefly at second-hand, and it is but right to state my 
 authority for them ; and when I find my ideas better ex- 
 pressed than I can express them myself, it would be folly 
 not to quote, giving proper credit to him whose labors I 
 profit by, and unpardonable vanity to make excuses for 
 substituting his researches and language for mine. 
 
 Now was the paganism which I have just detailed the 
 paganism which fled from the teaching of Jesus ? Is there 
 any important thing in his ethical teachings not included 
 in those I have cited? And further citations could be 
 made almost ad libitum. What then were " the beautiful 
 teachings" which made " paganism flee"? I know of 
 none really from Jesus which could have that effect on 
 any one. But there are many teachings of his so-called 
 followers well calculated to make pagans, or any other 
 conscience-possessing people, flee : as, for instance, the 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. I$? 
 
 vindictive teachings of the Old and New Testaments car- 
 ried out by Christians in persecutions for conscience' sake. 
 The burning of heretics on the plea, as said to be stated 
 by Mary of England — that " as the souls of heretics are 
 hereafter to be eternally burning in hell, there can be 
 nothing more proper than for me to imitate the divine 
 vengeance by burning them on earth." 
 
 And why should not Christians hate and burn and per- 
 secute with the example before them of a God who is 
 "angry every day" (Ps. vii., n), and who had authorized 
 His " chosen people " to kill their and His enemies, man, 
 woman, and child, cattle and beasts, except such women 
 as had not known man, and to debauch those ; and who 
 is supposed to have approved the sentiments of the cix. 
 Psalm ! 
 
 Or that other " beautiful teaching " of the early Chris- 
 tians as related by Mosheim in his Ecclesiastical History, 
 vol. i., pp. 381, 382, as cited by Dr. Peebles, where he admits 
 that early in the fourth century it was an almost universally 
 adopted maxim " that it was an act of virtue to deceive 
 and lie, when by such means the interests of the Church 
 might be promoted," and " that pious frauds were ap- 
 proved of by the Christians as early as the time of 
 Hermas." 1 And the learned Blunt is candid enough to 
 admit that these Christian fathers justified their deception 
 and falsehood by these, and other quotations from the 
 scriptures : " O Lord, thou hast deceived me, and I was 
 deceived (Jer. xx., 7). " I the Lord have deceived that 
 prophet " (Ezek. xiv., 9). " God shall send them a strong 
 delusion that they should believe a lie ; that they all 
 might be damned " (2 Thes. ii., 11, 12). 
 
 1 The first quotation is literal. The second I do not find in words, as 
 cited, in the edition of Mosheim which I have, but I find the substance. 
 
158 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 The Bishop admits that " Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and 
 other great men of antiquity, shocked at the paganism 
 of their countrymen, endeavored to teach the truth about 
 God, and a pure morality." 
 
 Then, if paganism did not flee from their teachings, 
 why should it flee from those of Jesus, which, ethically, 
 were much the same as their " pure morality " ? And if 
 Jesus' teaching these truths be any evidence of his divin- 
 ity, or inspiration, why were not these " great men of 
 antiquity " also divine, or inspired ? Where and how did 
 they learn the truths they taught, and why may not the 
 truths of Jesus have been discovered in the same way, or 
 have been borrowed, without credit, from them? 
 
 And what are we to think of a God (or the only God, 
 since while there are three there is but one) who comes 
 on earth to save mankind, to teach them morality and 
 truth, and who can convey no higher moral truths than 
 those taught already, ages before he came, by uninspired 
 pagan philosophers ? But the Bishop adds that their 
 truths were "all deeply alloyed with many grave mistakes." 
 He does not point out the " grave mistakes," but I am 
 satisfied from my general information on the subject, from 
 the general tone of his arguments and of the other argu- 
 ments which I have heard in this connection, that such 
 mistakes were strictly with reference to what are now the 
 dogmatic teachings of the Church as to Jesus and his 
 status ; or, in other words, their errors are not in their 
 ethics, but in their divergence from modern dogmatism. 
 
 Thus the Incarnation, on which the Bishop lays great 
 stress, is a dogma which is fatal to those who hear of, but 
 do not, or cannot, believe it. These pagan philosophers 
 did not teach that, certainly ; but then I do not class that 
 as a " moral truth," nor, so far as I can see, was it ever 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 1 59 
 
 taught, or even hinted at, by Jesus ; and even the sayings 
 attributed to him which might be construed into an 
 endorsement of the theory, are, to put them in their 
 strongest light, but a very indirect support. The theory 
 seems to have been an after-thought, an invention, to har- 
 monize the palpable contradictions of the New Testament 
 as to his doings and sayings ; not an invention in the sense 
 that it was manufactured for the purpose of deceiving, 
 but a theory invented to, and believed because it was 
 thought it did, harmonize conflicting statements both of 
 which were accepted as equally true. 
 
 But even this " teaching" is not new. It is an old 
 doctrine of many Eastern religions. 
 
 Read this quotation from the Bhagavat-Gita, as cited by 
 Dr. Peebles : 
 
 "Chrishna of India preceded Jesus by hundreds of years. He was an 
 incarnate God, and he had a favorite disciple, Arjuna, to whom he said : 
 4 Although I am not in my nature subject to birth or decay, and am the Lord 
 of all created beings ; yet, having command over my own nature, I am made 
 evident by my own powers, and as often as there is a decline of virtue, and 
 an insurrection of vice and injustice in the world, I make myself evident ; 
 and thus I appear from age to age for the preservation of the just, the de- 
 struction of the wicked, and the establishment of virtue.' " 
 
 It is thought, from the very great similarity between 
 Chrishna and Christ, that Christian theologians have bor- 
 rowed much from the former ; and the similarity between 
 the Jewish and Hindoo religions has given rise to the sus- 
 picion that the Jewish is derived from the Hindoo. And 
 my attention having been directed to the book by what 
 turned out to be a rather inexact reference, I find in the 
 preface, p. v., to the History of Hindost an, translated from 
 the Persian by Lt.-Col. Alexander Dow, London, 1803, a 
 statement that the Hindoos report that the son of Tura 
 
l6o AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 apostatized, and was banished by his father to the west, 
 and fixed his residence in a country called Mohgod, and 
 propagated the Jewish religion about 4887 years from the 
 writing of the book. May there not be some connection 
 between the Rajah Tura, whose son the Hindoos say 
 founded the Jewish religion, and that Terah who dwelt 
 beyond the flood, and was the father of Abraham, and 
 served other gods ? (Joshua xxiv. 2.) 
 
 There are many reasons for believing that the Jewish 
 faith was borrowed from their surrounding neighbors, and 
 their various taskmasters, and that their first conceptions 
 of the immortality of the soul, a fact which seems to have 
 been carefully concealed from them by their own God, 
 was gained from the Egyptians (from whom they are said 
 to have gotten their ceremony of circumcision), though the 
 record does not so show. The ancient Jews appear to 
 have been a gross and sensual people, incapable of aesthetic 
 refinement or metaphysical culture, and this may account 
 for the great difficulty they evidently had in getting to 
 comprehend and believe such elevated doctrines as their 
 conquerors first, and Jesus later, tried to teach them. 
 And they are the only people with whom God vouch- 
 safed to communicate! Well may Voltaire have ex- 
 claimed in his Catechisme Chinois (Dictionnaire Philoso- 
 phiqiie, portatif, 1765, p. 115): 
 
 " Malheur a. un peuple assez imbecile et assez barbare pour penser qu'il y 
 a un Dieu pour sa seul province ; c'est un blaspheme. Quoi ? la lumiere du 
 soleil eclaire tous les yeux, et la lumiere de Dieu n'eclairerait qu'une petite 
 et chetive nation dans un coinde ce globe ! quelle horreur ! et quelle sottise ! 
 La divinite parle au cceur de tous les homines, et les liens de la charite doivent 
 les unir d'un bout de l'univers a l'autre." 
 
 What a pity that such a thought should tie only noble 
 and not orthodox. 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. l6l 
 
 The Bishop says that these ancient philosophers had 
 not " the power to make the multitude accept their teach- 
 ings. As a modern writer has sarcastically said they 
 1 could not persuade those who lived in the same street 
 with them.' " 
 
 Does not this sarcasm come with very bad grace from 
 one who must admit that Jesus, with omnipotent power to 
 back him, could not persuade his own relatives, to say 
 nothing of the rest of his fellow-citizens in the little village 
 of Nazareth — " the ignorant villagers of boorish Galilee," 
 as the Bishop calls them ? Is not the point of the wit some- 
 what blunted when we remember that Jesus was forced, 
 in his own bitter experience, to exclaim: "A prophet 
 is not without honor but in his own country, and among 
 his own kin, and in his own house " ? And do not these 
 great heathen philosophers deserve a little, just a little, 
 credit for having thought out for themselves (for I do not 
 suppose the Church will admit that they were inspired of 
 God) and taught those wonderfully beautiful truths which 
 are the only redeeming points of Christianity? 
 
 We have now reached the Bishop's reply to my argu- 
 ment against the divinity of Jesus drawn from the Bible 
 itself. It will be observed that he makes no attempt to 
 answer — in fact, in no way notices — the following points to 
 which I specially called his attention : 
 
 1. That the Bible of the Christian should be studied in 
 the same manner as the Bible of any other race. 
 
 2. The two genealogies of Jesus as given by Matthew 
 and Luke. 
 
 3. That though it is distinctly stated of Adam that he 
 was the son of God, we are expected to take that 
 figuratively, but when the same statement is made of 
 Jesus, we must take it literally. 
 
1 62 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 4. The inability of Jesus to do any " mighty works " at 
 his own home on account of the unbelief of the 
 people. 
 
 5. The doctrine of admissions and representations. 
 This is to be regretted. I would have liked to have his 
 
 views. 
 
 The Bishop does not fairly state, nor does he fairly meet, 
 my argument on the contradictory sayings attributed to 
 Jesus. 
 
 I began my argument by saying " that there are many, 
 very many passages in the Bible which are cited to prove 
 the opposite of " my views, and stated my belief that such 
 passages were " inserted in the interest of the new sect 
 that was struggling to attract the attention and gain the 
 sympathy of mankind," the whole New Testament having 
 been written long after the death of Jesus ; and he meets 
 my argument by quoting these very passages to convince 
 me. 
 
 I had thought my position clearly defined. I will en- 
 deavor to state it still more distinctly. The Bible, in its 
 present form, makes Jesus, in some portions of it, seem to 
 claim divinity, and divine honors, for himself, and such 
 portions, by themselves, would justify the position that 
 the Book made him God : but in view of the facts that 
 these portions do not stand by themselves, but are con- 
 fronted by other portions which indicate just the contrary, 
 and which are the older portions of the accounts ; that 
 the Gospels were written long after the death of Christ 
 and his disciples, and the longer after his death a Gospel 
 was written the stronger the passages in favor of his 
 divinity became, as is very apparent in John ; that these 
 Gospels were certainly not written by any of the disciples, 
 especially not by the men whose names they bear, and 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 1 63 
 
 are, at best, but a selected compilation of various and 
 varying traditions ; that there have been, from time to 
 time, various Gospels written, used for a while, and then 
 rejected, one by one, until only four now remain as recog- 
 nized by the Church as authentic ; that as some, aye, most 
 of the Gospels written have been decided by the Church 
 to be unauthentic, it is not unlikely (unless the Church be 
 infallible, which is one of the points which we endeavor 
 to disprove) that some portions, at least, of the recognized 
 accounts may be inexact ; that the recent revision shows 
 that such is clearly the case in many instances, thus 
 strengthening the view that it may be incorrect in others 
 where the evidence of the variation from truth was not 
 so accessible ; that these variations were not desired, but 
 were made because necessary to make the translation 
 true ; that tradition is an unreliable foundation for history, 
 as it cannot well fail to be warped by the beliefs and de- 
 sires of its custodians ; that in the earlier centuries there 
 were conflicting views as to Jesus' status which are shown 
 by the records, while those not recorded must have been 
 innumerable ; — I have concluded that, as a matter of fact, 
 critically examining the various accounts in their entirety, 
 that the texts supporting this claim of the Church are not 
 genuine. They may be mistranslations, misconceptions, 
 exaggerations not unnatural to an Oriental people, or what 
 not. Not conveying the truth, I do not believe that Jesus 
 said them, or authorized them, and I give him the benefit 
 of the doubt. But even if he had said them, or author- 
 ized them, upon the principle of representations and ad- 
 missions, already discussed, they would not be effective 
 evidence in the face of the admissions to the contrary. 
 
 I do not consider this matter further, for to go into the 
 argument to prove the assertions herein made as to the 
 
164 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 authenticity and date of the Gospels would take more 
 time and space than I can well command, and would 
 change the character of these papers from that of a free- 
 and-easy, every-day matter-of-fact discussion to that of a 
 rather stately argument whose necessarily dry details 
 would drive from it the very persons whom I hope to 
 reach. There are many books, however, which will give 
 the information much better than I could, and I especially 
 refer to The Creed of Cliristendom, by Wm. Rathbone 
 Greg; Supernatural Religion, published anonymously, but 
 now acknowledged by Prof. W. K. Clifford, F.R.S.; and 
 History of Christianity to the Year 200, by C. B. Waite. 
 
 I had also stated that I did not care to discuss, at this 
 time, the theories devised to explain and reconcile the 
 contradictions and admissions which I had cited, and he 
 launched the dogma of the Incarnation at me. I was 
 anxious to have his reply to my argument on admissions 
 and representations and their comparative value as evi- 
 dence. I conclude, from his falling back on the Incarna- 
 tion, a pure matter of faith, that reason afforded him no 
 reply. Indeed, he seems to admit the correctness of my 
 views and the force of my argument, and, practically, so 
 far as my purposes are concerned, to give up the whole 
 question when he says: "Without the doctrine of the 
 Incarnation, I entirely agree with you that the Gospels 
 would represent Christ as saying of himself contradictory 
 things." I say that this is giving up the whole question 
 so far as I am concerned, because it plainly and distinctly 
 confesses that my argument admits of but one answer — 
 the doctrine, or dogma, of the Incarnation, which is just 
 what I anticipated ; and that dogma was what I had in 
 my mind when I said I did not care, at least at that time, 
 to discuss the explanatory theories of the Church. And 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 1 65 
 
 now I will state more fully why I have not cared to dis- 
 cuss it. Of course I was perfectly familiar with the doc- 
 trine, but I could not believe it. It is undoubtedly what 
 the Bishop calls it " the cardinal doctrine of Christianity," 
 the most important dogma of the Church, but my mind 
 refuses to believe that God would have come on earth to 
 found a Church, and omit to announce its cardinal doctrine, 
 its fundamental article of faith ; yet it seems to have been 
 unknown to Jesus. 
 
 I am aware that the first and third Gospels contain cer- 
 tain statements as to the conception of Jesus by Mary, 
 though the statements by no means agree ; but even there 
 it is not intimated that he ever heard of the stories. 
 
 According to Matthew, Joseph being espoused to Mary 
 found her to be with child. Not liking that, but being a 
 just man, he was disposed to put her away privily. But 
 he had a dream, and was informed by an angel, while he 
 slept, that Mary was with child by the Holy Ghost alone. 
 
 According to Luke, the angel appeared to Mary, and 
 not in a dream, and before she had conceived, and told 
 her what was to come to pass. No notice, according to 
 this account, seems to have been given to Joseph, who 
 apparently thought it was all right. 
 
 The second and fourth Gospels say nothing on the sub- 
 ject. As it was a matter of such vital importance, it seems 
 strange that Mark and John should not also have at least 
 mentioned it, even if they did not enter into details ; for, 
 since it is frequently urged that the discrepancies of the 
 Gospels are valuable as showing the absence of collusion, 
 they probably did not know that Matthew and Luke had 
 told the story, even in such contradictory terms. 
 
 Now when I reflect that the entire evidence to estab- 
 lish this stupendous miracle is a dream of the husband 
 
1 66 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 after he had discovered his wife's condition, according to 
 Matthew ; or a prophetic vision of Mary in which the 
 wonderful event was foretold ; and the subsequent inter- 
 view with her cousin Elizabeth, according to Luke, noth- 
 ing being said by this last writer about what Joseph 
 thought, or said, or did ; that the other evangelists make 
 no allusion to it, either not knowing of it, or consider- 
 ing it not worth mentioning, though they reproduce many 
 less important matters ; that Jesus himself, so far as I can 
 discover, never made the slightest allusion to the miracu- 
 lous circumstances of his birth, and never announced the 
 doctrine, or fact, of the Incarnation ; and that that doc- 
 trine — Incarnation — is common to nearly all the Eastern 
 religions ; I can but think that all this is an exceedingly 
 small foundation upon which to build so large a creed ; 
 and must conclude that the dogma was an afterthought, 
 for the purpose of reconciling, as I have already said, those 
 very contradictions. And the Bishop's argument con- 
 firms my belief. It is ingenious, and shows exactly how 
 the theory of the Incarnation, and the sub-theories, if I 
 may so speak, of two natures, two wills, etc., originated ; 
 but nowhere does he show that the fact or the doctrine 
 was announced or taught by Jesus ; nor that Jesus ever 
 taught that he sometimes spoke as God and sometimes as 
 man. And if Jesus had so taught, and had specified which 
 was which, instead of leaving it for his Church to find out, 
 in after ages, by induction and other uncertain methods, 
 it would have saved a great deal of trouble. The Bishop 
 merely shows that the contradictions I point out can be 
 explained in no other way ; that this theory, as he claims, 
 explains them fully ; and that therefore this theory must 
 be true. That because the body of an ordinary mortal 
 contains a soul which is a separate entity, therefore there 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 1 67 
 
 is no reason why Jesus' body, in addition to its soul, 
 should not have contained a God also. To me this looks 
 lik a non-seqiiitiir , for the fact that all men have only two 
 entities (body and soul) is rather an argument against any 
 one man's having had three. And it suggests another 
 difficulty in the way of' my accepting the theory of the 
 Incarnation, which is this : If, as the Bishop says, Jesus' 
 body and soul were purely human, and these two were 
 united with his Godhood, when he died, and rose from 
 the dead, and ascended into heaven, what became of the 
 soul? If the soul was like what the Church teaches us to 
 believe of the usual human soul, it was inherently immor- 
 tal : therefore the soul of Jesus, distinct from his God- 
 hood, must either have been stripped of its immortality 
 and annihilated, or must be existing still. If the soul can 
 be so annihilated, we lose the assurance of immortality, 
 for what has been done once may be done again, and im- 
 mortality, instead of being a quality of the soul, is simply 
 a revocable permission of the Deity ; if still existing, it 
 must exist as a part of God, or as distinct from Him : if 
 distinct from Him, then there must be two Jesuses in 
 heaven, Jesus the soul, and Jesus the God ; if not distinct, 
 if it is still a part of Him, then God the Son differs from 
 God the Father and God the Holy Ghost in possessing, in 
 addition to his eternal God-Spirit, an everlasting human 
 soul. 
 
 I therefore think that the theory explains by asking us 
 to throw aside experience and reject reason, and on 
 no better grounds than the necessities of the Church. 
 
 The Bishop defines it, explains it, urges its reasonable- 
 ness, pleads its necessity ; but he fails to establish it either 
 as a revelation, or as one of Jesus' original teachings. 
 The most that can be said for it is that it is a deduction and 
 
1 68 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 has been voted to be true. This voting is a great thing — 
 for the Church ; it settles all difficulties satisfactorily — 
 to the faithful ; but my views of church-established dogmas 
 have been already fully given, with my reasons. Hence 
 I must continue to think that this " cardinal doctrine " 
 rests, as before said, on nothing more substantial than the 
 exigencies of the Church, and that it was never imagined, 
 because not needed, until long after Jesus had passed 
 away. 
 
 And another reason why I did not, and do not, care to 
 argue it, is that, until the verity of the New Testament is es- 
 tablished ; until it is shown to be a divinely inspired record ; 
 until the divinity of Jesus is proven, or, at least, rendered 
 probable, it were a waste of time to discuss what may, or 
 may not, be logically deducible from its, or his, teachings. 
 
 At the close of my opening argument I said : " If Jesus 
 were God, and his disciples knew it, it seems strange that 
 they never worshipped him as such, and I know of no 
 passage of Scripture that shows that they ever worshipped 
 him as God, or that he ever desired, expected, or received 
 divine honors." This the Bishop attempts to disprove. 
 Let us see with what success. 
 
 He quotes a number of texts of the class which I have 
 to some extent discussed, in which Jesus is made to 
 appear as claiming to be the son of God, and even to 
 possess divine attributes and powers. These are some of 
 the contradictory texts to which I have applied the doc- 
 trine of admissions and representations some time since. 
 But even these do not say that he either " desired, ex- 
 pected, or received divine honors." The Bishop uses 
 them to make deductions from. I think so important a 
 matter, had it been true, would have been so written 
 down, not inferentially, but distinctly. And the undis- 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 1 69 
 
 puted facts all show that I am right ; and that during his 
 life Jesus walked, talked, eat, drank, slept, rejoiced, and 
 grieved with his disciples, as one of them, though their 
 recognized chief ; and that he received no more con- 
 sideration from them than any other teacher believed to 
 be inspired would have received from his disciples and 
 followers ; and Jesus nowhere tells them to treat him 
 differently. 
 
 Let us examine the texts. 
 
 The first is John v., 23. "That all men may honor the 
 Son even as they honor the Father." The Bishop leaves 
 out the word " even," but with or without this word the 
 text clearly means nothing more or less than that inas- 
 much as men honor the Father, therefore they should 
 also honor the Son ; but not necessarily worship him, 
 not, at least, in the same manner as God. This is made 
 clear by the 41st verse of the same chapter, where he 
 says, " I receive not honor from men." Here the com- 
 plaint is not that he is not worshipped, but not honored, 
 — not believed, — as the following verses show. And it 
 makes Jesus himself a witness to the fact that he was not, 
 at that very time, receiving divine worship. I hardly think 
 the Bishop's first quotation a happy one for the Church. 
 
 The next, John iii., 18 and 36, are simply on the im- 
 portance of belief in the Son of God, a subject which has 
 already received full consideration ; they make no refer- 
 ence to worship, or divine honors, desired or extended, 
 during his life. 
 
 The next, John ix., 35, 37, 38, is the case of the blind 
 man whose sight is restored. "Jesus said to him, Dost 
 thou believe in the Son of God ? . . . and he said I 
 believe, Lord. And falling down he adored him." The 
 Protestant Bible says simply, " and he worshipped him." 
 
170 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 And is this something on which to build an argument 
 that Jesus sought or received divine honors? If the 
 account be true, it is only an instance of an ignorant and 
 superstitious man, who, being relieved from a terrible 
 infirmity, very naturally is disposed to worship the one 
 who cured him. Such adoration is common in the East 
 to the present day, where a little " baksheesh " judiciously 
 distributed will bring titles, and methods of expression 
 of gratitude, which to the Occidental ear and eye are 
 remarkably near to the ordinary idea of divine worship, 
 but it does not really mean that he who gives it thinks he 
 is worshipping his God, or that he worships in the same 
 way as he would his God. Nor does the text indicate 
 that Jesus expected or desired this man to do even what 
 he did ; and if he had supposed that the man was giving 
 him that adoration which belongs to God alone, Jesus 
 would most certainly have rebuked him, as when he 
 remonstrated with the man who merely called him " Good 
 Master," Mark x., 18. And that Jesus spoke of himself 
 figuratively as the son of God in this case, as well as in 
 all others, is shown by what the same writer represents 
 him as saying, just before his ascension : " I ascend unto 
 my Father, and your Father ; and to my God and your 
 God " (John xx, 17). Here Jesus, after the resurrection, 
 is represented as stating the relations between God and 
 himself to be the same as between God and his (Jesus') dis- 
 ciples. And let me, parenthetically, in this connection, 
 quote what Peter said of him (Acts ii., 22) : " Ye men of 
 Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man 
 approved of God among you by miracles and wonders 
 and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as 
 ye yourselves also know." Peter, at that time, although 
 the infallible head of an infallible Church (if the doctrine 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. lyl 
 
 of infallibility is not a new one), did not apparently haVe 
 any knowledge of, or, if he did, much respect for, the 
 " cardinal doctrine " of the Incarnation. A man approved 
 of God by the miracles which God worked through him I 
 And this after his death and resurrection. 
 
 But to resume. All the other texts quoted by the 
 Bishop have absolutely nothing to do with the assertion 
 which he is endeavoring to combat, unless it be Matt, 
 xxviii., 17, and John xx., 28. The other texts, if they 
 show anything, only show, like those already referred to, 
 that he claimed divine powers and attributes, and detailed 
 the advantages of believing in him, but again nothing is 
 said as to desiring or receiving divine honors. And this 
 is a pregnant point ; it passes belief that if Jesus went 
 about telling the multitude, including his disciples, that 
 he was master of life and death, and could determine the 
 future status of each soul, and was believed, he would 
 have been treated like any other man who was a teacher, 
 a leader, a prophet. 
 
 Now for the two texts which I have just referred to. 
 They are : " And when they saw him they worshipped 
 him; but some doubted," Matt, xxviii., 17 (though the 
 Bishop omits these last three words " but some doubted ") ; 
 and the text which is evidently considered the crowning 
 quotation of all, for it is given in Latin, Greek, and Eng- 
 lish: "And Thomas answered and said unto him, My 
 Lord and my God," John xx., 28. These two instances 
 are said to have occurred after the resurrection, and hence 
 are hardly evidence of what the disciples did before, while 
 Jesus was living with them, which is the period I wrote 
 about. Jesus living is, to a certain extent, an historical 
 personage ; Jesus resurrected is utterly and entirely scrip- 
 tural, and his resurrection is attested only by the Gospels, 
 
172 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 or, to anticipate a quotation which I shall shortly make in 
 this connection, the only testimony of his resurrection is 
 the testimony of the only persons on earth whose interest 
 it was to misrepresent the facts. But taking the account 
 as it is, these texts support my view. My assertion was 
 that the disciples never worshipped him, meaning, as the 
 context clearly shows, during his life, and the Bishop's 
 reply is, in substance, that after his death, on one occasion, 
 some of the disciples worshipped his apparition (because 
 some doubted), and that on another occasion his appari- 
 tion was worshipped by one disciple, Thomas. Or, in 
 plain English, if there be any truth in the story, which, as 
 we shall see presently, is, to put it mildly, very doubtful, 
 these men, knowing that Jesus was dead, when they saw 
 him before them thought they saw a ghost, and did what 
 they seemingly never did before, worshipped — frightened, 
 perhaps, into prayer. 
 
 And another conclusion is to be drawn from these ac- 
 counts, in favor of my views. If the disciples had wor- 
 shipped Jesus during his life, had considered him as God, 
 they would not have been so very doubtful about the 
 result of the crucifixion, would not have found it so hard 
 to believe that their immortal and eternal God still lived. 
 
 Upon the subject of the resurrection I quote, at length, 
 and without comment, from the admirable work of Vis- 
 count Amberly, from which I have derived so much 
 valuable aid already, p. 273. 
 
 4 ' Comparing now the several narratives of the resurrection with one another, 
 we find this general result. In Mark Jesus is said to have appeared three 
 times : 
 
 1. To Mary Magdalene. 
 
 2. To two disciples. 
 
 3. To the disciples at meat. 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 1 73 
 
 " Two such appearances only are recorded in Matthew : 
 
 1. To the women. 
 
 2. To the eleven in Galilee. 
 " In Luke he appears : 
 
 1. To Cleopas and his companions. 
 
 2. To Peter. 
 
 3. To the eleven and others. 
 
 " In the two last chapters of John the appearances amount to four : 
 
 1. To Mary Magdalene. 
 
 2. To the disciples without Thomas. 
 
 3. To the disciples with Thomas. 
 
 4. To several disciples on the Tiberias Lake. 
 " Paul extends them to six : 
 
 1. To Peter. 
 
 2. To the twelve. 
 
 3. To more than 500. 
 
 4. To James. 
 
 5. To all the apostles. 
 
 6. To Paul. 
 
 " Upon this most momentous question, then, every one of the Christian 
 writers is at variance with every other. Nor is this all, for two of the num- 
 ber bring the earthly career of Jesus to its final close in a manner so extra- 
 ordinary that we cannot imagine the occurrence of such an event, of necessity 
 so notorious and impressive, to have been believed by the other biographers, 
 and yet to have been passed over by them without a word of notice or 
 allusion. Can it be for a moment supposed that two out of the four Evan- 
 gelists had heard of the ascension of Christ — that the most wonderful termi- 
 nation of a wonderful life — and either forgot to mention or deliberately 
 omitted it ? And may it not be assumed that Paul, while detailing the 
 several occasions in which Christ had been seen after his crucifixion, must 
 needs, had he known of it, have included this, perhaps the most striking 
 of all, in his list ? " 
 
 I also submit the following from Doubts of Infidels, by 
 LeBrun, being a letter addressed to the clergy by " a weak 
 Christian." I quote the conclusion, as to the Resurrection : 
 
 " The malevolence and incredulity of our adversaries the unbelievers are 
 visible in nothing so much as the criticism they make on the resurrection. 
 They complain, and with some degree of reason, that this most miraculous 
 event, instead of possessing that extraordinary and uncommonly clear evi- 
 
174 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 dence which its incredible nature requires, bears, on the contrary, every 
 mark of a forgery. Instead of reappearing to all the world, that the world 
 might believe, he is said to have appeared to his disciples, who were the 
 only men on earth whose evidence could be exceptionable in this case, — men 
 who, already engaged in the attempt of forming a sect or party, could be by 
 no means disinterested in their report, — the only men on earth who could be 
 suspected of forgery in the present instance. These are the men, say our 
 enemies, who were to preach Jesus Christ to the world, and to find arguments 
 to support the fact ; which Christ might have inconlrovertibly established. 
 But the generation was unworthy of that condescension, we reply, which 
 they wickedly paraphrase thus : ' God, who desireth not the death of a sin- 
 ner, left them in their sins that they might die. God who spared not His 
 beloved son, but gave him to the bitterness of death that sinners might be 
 saved, chose, nevertheless, to deprive mankind of the proper evidence of the 
 resurrection, because the Jews of that age were sinners.' Mercy is the 
 character of the first act ; but how shall we characterize the latter ? Is the 
 God of the Christians inconsistent with himself ? Did the great and merci- 
 ful Being act thus? Did He inspire four men to write accounts of the 
 resurrection which disagree in almost every circumstance ? Does His divine 
 truth bear the semblance of forgery and invention that we may show our 
 faith and reliance on Him by making sacrifice of our reason, and believing 
 by an act, not of the understanding, but of the will? But why, O thou 
 Supreme Governor ! why hast Thou given us reason if reason be the accursed 
 thing which we ought to cast from us? Or, rather, is not reason the first 
 and only revelation from Thee ? And are not those enthusiasts accursed, 
 who, promulgating vile systems unworthy of Thee, find their purposes are 
 not to be accomplished till they have first deprived us of Thy best gift ? 
 These, Reverend Sirs, are the reflections of infidels and unbelievers, — re- 
 flections which our truly Christian zeal and detestation would have prevented 
 us from repeating, if we had not been supported by a pleasing anticipation 
 of the glorious and satisfactory manner in which they will be answered, ex- 
 plained, and overthrown by you to the entire satisfaction and conviction of 
 us weak Christians. Not by persecutions, pains, penalties, fines, and im- 
 prisonment ; otherwise the unbelievers will then sneeringly say that you are 
 incapable of answering them, or, what is more unfortunate, that they are 
 really unanswerable." 
 
 I resume the argument. 
 
 The Bishop says that my " next argument against the 
 divinity of Christ is — that His contemporaries did not 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 1 75 
 
 believe him to be God. If you say that some of Christ's con- 
 temporaries did not believe in Him, I consent. But if you 
 mean to assert that all of Christ's contemporaries did not 
 believe in Him, you are asserting what is absolutely false." 
 
 I am afraid the Bishop let his indignation get the better 
 of him at this point, and inadvertently fell into the old 
 orthodox habit of eking out argument by epithets. I 
 therefore overlook the outburst ; I do not think he meant 
 to be — what he was. 
 
 The idea which I desired to convey is this. In my 
 opinion, no one of whom we have any record ever be- 
 lieved Jesus to be God Almighty, or the offspring of 
 God Almighty, during his (Jesus') life. And I cited 
 Luke hi., 23 : " And Jesus himself began to be about 
 thirty years of age, being (as was supposed) the son of 
 Joseph, which was the son of Heli." Luke does not limit 
 or qualify his remark. He does not say, " as was sup- 
 posed by some," but he makes the broad assertion that it 
 " was supposed " that he was the son of Joseph. And 
 certainly if it was " supposed " that he was the son of Joseph, 
 it was not supposed that he was the son of God, literally, 
 or that he was God. Then I cited various texts, which I 
 need not here repeat, to show that the villagers thought 
 he was the natural, legitimate son of Joseph and Mary. 
 And I have never heard of, nor has the Bishop pointed 
 out, any of them who thought otherwise. I also alluded 
 to the fact that his very " brothers " did not believe in 
 him, and considering that " brothers " meant " brothers," 
 and not merely " relatives," from the fact that they evi- 
 dently lived in the house with him (for he speaks of 
 being without honor in his own house), thought it strange 
 they should not believe notwithstanding what their 
 mother (step-mother, possibly) must have told them 
 
176 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 about his miraculous origin. I supposed that she must 
 have told them because her condition was such, at the 
 time Joseph married her, that it had to be accounted for, 
 and if they were older brothers, by a former wife (as 
 some think), the explanation, in justice to their father 
 and his bride, should have been extended to them ; and 
 if they were the sons of Joseph by Mary after Jesus' birth, 
 which is very possible, not to say probable, 1 it seemed to me 
 but natural that their mother, if she so believed, should 
 have told them that their eldest brother was their God, 
 and, in support of her somewhat startling assertion, have at 
 least alluded to the facts of the Incarnation. 
 
 These inferences seem to me to be not only justifiable, 
 but almost necessary ; and if they are correct, then my 
 statement, which seems to have so excited the good 
 Bishop, must be true. And what does he advance to dis- 
 prove it ? He admits that for the first thirty years of his life 
 " little did the ignorant villagers of boorish Galilee dream 
 of the wonderful treasure hidden away in Nazareth. He 
 concealed his divinity, and he appeared to their eyes as 
 only the carpenter's son " ; so that if any one knew better 
 he must have been taken into his confidence by Jesus 
 before he was ready to act ; and I am referred to no such 
 confidant. 
 
 1 Matthew i., 25, says, speaking of Joseph remaining away from Mary at 
 first, " And knew her not until she had brought forth her first-born son," 
 thereby implying that after the birth of Jesus she became the wife, accord- 
 ing to the flesh, of Joseph and bore him other sons ; and Luke also says, ii., 
 7, "and brought forth her first-born son" (and it would seem, from the 
 text in Matthew, whether she again became a mother or not, that she lost 
 her right to the continued title of "virgin") ; and I cannot see why there 
 should be such an impossibility in her having had other children, or how 
 such fact, if it existed, could detract from her honor ; in fact to be a barren 
 wife was not formerly considered to be an honor. 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 1 77 
 
 At this point the Bishop utterly begs the question, and 
 proceeds to cite texts to show that Jesus claimed to be the 
 son of God, a point which I have already discussed, but 
 he neglects to show who, if any, believed him. Then he 
 gets back to the question by saying, " that the disci- 
 ples of Christ fully admitted his claim to be the son of 
 God is beyond all doubt — as I have shown. Now they 
 surely were his contemporaries." They certainly were 
 his contemporaries, and had better opportunities to judge 
 of him than had others. The difficulty is not there. It 
 is in the Bishop's thinking that he has proved that they 
 believed him to have been the physical son of God, 
 and God himself, while I think he has proved nothing 
 of the sort. This has been discussed while arguing 
 the question of Jesus' receiving divine honors on earth; 
 and we there saw that even after it was " consum- 
 mated " some of the disciples doubted. The texts now 
 cited do not justify the Bishop's assertion, nor do I 
 find him more fortunate in his reference to the " legal 
 proceedings of two courts of justice " : for while he uses 
 them to show that Jesus claimed to be the son of God, 
 the facts cited seem to establish the point that nobody 
 believed him ; that, on the contrary, they thought him 
 guilty of blasphemy. Then after stating that the legal 
 accusation brought against him was that he claimed 
 to be the son of God, he adds : " your [my] training 
 as a lawyer will doubtless teach you that the legal pro- 
 ceedings of two courts of justice are certainly ample 
 proof that the contemporaries of Christ knew that he 
 claimed to be the son of God." 
 
 My training as a lawyer shows me two difficulties 
 here which the Bishop's training as a priest caused him to 
 overlook. One is that before the record of a court is 
 
178 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 proof of anything, it must be established as a record — 
 not as a report made by some unknown, or unauthorized, 
 person, but as the official record, so recognized by the 
 judge, and properly authenticated ; and as the only record 
 of the alleged proceedings is the account given by the 
 evangelists, the trustworthiness of which account I am 
 attacking, the " proceedings " in the form in which they 
 are presented do not possess any extraordinary degree 
 of value in my eyes ; they have yet to be established. 
 
 The other difficulty is that he produces these proceed- 
 ings to show that the contemporaries of Jesus knew that 
 he claimed to be the son of God, while the point which 
 he was trying to combat, at this time, is not that they 
 did not know that he so claimed, but that, even if he did, 
 they did not believe him. The point is (and I am sur- 
 prised that the Bishop forgot it, for it seems to have 
 annoyed him more than any other), did his contem- 
 poraries believe in him ? And these " proceedings," if the 
 record were established and admitted in evidence, would 
 be my witness, not the Church's, on this point. It is true 
 that I elsewhere maintain that Jesus did not claim to be 
 God, nor the son, in the sense of offspring, of God ; and 
 these proceedings do not show the contrary even of that. 
 If admitted, they would only show that he claimed to be, 
 not God, but the son of God, whether figuratively or 
 literally they do not say, leaving that point to be deter- 
 mined by other evidence. 
 
 I fear the Bishop may be correct in accusing me of 
 inaccurate use of Roman Catholic technology in speak- 
 ing of the Immaculate Conception. But what I meant 
 was the immaculate conception by the Virgin Mary of 
 Jesus — not the immaculate conception of the Virgin 
 Mary : the old, original, not the recent, one. I trust my 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. IJQ 
 
 " medley," though I think it was more seeming than real, 
 is cleared up. 
 
 I have already answered the Bishop's question as to 
 why Mary should have told the brethren of Jesus about 
 the wonders of his birth, and I have given some authority 
 for supposing them to be the sons of Mary. The Bishop's 
 attention had not, at the time he wrote his argument, 
 been called to the statements of Matthew and Luke as to 
 Jesus being her first-born son : he, as a learned priest, 
 undoubtedly knew of the texts, and my not having called 
 his attention to them could only have affected the argu- 
 ment by causing him to suppose that I did not know of 
 them, and that as I had not cited them he need not 
 answer them ; but if I had, I suppose his reply would 
 have been the same : " That the ever blessed Mary was 
 a Virgin, having no other child than the miraculously 
 born Jesus, has been the constant teaching of all Chris- 
 tians from the commencement." This either proves 
 nothing or proves too much. The miraculous birth of 
 Gautama-Buddha, and his Incarnation, have been con- 
 stantly taught from centuries before the birth of Jesus until 
 now, and are believed by priests so highly educated and 
 so intelligent that very few Christian missionaries can cope 
 with them in argument. But does that prove the story 
 true? If it does in the one case, why not in the other? 
 
 He says, " the title of ' the Virgin ' has been given 
 her in all ages ; the writings of all history are here to 
 prove this." Can we find her so called by others than 
 Christian writers? Did they know more about it than 
 we do? Is not all they know from the Bible, and the 
 Church, and does their calling her so prove any more than 
 the Bible or the Church does? Does it add any force 
 whatever to the argument ? 
 
180 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 As to the argument that Jesus' " brothers " were not 
 his brothers, but more distant relatives, I have only this 
 to say. In any view of the word, the use made of it in this 
 place, and in this way, indicates that it was intended to 
 convey the idea of blood relations who lived with him, and 
 who went about as companions of his mother ; and speak- 
 ing of brothers and sisters as a means of identification (are 
 not his brothers so and so, and his father and mother 
 Joseph and Mary, and do we not know them, and his sisters), 
 and the surprise implied in the statement that they did 
 not believe in him either (or if not surprise, the complaint), 
 would show that the word was more probably used in its 
 nearer, rather than in its remoter sense. Its being used 
 in a remoter sense seems to me to have no more authority 
 in this connection than the other view, if so much ; but it 
 has the advantage of explaining away a very ugly diffi- 
 culty as to Mary's continued virginity ; and that is the 
 only advantage it has ; for relatives as intimate with the 
 family, and as much cherished as they evidently were, 
 would answer the other purposes of my argument just as 
 well as if they had been real brothers and sisters. 
 
 Now, as to his mother's belief, I do not care to add 
 much to what I have already said. I have expressed 
 myself very moderately. I have not said it was positive, 
 I only said the " probabilities are strong." I have stated 
 the facts and drawn my deductions. The Bishop thinks 
 it but natural that Mary, " not knowing all the circum- 
 stances as he does," should wish to speak to him and 
 should not hesitate to interrupt him when he was preach- 
 ing. I am again constrained to differ from him. I think 
 that if she believed her son to be God Almighty — her own 
 Creator, since he made all things — she would have taken it 
 for granted that he knew what he was doing, and would 
 
THE TR UTH OF DOGMA TIC CHRIS TIA NITY. 1 8 1 
 
 not have attempted to interfere with him in any manner. 
 Nor would she, in my opinion, if she did undertake to 
 interrupt her God while he was preaching, have taken his 
 unbelieving "relatives" with her. Under such a belief 
 the whole transaction would have been very singular, very 
 unnatural, very improbable. But when we consider that 
 the Pharisees were taking counsel how they might destroy 
 him (Matt, xii., 14), and he was therefore making enemies 
 as well as friends, the enemies being by far the more 
 powerful ; when we remember that his friends, just before, 
 were out seeking to " lay hold on him," saying, " He is 
 beside himself" (Mark hi., 21), the conclusion seems well- 
 nieh irresistible that his mother and brothers called him 
 to them for the purpose of checking him in a course which 
 they feared would, as it did, result in his destruction. 
 And if this view be correct, — and I see no escape from it, 
 — his mother, not probably, but surely, did not believe he 
 was her God. 1 
 
 I must notice, very briefly, some other points made by 
 the Bishop. He considers the Angel's visitation to Mary 
 as evidence of Mary's belief in her son as God, gravely 
 asserting that " She certainly could not doubt an Angel's 
 word." I trust I may be pardoned for suggesting that 
 Mary herself was to herself better authority as to this 
 particular matter than even an Archangel ; and as my 
 argument, as a whole, is intended throughout to disprove 
 that, among other myths, I hardly think my mind, " accus- 
 tomed to reasoning," would have laid much stress on it 
 even if it had been new to me. Pretty much the same 
 story is told in too many religions, very much older than 
 the Christian, for it to have any very wonderfully con- 
 
 1 See also Luke ii., 46-50, where, when Jesus spoke to them about his 
 " Father's business," they did not understand what he meant. 
 
1 82 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 vincing powers. The Bishop has fallen into an error 
 common with the clergy. I attack a certain* doctrine 
 founded on a Biblical story, and endeavor to show from 
 the innate defects of the doctrine, and the palpable incon- 
 sistencies and absurdities of the story, that the doctrine 
 cannot be true, and he cites to me the disputed story as 
 sufficient evidence to establish the doubted doctrine. 
 Verily, it looks as if, to enter the kingdom of Heaven 
 through the door of the Church, it is necessary to become 
 as a little child, not only in faith, but in argument. 
 
 When I said that I did not believe that Jesus was God, 
 nor the son, in the sense of offspring, of God, it was, of 
 course, included that I did not believe in the Incarnation, 
 or any of the myths which are supposed to sustain that 
 theory. And I think there is enough in the Bible in the 
 way of contradictions and absurdities to prove my view 
 correct ; and when I finish my comments on the Bishop's 
 argument I shall point out some of them under Prop. VL 
 
 As to the wonderful prophecy ascribed to the Virgin 
 Mary, contained in her little speech to Elizabeth, and its 
 fulfilment ; if the Bishop can derive any comfort from its 
 being believed, and therefore fulfilled, by those who have 
 never known any better, I am not disposed to interfere 
 with him. Only I do not think he ought to adduce it as 
 evidence of anything except the wonderful character of 
 Christian faith that halts at nothing — not even the sacri- 
 fice of the intellect. 
 
 The Bishop is quite indignant and somewhat eloquent 
 at my saying that Mary's presence at the cross was 
 " natural without its being necessary to suppose her a 
 believer in the extraordinary views now held of her son.'* 
 • I think the Bishop misconstrues my meaning. I certainly 
 did not mean to say that it was " natural " for a mother to 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 1 83 
 
 desire to behold the execution of her son ; but only that 
 if she did go to the last act of the tragedy it was a natural 
 result of the disposition of that particular mother to stand 
 by, and be ready to do what she could for her child when 
 he was in his last extremity and deserted by every one else, 
 even at the cost of any personal suffering of her own. 
 The Bishop thinks her presence " offers a strong prob- 
 ability that she with woman's fidelity still clung to him as 
 God, when men had crucified him for asserting it." So he 
 evidently thinks it natural enough for " woman's fidelity " 
 to make her do what would be unnatural if prompted by 
 a mother's love. Does he think it would be less harrow- 
 ing to see her son crucified because he was also her God, 
 than if he had not borne that dual relation to her? Does 
 a doubted God appeal more deeply to a mother's heart 
 than a deserted son ? 
 
 The Bishop is particularly severe on what he calls my 
 "sublimely absurd" definition, and " horrible caricature," 
 of the Incarnation. My remarks were that natural reason 
 " would seem to abhor the idea that the Great Almighty 
 God, Ruler of the entire universe, could or would engen- 
 der a physical son to be borne and born, in a purely human 
 way, by and of a woman, His own handiwork, upon this 
 speck of matter which we call earth." I did not attempt 
 to define ; I merely meant to speak of the event as it must 
 have occurred if it occurred at all. 
 
 The given facts are plainly these. Mary, a woman like 
 other women, became with child ; how, is not now the 
 question. There can be no doubt but that — except the 
 conception — everything went on naturally and in the usual 
 course. The subject is a delicate one, and I do not care 
 to go into details. But even if the conception were mirac- 
 ulous, and I suppose the Incarnation theory claims no 
 
1 84 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 more, all the rest of the affair is to me simply horrible to 
 think about — and even the Book says she had to be puri- 
 fied after it was all over — in connection with my ideal of 
 God. The story is essentially the invention of a coarse, un- 
 sesthetic people. The Greek idea of springing fully grown, 
 armed, and equipped from the brain of Jove, is far more 
 poetic, fully as natural, and certainly far less repulsive. 
 
 The term " physical son " seems to worry the Bishop. 
 If Jesus' body was a human body, it was a physical body, 
 and if he, with such body, was a son, he was a physical son ; 
 and if a physical son of God is an absurdity (which I most 
 devoutly believe), so is the Incarnation, even though it be, 
 as it is, the " fundamental doctrine of all Christianity " — 
 that is, of all dogmatic Christianity. 
 
 I think I have shown incontrovertible reasons for 
 believing that Jesus of Nazareth was not God, nor the 
 son, in the sense of offspring, of God ; that he never 
 claimed to be either, nor did others claim it for him until 
 long after his death ; that during his life he never sought 
 or received divine honors ; that he taught no new ethics ; 
 and that the ethics of many of the " pagans " were superior 
 to those of the Jews, and equal to those of the Church. 
 
 It seems to me that the only point on which there can 
 be any doubt whatever, is whether Jesus ever represented 
 himself as divine, either as God or as the son of God. I 
 think the facts, in view of all the surrounding circum- 
 stances, clearly indicate that he did not ; for myself I feel 
 no doubts on the subject. But had he made such claims, 
 their only effect would have been that we would then be 
 forced to regard him as a fanatic, under an insane delusion, 
 or as an impostor. But, thank God, we are not reduced 
 to that strait : the preponderance of the evidence is over- 
 whelmingly in favor of his innocence, and we can, from 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 1 85 
 
 the depths of our souls, exclaim with Renan {Jesus, a 
 condensation of La Vie de Jesus, by Ernest Renan, Paris, 
 
 1864): 
 
 "En tout cas, Jesus ne sera pas surpasse. Son culte se rajeunira sans 
 cesse ; sa legende provoquera des plus beaux yeux des larmes sans tin ; ses 
 souffrances attendriront les meilleurs coeurs ; tons les siecles proclameront 
 qu'entre les tils des homines, il n'en est pas ne de plus grand que Jesus." 
 
THE ARGUMENT. 
 
 PROPOSITION V. 
 
 V. If Jesus of Nazareth was God, he could not have been 
 betrayed, and Judas Iscariot was but a helpless in- 
 strument in the hands of Omnipotence ; if Judas was 
 a traitor, Jesus was not God ; and the doctrine of free- 
 will does not relieve us from the dilemma, for the 
 attempt to reconcile free-will with the attributes of 
 God results only in attacking His absolute supremacy. 
 
 Although this is the proposition which started our dis- 
 cussion, I think it more naturally comes in at this point. 
 
 I had heard the Bishop preach a sermon in the course 
 of which Judas Iscariot received a very large amount of 
 vituperation, and was held up to the execration of the 
 world ; I subsequently read an article from the Bishop's 
 pen upon the same subject and to the same effect ; I knew 
 that he held and taught the doctrine that Jesus was 
 God ; and the evident inconsistency of the two positions 
 occurred to me so forcibly that I wrote him a paper on 
 the subject, and thus began what turned out to be to me, 
 and I hope to many others, an interesting and instructive 
 argument. 
 
 It may be well to mention, in view of the nature of the 
 discussion, that in the course of the article referred to the 
 Bishop says that the character of Judas is so well in ac- 
 cord with the prevailing ideas of the age, that he would 
 
 186 
 
DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 1 87 
 
 not be surprised to hear of the erection of a statue in his 
 commemoration. 
 
 After commenting very freely on the enormity of the 
 crime of Judas, as viewed from his standpoint, he says, 
 (in the same article) " supposing even that Jesus Christ 
 was not God," and goes on to show how base, even in that 
 view, Judas was. 
 
 If Jesus were a messenger of God — or a prophet — or an 
 inspired teacher — or anything else, except God, he was 
 betrayed by one whom he had selected as a friend, who 
 held a responsible office among the apostles, and who 
 was always treated by Jesus with the utmost kindness. 
 And when Jesus (viewing him as a man only) sought to 
 avoid arrest and punishment and withdrew, with that ob- 
 ject, to a retired place, it was certainly most infamous in 
 Judas to betray him, and especially to betray him in the 
 manner narrated. Therefore, in this view of the matter, 
 I have no hesitation in agreeing with the Bishop, and 
 saying that Judas was, and is, without excuse, and deserves 
 any amount of unpitying abuse and execration. 
 
 But many people think (and I am afraid the Bishop is 
 one of them) that if it is so horrible to betray a mere man, 
 it is much more so to betray one's God. But I think that 
 is because they have not thought very fully on the sub- 
 ject, having found it easier to accept ready-made views, 
 than to think out such things for themselves ; or, more 
 probably still, never having thought about it at all. 
 
 If Jesus was God, as is claimed by most of the Churches, 
 Protestant as well as Roman Catholic, then the entire as- 
 pect of the affair changes. He was then omnipotent and 
 omniscient ; he had come into the world according to 
 his own pre-arranged plan of salvation. By that plan he 
 was to be born of the Virgin Mary ; to be betrayed by a 
 
1 88 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 disciple of his own choosing, chosen for that purpose ; and 
 that disciple was to be Judas, who must have been created 
 for that purpose, and his whole course pre-arranged ; other- 
 wise the scheme of salvation was undertaken and carried 
 on without any clearly arranged plan. 
 
 If this be so, Judas was necessarily a helpless instrument 
 in the hands of God, and could no more control his actions 
 than he could have controlled his birth, or his selection 
 for the purpose ; and in this view he is entitled to our 
 commiseration, our pity, not our abuse. It was punish- 
 ment enough to have to play such a role. 
 
 Is this view correct? Was he a helpless instrument? 
 Could he have controlled his actions? Did he possess 
 free-will? This may, I think, be easily settled. If he was 
 a free agent, capable of doing what he wished, then the 
 whole of God's scheme of salvation was in imminent dan- 
 ger of miscarrying through failure to find a betrayer; for 
 it will hardly be contended that Jesus did not try, by 
 words and example (and if he were God, to try would 
 seem to imply necessarily to succeed), to make all of his 
 disciples good men : which might have resulted, if he were 
 a free agent, in Judas' repentance and failure to betray; 
 and the same difficulty might have occurred with all, es- 
 pecially if they believed their exhorter to be God, and 
 therefore infallibly right, and so a betrayer might have 
 failed him at the last moment. And a betrayer was cer- 
 tainly necessary, for, apart from the fact that I cannot 
 believe that Jesus would descend to any unnecessary 
 clap-trap, Jesus was clearly avoiding arrest. That this 
 is so is shown by his going to a retired place to which 
 Judas had to guide his enemies ; and by his praying that, 
 if possible, the cup might pass from him. 
 
 Being God, and omnipotent, it would be absurd to sup- 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 1 89 
 
 pose that Judas could betray him before he was ready to 
 be betrayed ; and being omniscient, he must have known 
 when he selected him that Judas would betray him. And, 
 being God, he must have been, in the selection of a be- 
 trayer, in the avoiding arrest, and in the betrayal itself, 
 but carrying out the details of his own plan. 
 
 Nor do we get out of this difficulty by saying that 
 Judas was a wicked man, and was chosen for that reason, 
 but could have changed his life, reformed, and refused to 
 betray. He was chosen to betray, if Jesus was an omnipo- 
 tent God, and, being omniscient, he must have chosen 
 him because he knew he could not change. To suppose 
 him able to change is to suppose the creature to be able 
 to thwart the creator ; for, as I have said, if Judas had 
 reformed, so might any other selected in his place, and 
 Jesus be thus left without a betrayer. 
 
 So, either Judas was restrained by omnipotent power 
 from being a better man, and forced to do as he did, and 
 hence not a free-agent ; and being created, as he was, by 
 an omnipotent power, which must have foreseen what he 
 was to be selected to do, he is elevated from a merely base 
 man to be one of the essential instruments of salvation; 
 or, events can happen otherwise than as God wills, and 
 any of His schemes (for this is said to be His most 
 glorious) may be thwarted by His own creatures, who by 
 an inexplicable contradiction are predestined free agents ! 
 
 And this is not an attempt to measure the ways of God 
 by human reason in any offensive sense. If there is any- 
 thing which makes us " in the image of God, " it is the gift 
 of reason. As I have more than once said, all that is 
 above and beyond our reason is proper subject-matter for 
 faith ; but that which is below our reason must be utterly 
 unworthy of God. That He should be omnipotent and 
 
190 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 omniscient — that He should exist at all — is beyond our 
 comprehension, and therefore may be believed, and cannot 
 be disproved ; but that, being all-powerful and all-knowing, 
 events can happen which He did not wish, and did not 
 foresee, is too palpable a contradiction, even to our limited 
 apprehensions, not to be rejected as absurd. 
 
 I have heard but one answer: "The subject is too 
 sacred for discussion. " If this be so, as so many good 
 people maintain ; if we must yield our reason to the dic- 
 tum of the Church ; if belief in such absurdities be neces- 
 sary to salvation, I can well understand why one must 
 become as a little child to enter the kingdom of heaven. 
 
 At this point occur the remarks which brought on the 
 discussion of dogmas and councils, and which being given 
 there need not be repeated here. (See Prop. III.) 
 
 To return to Judas. What I have written seems to me 
 to indicate, not that Judas was a good man, or deserving 
 of eulogy or marble ; but that of two things one. Either 
 he was a wicked wretch, as he is so often described, in 
 which case Jesus must have been man, and man only, 
 since " to betray " carries with it necessarily the idea of 
 an attempt on Jesus' part to escape 1 from what he saw was 
 imminent, and being disappointed in his efforts, ideas in- 
 consistent with the very fundamental idea of God ; or, he 
 was merely an instrument in the hands of God ; and 
 whether chosen because he had been created wicked, or 
 created wicked because he was to be chosen, equally 
 entitled to be left to the mercy of his God. 
 
 To which the Bishop replied : 
 
 " The first charge which you make in your document is 
 * Jesus was clearly avoiding arrest. ' I do not know where 
 the grounds for such an accusation can be obtained except 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 191 
 
 from the infidel works of Strauss, Renan, etc. The Gospel 
 accounts tell just the opposite. They tell us that our 
 Divine Saviour frequently foretold that He would be 
 delivered into the hands of His enemies, be scourged, and 
 put to death. He consequently not only expected it, but 
 when Peter, in a moment of mistaken zeal, asserted that 
 such a doom was not to be the fate of his beloved Master, 
 Christ severely rebuked him. When at length the event- 
 ful evening came, instead of flight, all was calm expecta- 
 tion that His hour had arrived. On the day of His arrest 
 He came from Bethany to Jerusalem where He knew that 
 the highest officers of the State were, and that they were 
 seeking an opportunity to arrest Him. Is this the con- 
 duct of a man seeking to avoid arrest ? Calmly He cele- 
 brated the feast of the Paschal Lamb, and while doing so 
 told the Apostles that the hour was at hand when they 
 would all abandon Him (John xvi., 31) ; that Peter would 
 that very night deny Him thrice ; that ' this night ' (hac 
 nocte) the shepherd was to be struck and the sheep dis- 
 persed (Mark xiv.). He appointed Galilee as the place 
 where He would meet them after His resurrection from the 
 dead. Having celebrated the Passover, He retired, know- 
 ing His hour to be at hand, to a place for prayer. The 
 place to which He went was one to which He was accus- 
 tomed to go (Luke xxiii.). 'And Judas also knew the 
 place, because Jesus had often resorted thither with His 
 disciples ' (John xviii.). Does a fugitive from the officers 
 of the law waste valuable hours in prayer? Does he go 
 to the place of his old habitual haunts, and well known to 
 the very leader of the party seeking to arrest him ? 
 
 "The next argument adduced to prove that Jesus 
 avoided arrest is that ' He prayed that if possible the cup 
 might pass away.' But you forget to state that to these 
 
I92 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 words Jesus immediately added the prayer : ' but not what 
 I will, but what Thou wilt.' As the martyr when brought 
 face to face with the gibbet on which his limbs are to be 
 racked, and on which he is to be put to a cruel death, 
 will naturally feel his entire being recoil at the hideous 
 torments prepared for him, so the innocent humanity of 
 Jesus. The hour had come for the fearful torturing and 
 unparalleled humiliations. His highly sensitive body 
 naturally recoiled ; but in adding the grand words of re- 
 signation, 'not my will but Thine be done,' Jesus, like 
 every true martyr, far from seeking to evade, offered him- 
 self to, the awful sacrifice. His prayer, therefore, is only 
 an additional proof that He did not seek to avoid arrest. 
 " You do not acknowledge Jesus to be God. The Catho- 
 lic Church teaches that He was God, ' by whom all things 
 were made, and without Him nothing was made' — St. 
 John. And He — God — 'was made flesh, and dwelt 
 among us.' Either Christ was really God clothed in flesh 
 and blood, or He was merely a man. If He was merely a 
 man, He must be looked upon as one guilty of enormous 
 falsehood. For what more enormous falsehood can be 
 conceived than for a man to claim that he is God ? And 
 this is what Jesus claimed. 'Abraham, your father, re- 
 joiced that he might see my day. He saw it and was 
 glad. And the Jews therefore said unto him : Thou art 
 not yet fifty years, and hast thou seen Abraham ? Jesus 
 said to them : Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham 
 was made, I am ' — John viii. It needs no comment to make 
 it evident that such language could not be used by a mere 
 man without his being guilty of falsehood. Were I to 
 say : Before Christopher Columbus was made, I am, peo- 
 ple would justly pronounce me to be either a knave or a 
 fool. And yet Christopher Columbus has lived only about 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. I93 
 
 three centuries before my time. Abraham had lived 
 nearly two thousand years before the mortal career of 
 Christ. If He was a mere man then He was guilty of an 
 enormous falsehood. But He was not only man, He was 
 the Jehovah — and He calls Himself by that sublime 
 appellation given of Himself by Moses: ' I am who I am.' 
 Therefore before Abraham was made, " I am " ; before 
 the world was made, ' I am' ; for all eternity, ' I am.' 
 
 " In the discussion with the Jews recorded in 10th John, 
 Christ was challenged by them to say who He was. His 
 reply is : ' I and the Father are one.' This raised a storm 
 of abuse from the Jewish audience who accused Christ of 
 uttering blasphemy, and took up stones to hurl at Him. 
 Were you, or any other man, to go out into the streets of 
 one of our large cities, and, gathering around you a mul- 
 titude of people, gravely inform them that you and God 
 the Father are one, they would either justly accuse you 
 of blasphemy and prepare to let fly at you ; or, what is 
 more likely to happen from an American audience, they 
 would unanimously vote you a candidate for the lunatic 
 asylum. 
 
 " Christ, having been arrested, was brought before the 
 High Priest. The High Priest had his legitimate tribunal. 
 He was its presiding judge. In open court, the judge 
 asked Christ if He was the Son of the living God ; Jesus 
 unhesitatingly answers : ' I am ' — (Mark xiv.). The High 
 Priest then immediately adjudged Jesus deserving death. 
 " What further need have we of witnesses? Behold now 
 ye have heard the blasphemy ' — (Mark xiv.). Consequently 
 if Christ were a mere man, then truly He had blasphemed ; 
 if He had blasphemed, then He could legally be con- 
 demned to death. And in reality it was on this charge 
 that Pilate condemned Jesus to death. ' We have a law, 
 
194 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 and according to the law he ought to die, because he 
 made himself the son of God.' Consequently, if you 
 believe that Jesus was merely a man, you must acknowl- 
 edge that the accusation of blasphemy was sustained. If 
 the charge of blasphemy could be sustained, then indeed 
 Jesus had violated a law whose penalty was death, and 
 therefore the death inflicted on Christ was legally a just 
 one There is no half way. Christ either was ' the Word 
 who was with God, and who was God ' — or a mere man. 
 If a mere man, He was guilty of an infinite falsehood in 
 claiming for Himself a divine nature. Consequently, in- 
 stead of being a messenger from God and an inspired 
 prophet, He would have been an impostor. 
 
 " I will now make a few remarks in regard to your views 
 upon Judas, etc. The Holy Bible tells us that God fore- 
 sees all things. You must not, however, confuse ideas. 
 Because things so happen, God foresees them as such ; but 
 not because God foresees them as such do they so happen. 
 His foreseeing them does not influence the event of affairs. 
 Were you, looking from a window of your house, to see a 
 man stealthily creeping over the wall of a yard in order 
 to plunder, you would, unperceived by him, notice his 
 actions and his preparations to steal. But what connec- 
 tion has your seeing all that he is about to do with the 
 bad fellow's actions ? His own bad will is the cause of the 
 action which he is about to do, and not your seeing it. 
 His action comes from his own free-will, not influenced in 
 the slightest by your seeing what he is about to do. You 
 see what he is about to do, because he is actually about 
 to do it. What an absurdity it would be to say that the 
 man in question is about to clamber over the wall and 
 plunder because you look down and perceive what he 
 will do ! And yet it is just such nonsense one is guilty 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. I95 
 
 of in daring to make God's foresight responsible for 
 our actions. God looks upon this world and sees what 
 actions men are about to perform ; and because God 
 sees what I am about to do, therefore, it is said, I am pre- 
 destined to do it ! We indignantly ask : What connection 
 has God's sight of your action with your action ? How 
 is your action influenced by His knowledge? Your action 
 evidently comes from the determination of your own will, 
 and not from the knowledge of God. Because your will 
 has decided upon this action therefore God foresees it ; 
 and it would be the very height of absurdity to assert that 
 you must act thus because God foresees how you will act. 
 Every man is conscious that he has a free-will. That free 
 will is eminently in our own power. Tyrants may bind 
 our limbs, scourge the body, mutilate and defile that 
 body, but never can they make me, against my will, to 
 sin. A stronger man than I might bind rne ; and violently 
 placing a pistol in my hand, force my hand, unable to 
 resist, to fire that pistol and thus slay a man ; but no 
 tribunal, human or divine, would call this action of mine 
 a murder. And why? Because the superior force of 
 another moved my hand, and not my own free-will. 
 Hence we say that there was no such thing as Judas being 
 created and forced to betray Christ. Judas was a man. 
 If a man, then he had a free-will. For who ever heard of 
 a man who had no free-will? If he had a free will, then 
 just as you and I can steal or not, murder or not, blas- 
 pheme God or not, for we have free-wills, so also could 
 Judas. To say that God created Judas without a free- 
 will, is, without a shadow of proof, to declare that Judas 
 was some kind of a nondescript brute, but not a rational 
 being. To say that God created and forced Judas to 
 execute the dirty act, is to make the thrice Holy God as 
 
I96 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 much the really guilty one as the man who would ravish 
 a helpless and resisting virgin. 
 
 "But you object, 'if Judas was a free agent capable 
 of doing what he wished, then the whole of God's 
 scheme of salvation was in imminent danger of miscarry- 
 ing.' You forget. The betrayal of Jesus by Judas did 
 not accomplish our salvation ; nor was it at all necessary 
 to it. How then have we been redeemed ? By the death 
 of Jesus. Will you say that God had only one way by 
 which this sacrifice of Christ might have been accom- 
 plished? Why, a man of ordinary wisdom will find a 
 dozen ways of accomplishing a desired end. You will, 
 doubtless, concede as much to Him who possesses infinite 
 wisdom. A skilful general looking down from a lofty 
 eminence sees the plans, and tricks, and ambuscades which 
 the enemy is preparing. Is it not justly regarded as the 
 very apex of military skill if the general will accomplish 
 the defeat of the enemy by the very plans, tricks, and 
 ambuscades which he had prepared? A skilful pleader 
 considers it the acme of brilliancy if he can take up the 
 very line of his opponent's reasoning, and hurl back argu- 
 ment after argument of it for his opponent's crushing 
 defeat. I trust you will admit as much to Uncreated 
 Wisdom Himself. God has made us all free. I may use 
 that freedom to keep God's commandments ; and I may 
 use it to steal, murder, and violate His law. But God, 
 like the skilful general, takes the very machinations of 
 His enemies and uses them to further His own plans. 
 Hence it is said so often in the Holy Bible, ' omnia serviunt 
 Tibi ' — ' all things serve Thee.' As a skilful physician uses 
 the bloodthirsty leech, ay, even the most deadly poisons, 
 for accomplishing his own charitable purposes— so the 
 infinitely' wise God takes those sinners who, by the act of 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 1 97 
 
 their own free-will have become such, and uses them for 
 attaining His end, the salvation. Judas was called to the 
 glorious dignity of the Apostolate by the same God-man 
 who called Peter, John, and Andrew. Just as I and any 
 other bishop might betray the cause of God, and the fault 
 would be all our own, so Judas was a traitor to the still 
 higher dignity of the apostolate ; and the fault is all his 
 own, and not God's. That God made use of Judas' 
 treacherous act in accomplishing His own designs, we do 
 but see His wisdom herein imitated by the skilful general, 
 wise advocate, and charitable physician. Evidently the 
 infinite wisdom of God had at hand countless ways for 
 bringing about the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, by which alone 
 the world has been redeemed. To say, therefore, that had 
 not Judas sinned, ' God's plan of salvation would have 
 been in imminent danger of miscarrying '—is evidently, on 
 the part of a finite intellect, to forget. This simple ex- 
 position shows that we are not placed in the dilemma of 
 denying either the divinity of Christ, or a free-will to 
 Judas." 
 
 Then follows the Bishop's challenge, in response to my 
 remarks about dogmas, which has already been given 
 (Prop. III.), and which closes his first paper. 
 
 The first point to which the Bishop addresses himself 
 is my statement that " Jesus was clearly avoiding arrest," 
 and he cites me to the Gospel accounts to prove the con- 
 trary. I must confess I hardly expected that what seemed 
 so very obvious a fact would be seriously controverted. 
 I would have supposed that the fact would have been 
 admitted and explained, on the theory of the dual nature, 
 by saying that the God was ready and willing for the sac- 
 rifice, but that the man was weak, and trying to postpone. 
 
I98 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 Be that as it may, however, the very word " betray " tells 
 the whole story whatever the Apostles, and those who 
 may have added to their statements, may have written 
 since the happening of the event. 
 
 The assertion is that Judas betrayed Jesus. Webster s 
 Dictionary (quarto, title " Betray ") gives the definitions, 
 which are sustained by the derivation of the word, by 
 common consent, and, I think, by the sense in which the 
 Bishop uses the word when he attaches guilt to it : 
 
 I. To deliver into the hands of an enemy, by treachery, or fraud, in 
 
 violation of a trust. 
 II. To violate by fraud or unfaithfulness. 
 III. To violate confidence by disclosing a secret, or that which was 
 
 intrusted. 
 IV. To disclose, to permit to appear, what is intended to be kept secret. 
 
 Under these definitions, so far, Judas, if he betrayed Jesus, 
 must have delivered him to his enemies when Jesus trusted 
 that he would not, or there could have been no violation 
 of a trust ; or he must have disclosed that which Jesus 
 desired, or intended, should be kept secret. 
 
 V. To mislead or expose to inconvenience not foreseen. 
 
 If Jesus foresaw (and not to foresee is to be not God), 
 he was not betrayed under this definition. 
 
 VI. To show ; to disclose ; to indicate what is not obvious at first view, 
 or would otherwise be concealed. 
 
 In this sense to betray carries no idea of guilt. 
 
 VII. To fail, or deceive. 
 
 If Judas failed Jesus, Jesus was deceived. Can God be 
 deceived ? If not, then he (if God) was not betrayed under 
 this definition. 
 
 Finally, if the above definition be correct, and Jesus was 
 "betrayed" in that sense, he was avoiding arrest, not 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 1 99 
 
 necessarily flying to remote distances, but going to a place 
 where he thought he would be safe, only to be disappointed 
 through the treachery of Judas ; in which case the portions 
 of the Gospel on which the Bishop relies must be mis- 
 translations, subsequent additions, or otherwise inexact. 
 Or, if they be correct, let us cease saying that Judas 
 " betrayed " Jesus, and seek some other word which will 
 not carry such inconvenient ideas with it. 
 
 It may be claimed, however, and with great truth, as the 
 intention is the essence of a crime, that although Jesus 
 knew what Judas was about to do, and hence was not 
 " betrayed " under the definitions given above, yet if Judas 
 intended to betray, his crime was complete even though 
 foreseen by Jesus. This I admit. But this view strengthens 
 the other branch of the dilemma — that is, that, if Jesus 
 was God, Judas was a mere instrument in the hands of a 
 superior and irresistible power. For, as God is omnipotent 
 and omniscient, it follows, necessarily, that He knew when 
 He selected Judas as His disciple, exactly what he (Judas) 
 would do. And as no one who agrees with the Church, or 
 admires Jesus as I do, would for a moment believe him 
 guilty of employing unnecessary theatrical effects, it must 
 be conclusively presumed that the drama of the betrayal 
 was performed for a purpose, and that purpose a necessary 
 one. And as, surely, God would never have undertaken 
 any scheme unless it was the best possible, and it was 
 evidently a part of his scheme that he should be delivered 
 up by Judas, he would never have adopted a plan which 
 depended on what he foresaw Judas might do, but only 
 on what he knew he would do ; and if he knew he would 
 do it, he knew he could not change, on account of the 
 power of God exerted, directly, or indirectly through the 
 disposition and character which God had created him with, 
 
200 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 on his mind. And Judas must have been a necessary and 
 helpless actor in the drama without reference to his in- 
 dividual thoughts or intentions. 
 
 I cite two passages in point from An Analysis of Reli- 
 gious Belief, by Viscount Amberly, the first from p. 214: 
 
 "The efforts of the Chief Priests to bring about his destruction are de- 
 scribed in two of our Gospels as the direct result of his proceedings about the 
 temple, the impression he had made on the multitude being a further induce- 
 ment (Matt, xi.,18, Lukexix., 48). Aware of the indignation he had excited, 
 Jesus, soon after these events, retired into some private place, known only 
 to his more intimate friends. So, at least, I understand the story of the be- 
 trayal. Either Judas never betrayed him at all, or he was lurking in con- 
 cealment somewhere in the neighborhood of Jerusalem. That the conduct 
 attributed to Judas should be a pure invention appears to me so improbable, 
 more especially when the history of the election of a new apostle is taken into 
 account, that I am forced to choose the latter alternative. The representa- 
 tion of the Gospels that Jesus went on teaching in public to the end of his 
 career, and yet that Judas received a bribe for his betrayal, is self-contradic- 
 tory. The facts appear to be that Jesus ate the Passover at Jerusalem with 
 his disciples, and that immediately after it, conscious of growing danger, he 
 retired to some hidden spot where he had lived before, and where friends 
 alone were admitted to his company. Judas informed the authorities of the 
 temple where this spot was. They thereupon apprehended Jesus, and 
 brought him before the Sanhedrim for trial." 
 
 The second is from p. 259, where, after giving the several 
 and varying accounts of the Last Supper, it is said : 
 
 " The improbability of these stories is obvious. In the three first, Judas 
 is pointed out to all the eleven as a man who is about to give up their leader 
 to punishment, and probable death, yet no step was taken or even suggested, 
 by any of them to either impede the false disciple in his movements, or to 
 save Jesus by flight or concealment. The announcement is taken as quietly 
 as if it were an every-day occurrence that was referred to. 
 
 " John's narrative avoids this difficulty by supposing the intimation that 
 Judas was the man, to be conveyed by a private signal understood only by 
 Peter and the disciple next to Jesus. These two may have felt it necessary to 
 keep the secret, but why could they not understand the words of Jesus to 
 Judas, or why not enquire whether they had reference to his treachery, which 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 201 
 
 had just before been so plainly intimated ? That Jesus, with his keen 
 vision, may have divined the proceedings of Judas, is quite possible ; that he 
 could have spoken of them in this open way without exciting more attention, 
 is hardly credible." 
 
 The Bishop says that in adducing Jesus' prayer that, if 
 possible, the cup might pass from him, as another evidence 
 that he was avoiding arrest, I " forgot to state that to 
 these words Jesus immediately added, ' but not what I 
 will but what thou wilt.' " These added words do not 
 affect the point at issue ; and were not cited because un- 
 necessary to my then purpose. Had I been seeking, at 
 that particular time and in that particular argument, to 
 show that Jesus was not God, those words would have 
 been appropriate (as we have seen when discussing the 
 divinity of Jesus), for they very plainly show that Jesus 
 did not consider himself and God as one, as he uses very 
 different pronouns to distinguish the one from the other, 
 and distinctly asserts that he has one will, and God 
 another, and that they were antagonistic, but that, like 
 the true devotee he was, having but one object in life — 
 to do what his Father wished— (I use the word " Father " 
 in its spiritual application, as I believe Jesus did) — he was 
 ready to submit his will to his God's, and meet a martyr's 
 fate if such were really God's will ; but, at the same time, 
 in the absence of any precise knowledge of what that will 
 was, he would keep out of the way as far as he could : 
 for if he had had precise information as to the fact that 
 it was God's decree that he should suffer as he did (and 
 if he were God he would have known definitely), Jesus 
 was not the man to beg off. 
 
 As to the Bishop's assertion that Jesus was either God, 
 or an impostor, I have already considered the point, and 
 need only say here that the Bishop does not seem to 
 
202 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 realize that there may be a third proposition — he may 
 have had thrust upon him, since his death, honors which 
 he not only never coveted, but which, had he foreseen 
 them, he would have been prompt to reject. 
 
 The next branch of the Bishop's argument may be 
 summarized thus: God foresees things because they so 
 happen, they do not so happen because He foresees them. 
 I must not confuse ideas. If I from my window saw a 
 thief preparing to steal, my seeing would have nothing to 
 do with his theft, and, so, God's seeing, or foreseeing, 
 events has no effect on them. That to suppose otherwise 
 is " nonsense." That all men have free-will, and every 
 man is conscious of it. That Judas was a man and, there- 
 fore, had free-will. That the betrayal was not necessary 
 to our salvation, because Ave are redeemed by the death 
 of Jesus, which God could have brought about in any of a 
 variety of ways. Then follows a comparison of God to a 
 skilful general who uses the machinations of his enemies 
 to forward his own plans ; to a skilful pleader who uses 
 the argument of his opponent for his opponent's defeat. 
 That as the physician will use deadly poisons to accom- 
 plish his charitable purposes, so God uses the wilful sins 
 of men as a means to attain His ends ; and he concludes 
 that therefore it is unnecessary to deny either the divinity 
 of Jesus, or the free-will of Judas. 
 
 Is not this argument a most remarkable one ? Yet it 
 is, I believe, one which all Christian Churchmen use. 
 
 One of the leading objections which I have to dog- 
 matic Christianity is that it tends to humanize God, to 
 deify man ; that it, for that purpose, seizes upon some 
 one attribute, or text, or set of texts, from which to de- 
 duce a creed utterly inconsistent with other attributes, or 
 
. THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 203 
 
 texts, and then strains faith and stifles reason in its efforts 
 to reconcile its own inconsistencies. 
 
 Thus, when the Bishop compares God to the general, 
 the pleader, the physician, is he not humanizing God ? 
 When he says, in substance, that I would not be respon- 
 sible for what I saw from my window, and, similarly, that 
 God is not responsible for what He sees from heaven, is 
 not this still further humanizing Him? bringing Him, by 
 a comparison, down to the level of man ? If he possessed 
 vision and prevision alone, the argument would be good : 
 but to Him are attributed also omniscience and omnipo- 
 tence, and that entirely alters the case. Had I made the 
 thief and given him, by creation, the disposition to do 
 wrong stronger than the disposition to do right, and, in 
 addition, had the power, by the mere exercise of my 
 will, to prevent the theft which I knew he was about to 
 commit, and I did not, by all laws, human and divine, I 
 would be particeps criminis, and as guilty as he ; and, 
 morally, this would be equally true if I had had nothing 
 to do with his character and disposition, but merely saw 
 him about to commit a crime, and could have prevented 
 it by the mere exercise of volition, without danger, 
 trouble, or inconvenience to myself. 
 
 And if the Bishop's simile is a good one, the legitimate 
 conclusion is that God would be also. 
 
 We are taught that God is omnipresent, omnipotent, 
 omniscient; that without Him nothing exists, or can 
 exist; that He created man ; that He made man's soul, 
 man's mind, man's will ; but the Church says He emanci- 
 pated the will, and the Bishop says every man knows it. 
 I think not, and I have given my reasons in full elsewhere, 
 together with the Church's argument (Prop. II.). But, 
 right or wrong, the Church insists that every man has free- 
 
204 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 will, is a free agent, is, in this one particular, independent 
 of his God ; that, by this royal attribute, man can 
 thwart God's plans, grieve God's heart. Is not this ele- 
 vating man at the cost of lowering God ? And, as if this 
 were not enough, we must pull God still farther down to 
 our level, try to make him in our image — an exaggerated 
 man, — attribute to Him anger, hate, jealousy, fickleness, 
 repentance, favoritism, nearly all of the faults and weak- 
 nesses of poor humanity, and seek to justify ourselves by 
 saying, on the authority of the Jewish Bible, that God 
 has so portrayed Himself. 
 
 The Bishop expresses some indignation at the idea that 
 God's foresight should make Him responsible for man's 
 acts (and I had taken no such position, but argued as to 
 all His attributes at once) ; I think I may be pardoned if 
 I feel somewhat indignant at having the crude ideas of a 
 semi-barbarous race, as to the attributes of divinity, of- 
 fered to a comparatively enlightened civilization as the 
 measure of a God. 
 
 And this is why I characterize the argument as remark- 
 able ; for it can never cease to be a matter of surprise to 
 me that the Church will persist in making arguments 
 which, if carried to their logical conclusions, cannot fail to 
 deprive God of His absolute supremacy. 
 
 I give the Bishop's final reply : 
 
 " In your first paper you asserted that ' Jesus was clearly 
 avoiding arrest.' I denied the assertion, and brought the 
 history of Christ's arrest to prove that He did not avoid 
 arrest, but freely permitted it. In your last paper you 
 say: ' I must confess I hardly expected that what seemed 
 so very obvious a fact would be seriously controverted.' 
 This may all be strange to you. But if it is ' so very 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 205 
 
 obvious a fact,' is it not still stranger that the millions of 
 Christians forming the most enlightened peoples that have 
 ever trod the world do now believe, and always have 
 believed, as I do on this subject ? Although it is 'so very 
 obvious a fact,' yet the historical facts in the case establish 
 so unanswerably that Christ did not flee from or shun 
 arrest, but permitted Himself to be given over to the 
 power of His enemies, that you fall back upon a novel 
 line of argument. For you assert that the definition of 
 the word ' betray,' as given by Webster necessarily implies 
 that Christ avoided arrest. Consequently the historical 
 facts bearing on the case are either interpolations, or ' let 
 us cease saying that Judas betrayed Jesus, and seek some 
 other word.' There are many words in language whose 
 definitions necessarily imply correlative ideas. We cannot 
 say that a man is a widower without implying the idea 
 that his wife is dead. If we say of a man that he is a 
 husband, we necessarily imply that he has a wife. We 
 speak of an altar, sacrifice is necessarily implied. Do you 
 wish to say that the idea of avoiding, shunning, and flee- 
 ing from the danger is necessarily implied in the use of 
 the word ' betray ' ? So, even as one speaks to me of a 
 widow, the idea of a husband deceased is necessarily im- 
 plied. It would destroy the definition of ' widow ' were 
 she one whose husband is still living. Do you seriously 
 wish to assert that so soon as one tells me of a betrayal, 
 the idea of a victim avoiding arrest and trying to escape 
 is necessarily implied ? Do you wish to say that we can- 
 not think of a betrayal without at the same time thinking 
 of the victim's avoiding and fleeing the betrayal ? In that 
 case the victim who would be delivered up while asleep 
 or intoxicated would not be betrayed — because it can be 
 established that being under the influence of sleep or 
 
206 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 liquor the victim was not avoiding and fleeing from arrest, 
 and therefore there is no betrayal. Your appeal to Web- 
 ster is particularly unfortunate. First of all there is noth- 
 ing in his definition from top to bottom which makes the 
 idea of the victim's fleeing arrest essentially connected 
 with the notion of betrayal. Secondly, you quote Webster 
 as defining betray to be : ' To deliver into the hands of an 
 enemy . . . in violation of a trust.' In the edition of 
 Webster (unabridged) of 1855 and in the one of 1877 the 
 reading is in 'violation of trust.' There is evidently a 
 great difference between ' violation of trust ' — and ' viola- 
 tion of a trust.' The native-born who would mislead his 
 fatherland, the child who would sell his parent, or the dis- 
 ciple who would deliver his master, would violate trust. 
 For such mutual relations imply trust, though a specific 
 trust has not been confided by one party to the other. 
 
 " And this constituted the act of Judas a betrayal in the 
 dictionary definition of the word. For he being a disci- 
 ple of Jesus was guilty of a 'violation of trust,' to deliver 
 his own master into the hands of his enemies so faithlessly. 
 Hence Webster (edition 1877) sa ys : ' To deliver into the 
 hands of an enemy by treachery or fraud in violation of 
 trust ; to give up treacherously or faithlessly ; — " Jesus said 
 unto them, the Son of Man shall be betrayed into the 
 hands of men." 
 
 " Thus Webster — the very authority to which you ap- 
 peal — from the force of historical facts — quotes, in the mo- 
 ment of defining the requisites to constitute a ' betrayal,' 
 our case of Judas as one having all the elements of a true 
 betrayal. Hence, sir, I said that your reference to 
 Webster s Dictionary is particularly unfortunate for your 
 cause. 
 
 " You have made several quotations from the work of 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 20J 
 
 Viscount Amberly. You speak of it in terms of unquali- 
 fied praise. 
 
 " I do not wish to wound your feelings, but judging from 
 the choice flowers of his work which you have culled and 
 wreathed into your second paper to me, I pronounce it to 
 be an utterly unreliable book — unworthy of a gentleman's 
 consideration. For you quote the Viscount as saying: 
 1 The representation of the Gospel that Jesus went on 
 teaching in public to the very end of his career, and yet 
 that Judas received a bribe for his betrayal, is self-contra- 
 dictory.' 
 
 " The Viscount here garbles the ' representations of the 
 Gospels.' The Gospels represent Jesus as being exceed- 
 ingly popular with the masses of the people. Their love, 
 admiration, and devotion, they frequently expressed. On 
 one occasion, many, very many, of them wished to force 
 Jesus, in spite of Himself, to be their king. 1 The trium- 
 phal entry of Christ into Jerusalem, when they strewed the 
 way with palm branches and their very garments, and made 
 the air resonant with their loud canticles in His honor, 
 proves this. But Jesus, intensely loved by the majority 
 of the people, was intensely hated by the Chief Priests 
 and the generality of the Scribes and Pharisees, whose 
 hypocrisy and other vices He severely rebuked. This 
 being the case, what is more natural than to suppose that 
 if the Chief Priests, etc., attempted to seize upon Jesus 
 while addressing the immense throng that ordinarily 
 listened with intense pleasure to his beautiful discourses, 
 there would be a riot, bloodshed, and finally a failure of 
 
 1 If this be true, then very evidently these people did not look upon Jesus 
 as God, for they sought to honor him, and even such ignorant barbarians 
 could hardly have supposed it would be a promotion to make the God of 
 the Universe the king of a tribe. — W. D. H. 
 
208 , AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 their attempt ? What more natural than their desire to 
 seek some occasion of seizing him by fraud and treachery, 
 and when the crowds of delighted people would not be 
 about? And this is just the account given by the Gos- 
 pels. ' And the Chief Priests and the Scribes sought how 
 they might by some wile lay hold on him and kill him. 
 But they said, Not on the festival day lest there should be 
 a tumult among the people' — Mark xiv. ' Then were 
 gathered together the Chief Priests and ancients of the 
 people into the Court of the High Priest who was called 
 Caiaphas, and they consulted together that by subtilty 
 they might apprehend Jesus and put him to death' — Matt, 
 xxvi. ' And the Chief Priests and the Scribes sought 
 how they might put Jesus to death, but they feared the 
 people. . . . And he [Judas] sought an opportunity to 
 betray him in the absence of the multitude' — Luke xxii. 
 ' And they were glad and covenanted to give him money. 
 And he promised' — Luke xxii. And this account Viscount 
 Amberly calls ' self-contradictory ' ! 
 
 " You again quote Viscount Amberly as saying : ' In the 
 three first [Gospels] Judas is pointed out to all the eleven 
 as a man who is about to give up their master to punish- 
 ment. . . . The announcement is taken as quietly as if it 
 were an every-day occurrence that was referred to.' In this 
 quotation Viscount Amberly asserts, first, that Judas is 
 pointed out to all the eleven as the man about to perpetrate 
 the vile deed ; secondly, this announcement is taken by the 
 rest as if an ordinary occurrence was declared to them. 
 The Gospel account tells us something else altogether. It 
 tells us that Christ said at the Last Supper in the clearest 
 manner that : I st ; He was about to be betrayed : 2d ; that a 
 disciple would do the foul deed. Nowhere, however, does 
 he mention the name of the traitor. He referred in such 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 209 
 
 an obscure way to the person who would betray Him, that 
 while the guilty conscience would make him understand, 
 the others did not perceive to whom Christ had reference. 
 'And while they were eating: Amen, I say to you that 
 one of you is about to betray me. And they being very 
 much troubled began every one to say, Is it I, Lord? 
 But he answering said — He that dippeth his hand in the 
 dish, he shall betray me' — Matt. xxvi. ' And when they 
 were at table and eating, Jesus saith : Amen, I say to you, 
 One of you that eateth with me shall betray me. But 
 they began to be sorrowful, and say to him one by one, 
 Is it I ? Who saith to them : One of the twelve who dippeth 
 his hand with me in the dish shall betray me ' — Mark 
 xiv. ' But yet behold the hand of him who betrayeth 
 me is with me on the table. And they began to inquire 
 among themselves which of them it was that should do 
 this thing ' — Luke xxii. ' Amen, amen, I say to you that 
 one of you shall betray me. The disciples therefore looked 
 upon one another, doubting of whom he spoke. Now 
 there was leaning on Jesus' bosom one of the disciples 
 whom Jesus loved. Simon Peter beckoned therefore to 
 him and said to him, Who is it of whom he speaketh ? He 
 therefore leaning on the breast of Jesus saith to him, 
 Lord, who is it ? And Jesus answered : he it is to whom 
 I shall reach bread dipped. And when he had dipped 
 the bread he gave it to Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon. 
 And after the morsel Satan entered into him, and Jesus 
 said to him : That which thou doest, do quickly. Now no 
 man at table knew he had said this unto him,' etc., — John 
 xiii. 
 
 " I have quoted thus the Gospel account, the mere pe- 
 rusal of which will show the most superficial observer how 
 utterly Viscount Amberly perverts and misstates this scene. 
 
2IO AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 Judas is not, as Viscount Amberly asserts, clearly pointed 
 out to the twelve as the one about to betray Christ. Not 
 only Christ nowhere mentions his name, but the mere fact 
 that each anxiously inquires to find out who was the 
 guilty traitor, is ample refutation of Viscount Amberly's 
 unwarranted assertion that ' Judas was pointed out to 
 all the eleven as the man who is about to give up their 
 master to punishment.' That Peter found it necessary 
 to inquire of John and John had to inquire of Christ Him- 
 self, flings to the ground the brazen assertion of Viscount 
 Amberly. His other charge is equally false: 'The an- 
 nouncement is taken as quietly as if it were an every-day 
 occurrence.' For the Gospels tell us that no sooner did 
 Christ announce that one of them was about to betray 
 Him, than — ' contristati sunt valde ' — and they were 
 saddened extremely! 
 
 " So much for the veracious Viscount Amberly's un- 
 founded assertion that Christ pointed out Judas to ALL at 
 table as the black-hearted traitor, and that the disciples 
 took the announcement as quietly as an every-day occur- 
 rence." 
 
 The Bishop thinks it strange that I should consider the 
 fact that Jesus was avoiding arrest as an obvious one, be- 
 cause so many " millions of Christians, forming the most 
 enlightened people that have ever trod the world, do now 
 believe, and always have believed, the contrary." 
 
 I have already noticed this class of argument, and can 
 only here repeat that truth cannot be distinguished from 
 error with any degree of certainty, by merely ascertain- 
 ing the number of those who believe it. Minorities are 
 as often right as majorities, and both may be wrong. 
 
 As a specimen of an equally illogical class of theologi- 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 211 
 
 cal argument, I have given the Bishop's remarks upon 
 what he ought to have known was a clerical error, my in- 
 serting "a" before " trust " in Webster's Definition L, of 
 " betray " ; and, for that purpose, have left the error in 
 my argument. 
 
 The argument on my side is stronger with the article 
 left out, as we will see. The Bishop's distinction between 
 "violation of trust" and "violation of a trust," while 
 true, is sophistically used ; the distinction exists only 
 literally, and not in the spirit. If the trust arises from an 
 especial confidence in a particular instance, it would be 
 " a " trust, and its violation would be a betrayal, because 
 a violation of confidence reposed ; if the trust arises from 
 the relations, whether natural or assumed, between the 
 parties, and is general, not special, that would be " trust " 
 generally, and its violation would equally be a betrayal, 
 because equally a violation of confidence reposed. Prac- 
 tically the letter makes no difference ; I say that its 
 absence would have suited me better because, as the 
 Bishop admits, the relation existing between Jesus and 
 Judas of itself implied *trust, showed that Jesus relied on 
 him, trusted him generally, and consequently it would 
 have been unnecessary to establish any special trust in 
 this specific instance. And if Jesus, on account of this 
 relation of teacher and disciple (or whatever the Church may 
 prefer to call it), trusted, in a general way, that he was 
 safe from the treachery of Judas, his betrayal was at least 
 as great a violation of trust as if such trust had been 
 specially limited, less complete. 
 
 When the Church is reduced to such an argument as the 
 Bishop has made on this point, and made seriously, it 
 looks as if she were in extremis, or else in reality had 
 sacrificed her intellect to her faith. 
 
212 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 To have quoted Webster's illustration of the word, 
 given under Definition L, and quoted by the Bishop with 
 approval, would have been unfair. I believed the Bishop 
 and his Church used the word in that sense ; I knew that 
 Protestants did. But I felt that I had no right to de- 
 fine his belief, and preferred that he should do that for 
 himself ; he, however, has now adopted the illustration 
 and that acceptance of that use of the word is the end of 
 the argument ; for I do mean, seriously, to say that the 
 word " betray," when used in this sense, that is, " to 
 deliver up into the hands of an enemy by treachery or 
 fraud, in violation of trust," does necessarily imply that 
 the person or persons betrayed was or were avoiding 
 arrest. The Bishop insists on making me say " fleeing." 
 He is unfair. I had said very plainly " avoiding arrest, 
 not necessarily flying to remote distances, but going to a 
 place where he thought he would be safe, only to be dis- 
 appointed through the treachery of Judas." When one 
 is avoiding arrest and, thinking himself in a safe place, feels 
 no anxiety, and so goes to sleep or becomes intoxicated, 
 he is avoiding arrest, or rather trying to avoid arrest, 
 just as much as when he was awake or sober, or as if he 
 were in full flight. Avoiding arrest means simply taking 
 any steps which it is expected or hoped will succeed in 
 preventing capture, whether such steps be active flight or 
 passive concealment. 
 
 Hence, if Jesus trusted — even in a general way only — 
 that Judas would not betray him, and in that trust was dis- 
 appointed, Judas was a traitor, and as I cannot conceive of 
 a disappointed God, I must believe that Jesus was but man. 
 
 Or if everything happened just as Jesus, he being God, 
 had appointed it to happen, then Judas did not " betray " 
 him under the definition now being considered. 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 213 
 
 Now for Viscount Amberly. His book was the first of 
 the kind I had ever read, and I read it several years ago, 
 shortly after it first appeared, and have not since examined 
 it. It may be that I have overestimated its value, but I 
 think not. I think it is a clear, calm, dispassionate, emi- 
 nently fair and able presentation of his views, and I 
 believe it to be in the main unanswerable ; and I have 
 used many of his ideas besides sometimes quoting his 
 words in this discussion. And although I have since 
 read very many books upon the same subject, some of 
 them of even greater ability, — e. g, The Creed of Christen- 
 dom, by Wm. Rathbone Greg, and Supernatural Religion, 
 by Prof. W. K. Clifford, — the pleasant and favorable im- 
 pression first produced on my mind by the Viscount's 
 book has never been in the least effaced. And the Bishop 
 most signally fails to impeach his statements, or answer 
 his arguments, as we will now see. 
 
 The Viscount says that the Gospels represent Jesus as 
 " teaching in public to the very end of his career." Even 
 the Bishop admits that they do. The Viscount also says 
 that they represent "that Judas received a bribe for his 
 betrayal." The Bishop also admits that. The Viscount 
 draws the conclusion that the statements are " self-con- 
 tradictory," to which conclusion the Bishop demurs upon 
 the ground that although teaching in public to the very 
 end, the High Priests and their party were afraid to 
 attempt a public arrest for fear of a tumult or a failure ; 
 and therefore bribed Judas to lead them where he would 
 be comparatively alone and unprotected, and cites texts 
 to sustain the point. 
 
 The testimony of the Bible is the testimony of inter- 
 ested witnesses, and consists of ex parte statements made 
 in their own behalf, or in behalf of their cause ; these wit- 
 
214 AX INQUIRY INTO 
 
 nesses have never been cross-examined, their antecedents 
 and character are unknown, and, more than all, the evi- 
 dence has been for hundreds of years exclusively in the 
 hands of those in whose interest it was originally given, and 
 they have had every facility for making such alterations, 
 additions, or suppressions as might be thought desirable, 
 and with no risk of being found out except through their 
 own unskilf ulness. Hence we are not obliged to take 
 everything the Gospels say as being necessarily true, and 
 then attempt to reconcile conflicting statements as best we 
 may ; we take them as we find them, and reconcile them 
 when we can, and when we cannot, we try honestly and 
 earnestly to decide which of the conflicting statements is 
 true, and, having decided, we consider the other of the 
 contradictory statements to be false. 
 
 Applying this principle, which I think is too palpably 
 correct to need the support of an argument, we conclude 
 that the wonderful popularity ascribed to Jesus in the 
 texts quoted by the Bishop is a mistake ; and the fact 
 that when Pilate wanted to release him, the mob cried 
 out against it, with the further fact that the high priests 
 bribed Judas to guide them to him, is proof of it. It was 
 among the lower orders that Jesus had his friends, but he 
 seems to have had none who were willing to publicly take 
 his part in the mob before Pilate ; and if his teaching was 
 so open and public as the Bishop thinks, then it were an 
 absurdity to bribe any one to show his whereabouts, which 
 would be notorious — for there would have been no need 
 of concealment. And if Jesus was so well satisfied that 
 his enemies were trying to capture him that he frequented, 
 at night, private or secluded places where he could not 
 be apprehended without a guide to lead the way to him 
 (thus showing an indisposition — to put it mildly — to be 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 2\$ 
 
 arrested), it would have been a folly of which I am willing 
 to acquit him to have appeared so openly in the midst of 
 his numerous and powerful enemies, backed, as they were 
 by the cohorts of Rome. 
 
 Undoubtedly Jesus had, as he deserved, a great many 
 xriends, but they were, as I have said, principally among 
 the poor and humble, and they could not have been any- 
 thing like a majority of the people, for the sect was a 
 small one long after the death of Jesus. If Jesus had 
 been " intensely loved by a majority of the people," as 
 the Bishop says, where were they when Pilate wished to 
 release him ? They knew of the custom, and they knew 
 that, being released by Pontius Pilate's order, the Roman 
 soldiers would have protected him and them. 
 
 I think, therefore, that such texts as the Bishop alludes 
 to are contradicted by the undisputed facts mentioned in 
 other texts ; that is, the reports, rumors, or conclusions of 
 the writer, as set forth in some texts, are disproved by 
 the facts set forth by the same writer in other texts. 
 
 Thus, they were afraid to arrest him during the feast 
 lest there should be an uproar (Matt, xxvi., 5) ; but it was 
 also at that same feast that a prisoner was to be released, 
 and when Pilate tried to release Jesus, the very multitude 
 which the high priests are represented as fearing, being 
 persuaded by the priests (as the account says), cried for 
 Barabbas, and they all cried Let him [Jesus] be crucified 
 (Matt, xxvii., 15-22). Where were the " majority of the 
 people," who were so devoted to Jesus, that this crowd, 
 which seems to have been the one in which his friends 
 were expected to be, was unanimous for his death ? And 
 on the very feast at which it was feared, because of the 
 presence of his friends, to arrest him. It seems to me 
 that the Viscount has the best of it. As I have said, I 
 
2l6 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 have not read the book for some years, and do not remem- 
 ber the Viscount's reasons for his assertions, and have 
 therefore given such as occur to me. But I think them 
 amply sufficient. 1 
 
 So, also, it seems to me that Amberly is correct in the 
 assertion to which the Bishop objects: that " Judas is 
 pointed out to all the eleven as a man who is about 
 to give up their master to punishment. . . . The 
 announcement is taken as quietly as if it were an every- 
 day occurrence that was referred to." 
 
 The Bishop says : " Nowhere does He mention the 
 name of the traitor. He referred in such an obscure way 
 to the person who would betray Him, that while the 
 guilty conscience would make him understand, the others 
 did not perceive to whom Christ had reference." My 
 Bible (Protestant) says, Matt, xxvi., 21-25 : 
 
 " And as they did eat, he said verily I say unto you that one of you shall 
 betray me. And they were exceeding sorrowful, and began every one of 
 them to say unto him, Lord, is it I ? And he answered and said, He that 
 dippeth his hand with me in the dish, the same shall betray me. The Son 
 of Man goeth as it is written of him : but woe unto that man by whom the 
 Son of Man is betrayed : it had been good for that man if he had not been 
 born. Then Judas, which betrayed him, answered and said, Master, is it I? 
 He said unto him, Thou hast said." 
 
 And this account does not say that no man heard him. 
 If I understand this passage — and the Bishop only 
 quotes a part of it, — it means : 
 
 1st. That Jesus informed them all that one of them 
 
 was about to betray him ; 
 2d. That they were " exceeding sorrowful." 
 
 1 At this time, and for a long time afterwards, the book was lent to various 
 friends, and I have never since examined it. My quotations in my first 
 paper were from my notes. 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 217 
 
 3d. That he said, " He that dippeth his hand with me 
 into the dish . . . shall betray me " ; and, 
 as if this were not plain enough, 
 
 4th. That when Judas said "Is it I?'' Jesus replied 
 " Thou hast said." 
 
 If Matthew tells the truth— and I doubt if the Church 
 will attempt to impeach him,— every man at the table 
 knew that Judas was the traitor. And how was the 
 announcement taken ? They were sorry, very sorry, 
 exceedingly sorry. As if Jesus had told them he had a 
 bad cold, or a severe headache, or was going away from 
 them for a few days. When a teacher, a leader, not to 
 say a God, announces to his chosen intimates and disciples 
 that one of them is about to treacherously lead him to a 
 cruel death, and points that one out to them ; and they 
 say nothing, and do nothing, but only feel sorry ; it is 
 putting it very mildly to say that they took it " as quietly 
 as if it were an every-day occurrence " ; and if they said 
 or did any more than I have here set down this Gospel 
 does not inform us of it. 
 
 So much for Matthew's account. Mark and Luke 
 give substantially the same, but omit to say that Judas 
 asked and was answered in the manner narrated by Mat- 
 thew. Of course it will not be claimed that this omis- 
 sion disproves or contradicts Matthew's statement ; these 
 latter simply do not go so much into details. They seemed 
 to have thought that Judas was sufficiently indicated by 
 dipping his hand into the dish. 
 
 But there is another difference between them which is 
 much more significant. Matthew says that when they 
 heard what Jesus said they were " exceeding sorrowful"; 
 Mark is not so emphatic ; according to him " they began 
 to be sorrowful." While Luke says nothing about their 
 
218 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 sorrow, but states that there was " a strife among them 
 which of them should be accounted the greatest " (Luke, 
 xxii., 24), each evidently having an eye to the succession 
 as head of the Church, — which must have noticeably 
 moderated their grief. 
 
 It will be noticed, therefore, that in each of the three 
 synoptical Gospels (which are all the Viscount referred 
 to) it is indicated with distinctness that one of those pres- 
 ent is about to betray him, that in Matthew Judas is 
 directly and distinctly pointed out as the man, and that 
 in the other two he is sufficiently indicated to put any one 
 who felt any interest in the matter on guard, and cause, 
 at least, further inquiry ; but nothing of the sort was 
 done. As Amberly puts it, " no step was taken or even 
 suggested by any of them to either impede the false 
 disciple in his movements, or to save Jesus by flight or 
 concealment." And while Jesus was praying in the gar- 
 den they felt so little interest in the matter that they 
 went to sleep while he had left them to watch. Was not 
 the Viscount, as I said before, putting it with extreme 
 mildness when he merely said they treated it like an 
 every-day occurrence ? 
 
 He adds that John tries to avoid this difficulty, but 
 thinks that he fails — as he evidently does, — for even there 
 the announcement is distinctly made to all that one of 
 them is about to betray him, and the traitor is distinctly 
 pointed out to John and Peter. And, by the way, 
 although Amberly distinctly states that in the first three 
 Gospels Judas is pointed out as the man, the Bishop is 
 reduced to such straits that he tries to disprove that 
 statement by quoting from the fourth. Again the Vis- 
 count has the best of it. 
 
 But it seems to me that, if the Christian theory be 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 219 
 
 true, there is a great deal of unnecessary sympathy dis- 
 played for Jesus and his passion. Considered from the 
 Church's standpoint, the scheme was his own, even in its 
 details ; and the good to be done— the saving of all 
 humanity present and to come — was so great that the 
 sufferings of his temporary body sink into comparative 
 insignificance. Not that we should not regret the neces- 
 sity that called for such physical sacrifice and pain, but 
 because so many others have suffered more for a less 
 result, with a smaller motive, and sustained by hope in- 
 stead of certainty. And especially does it seem incon- 
 sistent to ascribe such sorrow to Jesus. The result of 
 his passion was to be the attaining of his wish to rob 
 death of its sting, the grave of its victory ; his sacrifice 
 was his own wish, his own scheme, the crucifixion was 
 the end of his self-imposed troubles, the successful con- 
 summation of his plans, and he was to resume his Godhood 
 in a form unmixed with humanity, and forever free from 
 physical and mental pain and suffering. It seems that 
 such a result, even at the cost of a few hours' suffering, 
 should have made the arrival of the preordained end a 
 cause of gratulation, not of grief, more especially to Jesus 
 himself. As the human soul within them has enabled so 
 many martyrs to mount the scaffold, and to brave a far 
 more cruel death at the stake, with a smile of triumph 
 and a hymn of thanksgiving, because of the crown of 
 glory for which they hoped, so, as it seems to me, the 
 God within Jesus should have enabled him to meet his 
 fate, less cruel than the stake, with other feelings than sor- 
 row " even unto death." As God he must have known 
 his future, while the martyr had but his hopes. Is a 
 human soul sustained by hope stronger to suffer than God 
 and certainty ? 
 
220 THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 Thus the conclusions to be legitimately drawn from this 
 story of the Betrayal seem also to point with unerring 
 accuracy to the absurdity of the theory that Jesus was 
 God, and to tend to establish, what is getting to be the 
 belief of the most intelligent and least prejudiced minds 
 of the present age, that he was an earnest reformer, hon- 
 estly trying to free his countrymen from what he recog- 
 nised as error — an infidel to the creed of the past, an 
 apostle of the creed of the future ; but whose doctrines 
 and designs were misconstrued and misrepresented by 
 ignorant or designing followers, seeking by their mis- 
 representations to advance their own or their Church's 
 interests so soon as his lips were sealed in death — thrust- 
 ing on him, as I have already said, divine honors, which, 
 were he alive, he would most certainly have rejected, that 
 they might profit from the reflected glory. 
 
THE ARGUMENT. 
 
 PROPOSITION VI. 
 
 VI. The Bible is not a divinely inspired book ; and being 
 untrustworthy as to its facts, cannot be relied on as 
 to its theories. 
 
 If the Bible be a divinely inspired book, as is claimed, I 
 believe, by the Christian Churches as to both the Old and 
 New Testaments, and by the Jews as to the Old, it all 
 being spoken of indifferently as the " word of God, " it 
 is clear that it must be inspired in whole, or in part. If 
 in whole, then everything in it must be true ; if in part, 
 we have no means, so far as I know, of ascertaining which 
 are the inspired, and which the uninspired, portions ; 
 which would, of itself, greatly detract from its usefulness. 
 
 But it may, I think, be safely concluded that if it posi- 
 tively and unequivocally asserts any important thing to be 
 an absolute fact, and it is demonstrated that such thing 
 is not a fact, and is not, and never was, or could be, true, 
 then the sacred character of the book is lost, and its power 
 as an authority before which even reason must bow, is 
 gone. If it misleads us, and is ignorant, unreliable, and 
 absurd as to its facts, it certainly cannot be depended 
 upon for the correctness of its theories. The statement 
 of this proposition is its sufficient proof ; it only remains 
 to be seen if the Bible is correct in its statements of 
 facts. 
 
 221 * 
 
222 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 It had been my intention, in discussing this proposition, 
 to have commenced with the cosmogony of the first chap- 
 ter of Genesis, and to have shown how science has abso- 
 lutely demonstrated its utter incorrectness in every detail ; 
 but the proportions already assumed by this argument, 
 and the vast amount of material at hand with which to 
 demonstrate the unreliability of the Old Testament, warn 
 me that I must omit much that I would like to say. 
 
 I can only repeat that science has shown with entire 
 certainty that the history of the first six days as given in 
 Genesis is wrong, impossible, and absurd, because in direct 
 contradiction to what is known of God's records and God's 
 law. So true is this that I presume no one pretending to 
 any knowledge of the present condition of geology will 
 venture to deny it. 
 
 I know not what position the Roman Catholic Church 
 holds on this point ; but such educated Protestant theo- 
 logians as I have spoken with about it hold that the six 
 days of creation mean six periods, each of vast extent, 
 and thus attempt to meet some of the facts of geology. 
 But that does not explain how the account is so incorrect 
 as to the order of creation of vegetable and animal life, 
 nor as to the earth being made as we know it before the 
 forming of the sun, nor as to the creation of light, and its 
 separation from darkness (whatever that may mean) on the 
 first day, while the sun and moon were not made until the 
 fourth day. Nor do these apologists seem to reflect that 
 there are seven days spoken of, one of which is devoted by 
 God to rest, and that as there is no intimation of any one 
 of the days being different in duration from the others, 
 He must have rested as many millions of years as they 
 assume a " day " to have contained. 
 
 The truth is that educated theologians, feeling their 
 4 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 223 
 
 ground giving away under them, grasp at any straw, no 
 matter how slender, to save themselves. But I cannot 
 dwell on this point. 
 
 Perhaps one of the most remarkable stories in the Old 
 Testament is that of the deluge, and, as the demonstra- 
 tion of its absurdity is not so generally known as that of 
 the cosmogony just referred to, I will consider it at some 
 length. 
 
 The introduction to the story is in these words, Gen. 
 vi., 5, et seq. : 
 
 " And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that 
 every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And 
 it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at 
 his heart. And the Lord said I will destroy man whom I have created from 
 the face of the earth, both man and beast, and the creeping thing, and the 
 fowls of the air ; for it repenteth me that I have made them. But Noah found 
 favor in the eyes of the Lord." (The italics are mine.) 
 
 Here we have it represented that the great and only 
 God of the universe, maker and sustainer of all things 
 animate and inanimate, omnipotent, omniscient, and 
 prescient, repented what He had done! 
 
 This one word, if it means what it says, destroys the 
 divinity of the Jewish God. To repent can only mean 
 that events had turned out differently from what He had 
 anticipated, or that He had changed His mind. 
 
 The first is evidently what is meant here, for the reason 
 of the repentance, so far as man is concerned, is given : 
 man had become corrupt. No reason is given why he 
 repented having made the lower animals. 
 
 So (1) either God did not know that man would become 
 corrupt, and therefore, when he found that he had, really 
 repented, — became sorry — that he had made him, which 
 
224 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 deprives God of His attributes of prescience and omni- 
 science ; or (2) He made him with the full knowledge that 
 he would become corrupt, and allowed him to so become 
 — for if He is omnipotent He could have prevented it, — 
 and thus destroyed him for being what He permitted him 
 to become, He foreknowing from the beginning both the 
 crime and the punishment — which takes away His attribute 
 of justice — (in which case the account is incorrect when it 
 says, and makes God say, He repented, for He would, in 
 this view, have been merely carrying out what He had 
 determined on from the beginning, and, without warning 
 or notice of any kind, would have visited on His unpre- 
 pared creatures a terrible and vindictive punishment under 
 what was, to them, an ex-post-facto law) ; or (3) He knew 
 man would become corrupt, and did not originally intend 
 to punish him, but changed His mind (repented) and did 
 inflict an unexpected (even to Himself) penalty. 
 
 Turn it as you will, this passage alone is sufficient to 
 show that the God here portrayed is only an ideal of 
 ignorant barbarians. How the Roman Church gets over 
 this word " repent " here and elsewhere in the Bible I do 
 not know ; but learned Churchmen of other denominations 
 have endeavored to explain it to me thus : the people to 
 whom the word of God was originally addressed were in- 
 capable of grasping high metaphysical ideas, and could 
 not comprehend the true reasons which actuated God, and 
 therefore they were given one which was suited to their 
 comprehension. They could not receive the true idea, 
 therefore they were given the nearest approach to it they 
 could comprehend. I suppose this is about as good an 
 explanation as can be given ; at any rate it is the best I 
 have heard. 
 
 This explanation shifts but does not lessen the diffi- 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 225 
 
 culty. It means that God, feeling that some explanation 
 was necessary, or at least advisable, gave a. false one, His 
 reason being that the people could not comprehend the 
 true one. Apart from the fact that it is difficult to under- 
 stand why God should give to His creatures any reason 
 for His acts, it is purely an assumption, and, I think, an 
 unwarranted one, that He would depart from that truth 
 which is a part of His essence, and lie to His people for 
 fear they might not understand Him if he spoke the 
 truth. It passes belief ; the explanation needs at least 
 as much explaining as did the original statement ; the 
 remedy is even worse than the disease. 
 
 The truth is the Old Testament merely records the 
 ideas which the ancient Jews had formed of the Divinity 
 which they supposed to be their especial God, and whom 
 they represented as possessing the principal characteristics, 
 good and bad, which they knew in earthly rulers ; and 
 this passage is but another proof of it. They felt the 
 need of a God, and manufactured one just as every other 
 people did. Or perhaps it would be more exact to say 
 they felt there must be a God, and, as they knew nothing 
 of Him, they invested Him with attributes which seemed 
 very proper to them, but which to a more enlightened 
 and cultivated people are simply blasphemous. 
 
 So much for the introduction. We now come to the 
 event as narrated in the book. I will be as brief as the 
 importance of the point will permit. 
 
 God having thus resolved to destroy everything in which 
 was the breath of life, except Noah and his family, and a 
 sufficiency of the animals, etc., with which to start the 
 world afresh, determined to execute his plan of destruc- 
 tion by means of a flood, and that those whom he wished 
 to spare should be saved by an ark, the size and structure 
 
226 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 of which was dictated to Noah by God Himself. It is to 
 be observed that the entire account avoids referring any- 
 thing to miracle ; the whole affair was to be, and by the 
 account was, accomplished by the use of purely natural 
 means. We of the present age know that for this story 
 to be true would have required a greater variety of 
 miracles, and of a more stupendous character, than has 
 ever been attributed to any God ; but to the people *vho 
 invented the story nothing could be more natural. 
 
 A large vessel was built, it was stored with provisions, 
 Noah and his family, and specimens of every living thing 
 on earth (except fish, which it appears escaped the general 
 condemnation and were the only living things God was 
 satisfied with — which may account for their being con- 
 sidered, to some extent, as sacred food to this day), went 
 on board ; a heavy rain came, lasting forty days and forty 
 nights, and covered the entire earth, mountains included, 
 with water, and drowned all that were not in the ark. 
 
 The account as given must be true or untrue ; difficul- 
 ties are not to be explained away by saying that with God 
 all things are possible, or by invoking the aid of special 
 miracles. No miracle is mentioned or hinted at. The 
 whole thing happened as it is described — that is, in a purely 
 natural way, or it did not happen at all. I do not under- 
 take to disprove statements that are not made, nor to 
 combat theories that are not warranted by the narrative. 
 I intend to take the facts as they are recorded and to deal 
 with them alone. 
 
 The size of the ark is given at 300 cubits long, 50 broad, 
 and 30 high. It was to be divided into three stories. It 
 was to have one door (size not given) in the side, and one 
 window, a cubit large above. The size of a cubit is 
 variously estimated at from 18 to 22 inches, and we will 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 227 
 
 consider it as of 22 inches. This would give the following 
 dimensions: length 550 feet ; width 91 feet 8 inches, 
 and height 55 feet. The floors must have been strong, 
 so the stories were probably of 17 feet each. This would 
 make the total cubical contents of the ark, supposing 
 it to be square at the ends, about 102,000 cubic yards. 
 Scott in his commentaries estimates only 69,120 cubic 
 yards, but we want all the room we can get. Each floor 
 contained 5,601 square yards, and the three floors together 
 16,803 square yards total standing room in the ark. 
 Into this space were to be put : 
 
 Birds, according to Lesson (cited by Hugh 
 
 Miller), 6,266 species— and Noah being 
 
 directed to take of fowls of the air by 
 
 sevens, male and female .... 87,724 
 
 Unclean beasts, 1,825 species, by pairs, 3,650 ) 
 
 Clean beasts, 177 species, by sevens . . 6,128 J 
 
 Land reptiles, 457 species, by pairs . . 914 
 
 Insects, large and small, 754,600 species, by 
 
 pairs 1,509 200 
 
 Then the food for all these for one year and seventeen 
 days. The hay for such animals as eat that food is esti- 
 mated at 105,300 cubic yards, or more than the entire 
 capacity of the ark. Then consider the grain, fruit, fresh 
 meat for the carnivorous animals, fish for the fish-eating 
 beasts and birds, insects (other than those to be preserved) 
 for certain birds and beasts, and the other varieties of 
 food necessary, and it at once appears how utterly absurd 
 it is to suppose that Noah had all that in an ark that 
 could not have held the tenth part of it if packed like 
 sardines in a box. 
 
 9778 
 
228 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 And we cannot assume that the animals were without 
 food, and were miraculously preserved, for God expressly 
 ordered Noah to provide food for them all, and nothing 
 is said about its being condensed or compressed : every- 
 thing appears to have gone on naturally. 
 
 Consider also the difficulty of getting together speci- 
 mens of the entire fauna of the world ; how, and by whom, 
 it was determined what particular pair, or seven pairs, 
 were to be selected, and how they were to be conveyed 
 from arctic, antarctic, temperate, and tropical regions, 
 and how they were to withstand, and live under, the 
 great climatic changes. And as all the species mentioned 
 exist now, and the natural changes by evolution are so 
 slow that the number of species could not have been 
 much less at the time of this supposed flood than they 
 are now (and if evolution is untrue all these varieties ex- 
 isted then, as we have no dogma of new creations so far 
 as I am informed), it cannot be said that Noah did not 
 take them all on board, unless we consider the flood as 
 partial, not universal, and this point is considered further 
 on. And whether they came or were brought, the diffi- 
 culty is the same ; and we have no right to claim a miracle 
 where none is even hinted at. 
 
 And the same difficulty which attended their collection 
 must also have attended their dispersion, with the ad- 
 ditional most serious difficulty of how, and where, they 
 were to live until nature had time to produce their proper 
 food, vegetable and animal. 
 
 Again, as these beasts, birds, reptiles, and insects were 
 in confinement, they required attention. Imagine the 
 eight persons in the ark giving them food and water, and 
 cleaning up their filth. In our days, in menageries, one 
 man cares for four cages — cleaning and feeding the ani- 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 229 
 
 mals. In the ark, each person, women included, must 
 have attended, each day, to 10,964 birds, 766 beasts, 
 and 1 14 reptiles, besides the almost innumerable insects, 
 and all in the dark, there being but one window, 22 
 inches square, in the roof, and one door in the side, 
 and that shut. And the ventilation! the smell !— but 
 I forbear. 
 
 The Bible says that " all the high hills that were under 
 the whole heavens were covered ; fifteen cubits upward 
 did the water prevail ; and the mountains were covered." 
 And all this from a rain of forty days and forty nights ! 
 The heaviest rain recorded in modern times is 30 inches 
 in 24 hours ; such a rain as this, had it fallen over the en- 
 tire globe (which is, of course, impossible, naturally) for 
 forty days and forty nights would have been but 100 
 feet, which would not have covered the hills, much less 
 the mountains. To cover the highest mountains it would 
 have to rain, instead of 30 inches, 700 feet a day for forty 
 days. But there is not water enough in the atmosphere, 
 according to Sir John Leslie, to form, if all precipitated 
 at once, a sheet more than five inches thick over the sur- 
 face of the globe— that is to say, if all the water in our 
 atmosphere were added to all on earth. Then where could 
 the water have come from ? That quantity of water does 
 not exist in, on, under, or above the earth. And where 
 could it have gone to when the flood was over? It had 
 no place to run off to, and evaporation was the only way 
 to get rid of it. Accordingly it is said that " God made a 
 wind to pass over the earth." For this wind to have re- 
 moved the water from the surface of the earth, it would 
 have been necessary to have blown away an ocean 125 
 feet deep, over the whole earth, every day for eight 
 months ! But even this does not explain where the water 
 
230 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 went to. Certainly it did not stay within the sphere of 
 attraction of this planet. 
 
 I might go on for many pages in the same way, show- 
 ing the utter absurdity, viewed naturally, of the account, 
 but hardly think it necessary. Those who desire to go 
 still further into the details of this subject are referred to 
 a lecture by Prof. Wm. Denton, the geologist, called 
 The Deluge in the LigJit of Modem Science from which 
 I have condensed my facts and figures in this connection. 
 I quote from that discourse, pp. 29-31 : 
 
 ' ' Geology furnishes us with evidence that no such deluge has taken place. 
 According to Hugh Miller, ' in various parts of the world, such as Auvergne 
 in Central France, and along the flanks of ^Etna, there are cones of long- 
 extinct, or long-slumbering, volcanoes, which though of at least triple the 
 antiquity of the Noachian deluge, and though composed of the ordinary 
 incoherent materials, exhibit no marks of denudation. According to the 
 calculations of Sir Charles Lyell, no devastating flood could have passed 
 over the forest zone of /Etna during the last twelve thousand years.' 
 
 " Archaeology enters her protest equally against it. We have abundance 
 of Egyptian mummies, statues, inscriptions, paintings, and other representa- 
 tions of Egyptian life belonging to a much earlier period than the deluge. With 
 only such modifications as time slowly introduced, we find the people, their 
 language and their habits, continuing after that time as they had done for 
 centuries before. Lepsius. writing from the pyramids of Memphis, in 1843, 
 says : ' We are still busy with structures, sculptures, and inscriptions, which 
 are to be classed, by means of the now more accurately determined groups 
 of kings, in an epoch of highly flourishing civilization, as far back as the 
 fourth millennium before Christ.' That is one thousand six hundred and 
 fifty-six years before the time of the flood. Lyell says that ' Chevalier Bun- 
 sen, in his elaborate and philosophical work on Ancient Egypt, has satisfied 
 not a few of the learned, by an appeal to monumental inscriptions still ex- 
 tant, that the successive dynasties of kings may be traced back, without a 
 break, to Menes, and that the date of his reign would correspond with the 
 year 3640 B.C.' That is nearly thirteen hundred years before the deluge! 
 Strange that the whole world should have been drowned, and the Egyptians 
 never knew it ! 
 
 "From The Types of Mankind, we learn that the fact is ' asserted by 
 Lepsius, and familiar to all Egyptologists, that negro and other races al- 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 23 1 
 
 ready existed in Northern Africa, on the upper Nile, 2300 years B.C.' 
 But this is only 48 years after the deluge. . . If all the human occupants 
 of the ark were Caucasians, how did they produce negro races in 48 years ? 
 The facts again compel us to announce the fabulous character of this Gene- 
 sicle story of the deluge." 
 
 This is, of course, on the idea that the flood was univer- 
 sal. What the Roman Catholic Church teaches on the 
 subject I do not know, and the Bishop has never replied 
 to this argument. It was originally believed, I suppose, 
 by all Christendom, that the flood was just as it is repre- 
 sented in the Book, i. e., universal — over the whole earth. 
 But when science demonstrated that that could not have 
 been, many Churchmen, and Christian geologists, claimed 
 that the flood was only partial, and that the difficulties of 
 the narrative may be so explained and removed. 
 
 This is an old device, as J. T. Sunderland, What is 
 the Bible ? 1878, p. 27, says : 
 
 " Almost every scientific theory that comes into existence is found to con- 
 flict in some point or other with the theological notions which an unscientific 
 past has handed down. But the theologians are ever on the alert ; and war 
 to the knife is at once declared against the scientific intruder. All friends 
 of the Bible are summoned to the Holy War. The conflict rages fiercely 
 and shows no signs of abatement until it is seen that the scientists are getting 
 the day, when it begins to be discovered by the theologians that after all the 
 new theory is harmless, indeed there is no discrepancy between it and the 
 Scripture. The discrepancy that had been supposed to exist grew out of a 
 wrong Scripture interpretation. In fact, instead of the two being in conflict, 
 the scientific theory is really taught in the Bible." 
 
 And Letourneau, Biology, p. 303 (as quoted by Sun- 
 derland) : 
 
 " The doctrine of evolution is already almost triumphant. There scarcely 
 remains for the recalcitrants any other resources than to demonstate its per- 
 fect agreement with the (theological) dogmas they are not willing to abandon. 
 The thing is in process of execution. The interpreters are skilful, the 
 sacred texts obliging, the metaphysical theories ductile, malleable, flexible. 
 
22,2 . AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 Courage ! we must be very narrow-minded indeed not to recognize in the 
 first chapter of Genesis a succinct exposition of the Darwinian theory." 
 
 But this accommodating power of changing and mod- 
 ifying interpretations of Scripture ought not to apply to 
 any Church ^claiming to be infallible, unless, indeed, it 
 also claims that, no matter what it taught, it always 
 knew what was right, and, after the example of God 
 (according to the word " repent " as explained by the 
 apologists), only submitted to the people such truths as it 
 thought they could comprehend or stomach. I suppose 
 when no one knew any better, and everybody believed 
 in a total deluge, all of the Churches so believed, and 
 should yet unless, still after the example of God as indi- 
 cated in the Book, they have changed their views. 
 
 But this is unimportant. If any Church believes, or 
 believed, the deluge total, it is, or was, as we have seen, 
 wrong ; if it believes, or believed, the deluge partial, it 
 equally is, or was, wrong, as we are about to see. I quote 
 again from Denton's lecture on the deluge, p. 31 et seq., as 
 to a partial deluge : 
 
 " I read (Gen. vi., 7) ' I will destroy both man and beast and the creeping 
 thing.' How could a partial deluge accomplish this ? (vi., 13) 'The end 
 of all flesh is come before me. I will destroy them with the earth.' How 
 could all flesh be destroyed with the earth by any other than a total deluge? 
 (vi., 17) ' I do bring a flood of water upon the earth, to destroy all flesh 
 wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven, and every thing that is in 
 the earth shall die.' Not only is man to be destroyed, but all flesh wherein 
 is the breath of life, from under heaven, and everything in the earth is to 
 die. Can this be tortured to mean a partial deluge? (vii., 19) 'And the 
 waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth ; and all the high hills that 
 were under the whole heavens were covered; (21) and all flesh died that moved 
 upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beasts, and of every 
 creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man. (22) All in whose 
 nostrils was the breath of life, and all that was in the dry land, died. (23) And 
 every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 233 
 
 both man and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven ; 
 and they were destroyed from the earth, and Noah only remained alive, and 
 they that were with him in the ark.' 
 
 " Had the man who wrote this story been a lawyer, and had he known 
 how these would-be Bible believers, and, at the same time, geologists, 
 would seek to pervert his meaning, he could not have more carefully worded 
 his account. It is not possible for any man to express the idea of a total 
 flood more definitely than this man has done. He does not merely say the 
 hills were covered, but ' all ' the hills were covered ; and lest you should 
 think he certainly did not mean the most elevated, he is careful to say ' all 
 the high hills ' were covered ; and lest some one should say he only meant 
 the hills in that part of the country, he says expressly ' all the high hills that 
 were under the whole heavens were covered,' lest some one in its absence might 
 still think that the deluge was a partial one. To make its universality still 
 more evident, he says 'all flesh died that moved upon the earth.' This 
 would have been sufficiently definite for most persons, but not so for him ; 
 he particularizes so that none may escape — ' both of fowl, and of cattle, and 
 every man.' To leave no possibility of mistake, he adds, ' all in whose nos- 
 trils was the breath of life, and all that was in the dry land, died.' Can 
 anything more be needed ? The writer seems to see that some theological 
 professor may even yet try to make this a partial deluge ; and he therefore 
 says ' every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the 
 ground, both man and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the 
 heaven ; they were destroyed from the earth.' Is it possible to add to the 
 strength of this ? He thinks it is ; and he therefore says, ' Noah only re- 
 mained alive, and they that were with him in the ark.' Could any man 
 write this and then mean that less than a hundreth part of the earth's surface 
 was covered? If not a total flood, why save the animals — above all, the 
 birds ? AH that Noah and his family need to have done would have been to 
 move out of the region till the storm was over. If a partial flood, how could 
 the ark have rested on the mountains of Ararat ? Ararat itself is 17,000 feet 
 high, and it rises from a plateau that is 7,000 feet above the sea-level. A 
 flood that -enabled the ark to float on to that mountain could not have been 
 far from universal, and when such a flood is accounted for on scientific prin- 
 ciples, it will be just as easy to account for a total flood. 
 
 " ' The flood was only intended to destroy man, and therefore only covered 
 those parts of the earth that were occupied by him.' " 
 
 (The Professor here supposes an objection. ) 
 
 "The Bible states, however, that it was intended to destroy everything 
 wherein was the breath of life, and your account and the Bible do not agree. 
 But if man was intended to be destroved, the flood must have been wide- 
 
234 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 spread/ We know that Africa was occupied before that time, and had been 
 for thousands of years, by various races. We learn from the recent discov- 
 eries in the Swiss Lakes that man was in Switzerland before that time ; in 
 France as Boucher's and Rigollet's discoveries prove ; in Great Britain as the 
 caves in Devonshire show ; in North America as the fossil human skull be- 
 neath Table Mountain demonstrates. Hence, for the flood to destroy man 
 alone at so recent a period, it must have been as widespread as the earth. 
 
 " Even according to the Bible account, the Garden of Eden where man 
 was first placed, was somewheres near the Euphrates ; and in 1600 years the 
 race must have rambled over a large part of the earth's surface. The highest 
 mountains in the world, the Himalayas, are within 2000 miles of the 
 Euphrates. That splendid country, India, would have been occupied long 
 before the time of the deluge ; and on the flanks of the Himalayas man 
 could have laughed at any flood that natural causes could possibly produce. 
 
 " ' How do you account, then, for these traditions of a deluge that we find 
 all over the globe ? ' " 
 
 (Another objection.) 
 
 " Nothing more easy. In all times floods have occurred ; some by heavy 
 and long-continued rains, others by the bursting of lake barriers, or the 
 irruptions of the sea ; and wherever traditions of these have been met with, 
 men, with the Bible story in their minds, have at once attributed their origin 
 to the Noachian deluge." 
 
 I have quoted at length because to have condensed was 
 to have spoiled. In fact the first portion of my remarks 
 on the facts of this remarkable myth, condensed from this 
 admirable lecture, has very little of the force with which 
 Prof. Denton urges his criticism. Still I think that the 
 matter is even here stated with sufficient clearness and 
 strength to demonstrate that the account, as given in the 
 Bible, is simply the rather clumsy invention of a primitive 
 people totally unacquainted with many now well-known 
 facts clearly set forth in what is undoubtedly God's revela- 
 tion to man, the Book of Nature, a book which speaks 
 everywhere and to all men the same language, and tells the 
 same sublime story, free from all vain imaginings and 
 false teachings ; a book which, though hard to read and 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 2$$ 
 
 oftentimes misconstrued as to its higher teachings, is 
 simple and plain as to its more necessary lessons, and 
 which would have been now far better understood, because 
 more universally studied, had not the Church discouraged 
 all investigation which pointed to conclusions differing 
 from those begotten of superstition and taught of igno- 
 rance. 
 
 But an important corollary may be drawn from the 
 exposure of the fallacy of this account as indicated above. 
 It is not given to us — as in truth it is — as one of the 
 barbaric theories of the past, or even as a purely human 
 history. It is held up as divine; God Himself is sup- 
 posed to be the author of the story ; and as this narrative 
 rests on the same authority as does the entire Old Testa- 
 ment, an assumed communication between God and man ; 
 and as the Old Testament is the foundation on which is 
 built the New, the demolition of this story is the demoli- 
 tion of all — that is, the demolition of the divine origin of 
 all. And as Jesus is represented as endorsing this most 
 absurd and impossible legend by saying : " But as the days 
 of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of Man 
 be. For, as in the days that were before the flood they 
 were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, 
 until the day Noe entered into the ark, and knew 
 not until the flood came and took them all away : So 
 shall also the coming of the Son of Man be " (Matt, 
 xxiv., 37-39) ; we can but conclude that, as a man, 
 living at the time he did, and knowing no more of 
 nature than those around him, he, as was natural, be- 
 lieved with reference to supposed ancient history, 
 what was believed by his contemporaries ; but this one 
 fact that he believed in the reality of the occurrence 
 and truth of the Mosaic account of the Noachian deluge, 
 
236 DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 should, to every thoughtful, well-informed, impartial, and 
 unbenumbed mind, at once deprive him of that Godhood 
 which since his death the Church has thrust upon him. 
 If it were an easy task to point out an almost unlimited 
 number of absurd stories and barbaric conceptions of God 
 contained in the Old Testament ; the material is abundant 
 and readily accessible through the labors of others, and 
 my only task would be to transcribe. But if the foregoing 
 argument is as conclusive as I think it is, further evidence 
 is unnecessary ; still I cannot forbear, in conclusion, refer- 
 ring to Exodus xxxii. and Numbers xiv., where Moses 
 represents himself as having an argument with God, and 
 getting the best of it by appealing to His vanity, telling 
 Him what the Egyptians would say of Him, as specimens, 
 not of what God is, but of the Jewish conception of Him 
 — a conception outgrown by all the civilized world except 
 the adherents of dogmatic Christianity. 
 
THE ARGUMENT. 
 
 PROPOSITION VII. 
 
 VII. Arguments directed especially against the Roman 
 
 Catholic form of orthodoxy : 
 
 Saying masses for the dead— for a pecuniary con- 
 sideration — is either obtaining money under false 
 pretences, or is selling the grace of God ; 
 
 If repentance and confession are necessary to and 
 will secure salvation, charity, and other good works 
 cannot affect our future condition — unless the 
 forgiveness of God can be bought ; 
 
 And the Church practising the one and teaching the 
 other is in error and not infallible. 
 
 The Roman Catholic Church claims infallibility ; if any 
 of her teachings or practices can be shown to be wrong 
 or inconsistent with other of her teachings or practices 
 she must give up this pretension ; and, having built 
 herself up on this theory, must fall with it. 
 
 I have seen circulars and other advertisements dis- 
 tributed in and posted on the walls of Roman Catholic 
 cathedrals and churches, claiming on their face to be by 
 the authority of the bishop of the diocese, in which it is 
 stated that by the payment of a specified sum of money 
 any deceased person whose name is given by a subscriber 
 may participate in the benefits to be derived from certain 
 Masses which were to be said at certain times and places. 
 
 237 
 
2 $8 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 The practice is a common one, I believe, and extends to 
 wherever there are priests to say the Mass. 
 
 These official announcements can mean but one thing : 
 if I pay the required sum it is my privilege to name any 
 deceased person, and the benefits of the Mass are ex- 
 tended to him ; if I fail to pay such sum the deceased 
 person does not get the benefit of the Mass. In other 
 words, no one gets the benefit of these particular Masses 
 except those for whom the benefit is bought. 
 
 I believe that requiem Masses also are charged for, and 
 that they will not be said unless the price demanded is 
 paid ; such at least is the custom in such Roman Catholic 
 communities as I am familiar with. If this be true gener- 
 ally, the remarks I am about to make will apply to them 
 also ; if not true generally, they will apply so far as the 
 custom exists. 
 
 A Mass for a dead person either does good or it does 
 not do good ; is either valuable or worthless. 
 
 The Church, if infallible, must know whether it does 
 good or not, because if the Church thinks it does good and 
 it does not, the Church is in error, and therefore not 
 infallible; and I will not ask the Church to admit that it 
 sells Masses either knowing or believing them to be worth- 
 less ; for if the Mass is worthless, and the Church so 
 thinks, or knows, my money is obtained by her under 
 false pretences, and I am defrauded in the name of God. 
 
 If the Mass does good, is valuable, that necessarily 
 means that because of the Mass God does something which 
 without it He would not have done, or omits to do some- 
 thing which without it He would have done ; for if the 
 Mass in no way influences Him, it does neither good nor 
 harm. 
 
 Now, whether the Mass is or is not said for the deceased 
 person, or, in other words, whether or not the deceased 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 239 
 
 person obtains whatever benefit may arise from the saying 
 of the Mass, depends on whether or not a certain sum of 
 money is paid ; that is, if the money is paid on his account 
 he receives the benefit ; if it is not so paid he does not ; 
 for it is distinctly stated that he will receive the benefit IF 
 the money is paid ; and if he would receive the benefit 
 without the money being paid — if he would be as well off 
 without paying as with, — the person who has been induced 
 to pay the money is defrauded, not having been put in 
 possession of all the facts, but having been led to believe 
 that the benefit depended on the payment of the money. 
 
 And if the benefit does depend on the payment of the 
 money, then the grace of God is for sale. 
 
 There is no escape, so far as I can see, from this 
 dilemma, if the Church be infallible — for if she be infallible 
 she certainly must know the value of her own rites and 
 ceremonies ; and either the Church obtains money under 
 false pretences, by offering for it a service which she knows 
 to be worthless ; or, if she knows it to be valuable, she 
 sells the grace, the forgiveness, of God, by limiting the 
 benefits of the Mass to those who have paid for it. 
 
 Again, if I have correctly understood the doctrinal ser- 
 mons I have heard, and even the argument of the Bishop 
 in this discussion, it is taught by the Roman Catholic 
 Church that repentance and confession are essential to, 
 and sufficient for, salvation. That is to say, as I under- 
 stand it, a full absolution, after all sins have been repented 
 and confessed, insures salvation ; but a sin, to be forgiven, 
 must be repented, and, where a priest can be had, must 
 also be confessed, and absolution be obtained ; otherwise, 
 if repentance alone be sufficient, confession, not being 
 necessary, is valueless, except to give the clergy the im- 
 mense advantage of an exact and intimate knowledge of 
 
24O AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 the personal characteristics, traits, and affairs of their 
 people. 1 
 
 Therefore, if there remains one sin unrepented and un- 
 confessed (the sinner having had opportunity to seek 
 absolution), that sin must remain unforgiven, and the sin- 
 ner be damned, or else an unrepented and unforgiven 
 sin will not prevent the salvation of the wicked. 
 
 Then I have heard the faithful urged to give money to 
 the Church, to build another edifice, to repair or improve 
 the old one, to further complete a new one, to support the 
 clergy, and for various other purposes ; and I have under- 
 stood it to be held out, sometimes directly, sometimes 
 indirectly, as an inducement to give and to give liberally, 
 that it would be a good act which would be remembered 
 by God to the advantage of the giver hereafter, with a 
 strong intimation that the future advantage was to be 
 proportionate to the amount given — not the actual amount, 
 perhaps, but proportionate to the relation of the amount 
 given to the ability to give. 
 
 All of which suggests this : suppose one (we will suppose 
 a member of the Roman Catholic Church) has committed 
 a sin which is unrepented and unconfessed (with oppor- 
 tunity of confession) and so dies, how will the money 
 which he may have given to the Church help him ? Will 
 God say, or think, that as he had given money to help 
 build Him a temple or to help support His clergy, or for 
 any other Church purpose, his unrepented and voluntarily 
 unconfessed sin will be forgiven unasked? If yes, then 
 repentance and confession may be rendered unnecessary 
 
 1 I am informed that there is a repentance — that flowing alone from the love 
 of God— which is so efficacious that it needs neither confession nor absolution. 
 Of course my argument applies equally to repentance alone, where confession 
 is unnecessary, as to the two when they are required to be combined. 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 24I 
 
 by good works, and the forgiveness of God has been 
 bought with money (if money-giving be the particular 
 good work), even if He looks only to the intention with 
 which the money has been given ; if no, then his liberality 
 to the Church will have availed him nothing, and he will 
 be punished just as his sin deserves, without reference to 
 his gifts. 
 
 Or, if his sins be all repented and confessed, and absolu- 
 tion obtained therefor, he is sure of salvation — or else full 
 absolution for all sins is meaningless — and the money so 
 given avails him nothing ; he is safe without reference to 
 his charity. 
 
 So the ground upon which the money is sought to be 
 obtained, and the rewards held out as an inducement to 
 give, seem to me to be entirely unsubstantial, illusory, and 
 deceptive, if the teachings of the Church be true, even if 
 they be held out in good faith by the clergy. 
 
 And it will not do to say that such charity will not pro- 
 cure the forgiveness of an unrepented, unconfessed sin, 
 but will go to the credit of the sinner, and lessen his 
 punishment ; it is still forgiveness pro tanto, and to that 
 extent has been bought. 
 
 From my standpoint I can, and do, believe that every 
 good action, done with a proper motive (without which 
 it could hardly be called really good), will bring its reward 
 here and hereafter ; for while I believe that " faith with- 
 out works is death," I also believe that works without 
 faith may be life, though every sin must be punished, 
 proportionately, not eternally. But from the standpoint 
 of orthodoxy I find it difficult to see how good works 
 will benefit a man unless he also repents and is forgiven 
 for all his sins, in which case I cannot see that he needs 
 
 the help of his good works. 
 16 
 
CONCLUDING REMARKS. 
 
 THE foregoing seven propositions cover the entire 
 discussion with the Bishop. My last letter has 
 remained unanswered, and although I have frequently 
 met him since he received it, he has never even alluded 
 to the subject. 
 
 Of course he does not feel that he is unable to answer : 
 he could undoubtedly write thousands of pages in response. 
 I suppose he has merely concluded that further corre- 
 spondence would be a waste of time without advantage to 
 either side. If such be his conclusion, he is right to a 
 certain extent. Judging from the past, every argument 
 which he can adduce is, when properly considered, but 
 additional evidence of the weakness of his cause. The 
 argument on both sides is of long pendency. Every year 
 brings new light and power to the opponents of ortho- 
 doxy, but the argument on the side of the Church re- 
 mains unchanged, and by the very theory of the religion 
 must ever so remain. 
 
 That theory is, as I understand it, that some 1893 years 
 ago God became incarnate in the person of Jesus of Naza- 
 reth for the purpose of redeeming mankind, and, during 
 that incarnation, established his Church on earth to be, in 
 future, the only medium through which he should com- 
 municate with man. 
 
 The facts upon which the theory is based are of such 
 a character as to appeal to faith, rather than to reason, 
 and no new facts having been developed, or, indeed, 
 
 242 
 
DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 243 
 
 being possible, the argument is necessarily of great same- 
 ness. It may be brilliant or dull, interesting or tiresome, 
 learned or foolish, eloquent or flat, according to who is 
 the speaker or writer ; but in its last analysis it is always 
 the same, the same old argument in a circle, before al- 
 luded to : Jesus was God, and having established a 
 Church and promised to be with it always, and that the 
 gates of hell should not prevail against it, the Church is 
 not subject to error ; and we know that Jesus was really 
 God because the Church, thus shown to be infallible, 
 tells us so. Such, at least, has been my experience of the 
 argument. Whenever I have heard that any one has 
 successfully undertaken the defence of orthodoxy, I 
 have, when practicable, examined his arguments, and, 
 so far, every one of them assumes as his premise some 
 of the very points in dispute. If there be any other ar- 
 gument I have not been fortunate enough to have met 
 with it. I have not studied or written for the purpose of 
 self-deception, nor with the desire to mislead others. My 
 attention was drawn to the subject by the conviction of 
 its vast importance, and I wanted nothing but truth. Be- 
 lieving, as I most firmly do, in a future life which is, to a 
 great degree influenced, certainly at its commencement, 
 by our life here ; and our life here being in great measure 
 controlled by our religious belief, I felt that I could not 
 afford to follow false Gods, to hold false doctrines. I 
 have therefore given to this all-important subject the 
 deepest thought and most earnest study of which I am 
 capable, and if my conclusions are wrong I am more in- 
 terested in finding my error than any one else possibly 
 can be ; and, if I know myself, I am perfectly sincere 
 when I say that any argument which will lead me to 
 TRUTH will be most heartily welcome, no matter what that 
 
244 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 truth may be. And one of the reasons why I have con- 
 sented that the foregoing discussion should reach the 
 publicity of print, is the hope that it may draw forth the 
 fullest and freest criticism of the argument (as an argu- 
 ment, not as a literary production), that its weak points 
 may be discovered, and strengthened or abandoned. 
 And here, perhaps, I might with propriety leave the 
 matter with the public. I opened the argument, the 
 Bishop followed, I answered, he replied, and I concluded. 
 I had taken the affirmative, the burden of proof was on 
 me, and I had the right to the opening and conclusion. 
 So this is as it should be. But I yield to the temptation 
 to summarize a portion of the argument already given in 
 order to apply it in a somewhat different manner. 
 
 Most of us who are born in this or any other so-called 
 Christian country are, while yet children, imbued with 
 the prevailing ideas and beliefs, and, growing up with 
 them, very naturally consider them as most certainly true. 
 We surround them with all the sacred affection of our 
 earlier associations, our helpless infancy sustained by a 
 mother's and a father's love and devotion ; and they are 
 strengthened and supported by the very superstitions they 
 have evolved. Hence the first time any of these cherished 
 ideas is attacked, we feel a shock, more or less violent ac- 
 cording to the interest felt in the subject, and a very slight 
 argument against what we consider a blasphemy, and in 
 favor of what we already believe an unassailable truth, 
 completely satisfies the mind. And it is only after repeated 
 and long-continued assaults that we ever, if we do at all, 
 begin to feel the force of the attacking power. This is the 
 case with the thoughtful, and those who feel an interest 
 in the matter. The majority of those who conform to the 
 prevailing faith do so simply because it is the prevailing 
 
THE TRUTH* OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 245 
 
 faith, and say, and think, that the religion which was good 
 enough for their parents and other ancestors is good enough 
 for them, and dismiss the subject from their minds as one 
 promising more trouble than benefit, — more evil than 
 good. Such, of course, will never read this discussion ; 
 they can be reached only in conversation by their more 
 thoughtful friends, those who, like myself, realize the im- 
 portance of having a true religion— and it is to such that 
 I now address myself. 
 
 But instead of attacking the Church, entrenched as she 
 is behind so many loving memories, protected by so much 
 affectionate reverence, supported by such strong supersti- 
 tious instincts, and upheld by an almost irresistible force 
 of habit ; let us change places, and make her the attacking 
 party, giving her all the weapons she is in the habit of 
 using except reverence, superstition, and force of habit, 
 which she could not use in an attack, and let us see what 
 her real strength is. 
 
 Let us, then, suppose a full-grown person, fairly educated 
 in science and scientific methods, having an average inteL 
 lect, and tolerably well acquainted with nature as known 
 and understood at this time, of a religious or spiritual turn 
 of mind, but with no knowledge of any so-called revealed 
 religion. Then let us suppose some learned Churchman 
 endeavoring to convert such person to the dogmatic 
 Christianity of the present day. 
 
 Clearly, the most important point to be established by 
 the Churchman, the one on which all the other dogmas 
 are based, or to which they point, is the divinity of Jesus, 
 or, in other words, what the Bishop has called the funda- 
 mental doctrine of all Christianity, the Incarnation. If 
 this doctrine be true, the others may follow ; if it be false, 
 they must fall. 
 
246 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 The supposed fairly educated person has learned from 
 his studies that the earth, on which he lives, is one of a 
 series of planets revolving around the sun. That as to 
 size, location, composition, it is neither the most nor the 
 least favored. That Mars, which we have the best chance 
 of observing, closely resembles Earth, is divided into con- 
 tinents and seas, is cold at both poles, and has an atmos- 
 phere. There is no reason that he can conceive of why 
 Mars, at least, should not be inhabited by beings similar 
 to those in this world. The same is true of Venus. Hence 
 he concludes that the probabilities are that the other 
 planets of our system are, have been, or are getting to be, 
 in a similar condition, as the process of formation of all the 
 planets in our system is evidently the same — from a 
 nebulous, to a liquid, to a solid, to a cool state, indicating 
 birth, infancy, youth, and maturity, to be followed, proba- 
 bly, by old age and decrepitude, as is supposed to be the 
 case with our moon. 
 
 So he reasons that during the period of maturity all the 
 planets must be fit for human life as we know it. There 
 is unity of design in all organic life on this planet, there is 
 unity of design in all the planets ; why should not the 
 unity of design in all that is seen be assumed to extend to 
 that which is not seen ? Or perhaps it would be better 
 to say why should we assume that the unity which runs 
 through all we see ceases with our range of vision ? Why 
 should we assume that all these planets, fitted for the 
 highest known forms of life, should be left as waste places 
 in the universe, useless for every purpose of which we can 
 conceive ? No reason can be given ; on the contrary 
 analogy would seem to indicate that in our system, at 
 least, there is every reason to believe that many, if not all, 
 of the planets, are, have been, or will be, inhabited by 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 247 
 
 intelligent beings similar, in at least many respects, to 
 those of earth. 
 
 Then, going beyond our solar system, he finds innu- 
 merable quantities of what are called fixed stars, so called 
 because their vast distance from us renders their motion 
 almost imperceptible. These stars are known to be vast 
 globes of matter shining by theit own light. Hence, by 
 analogy, they are assumed to be suns similar to our own ; 
 and it is also supposed that they are, each of them, centres 
 of solar systems like ours, and, almost necessarily, like 
 ours teeming with intelligent life. How many of these 
 systems there are we cannot possibly conceive, since we 
 can neither conceive of space without limit, nor of space 
 with limit. We cannot comprehend either eternity or 
 infinity, though we are driven to the conclusion that both 
 exist from our inability to conceive of the cessation of 
 time, or of what could have preceded or can follow its ex- 
 istence, or of the cessation of space or of what could lie 
 beyond its limits. So, then, as it seems to our student, he 
 must conclude that the universe includes an infinity of 
 worlds which are, which have been, or which will be, like 
 ours, and equally inhabited by intelligent beings. 
 
 It is true that this conclusion is largely speculative, but 
 it seems to be entirely justified by the facts. What is 
 absolutely known is only what we learn from the telescope 
 and the spectroscope. They tell us that space is filled 
 with bodies composed of the same materials as our sun, 
 and in the same condition, and of even greater magnitude. 
 Reasoning from the known to the unknown, we conclude 
 that they are suns, and planetary centres, and can conceive 
 of no reason why in all this illimitable universe an average 
 planet, of an average solar system, should be the only one 
 possessing intelligent life. The logical mind revolts from 
 
248 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 the idea. There is, as we have seen, nothing remarkable 
 about the earth in its composition, situation, or condition 
 to exalt it above its fellows. There is absolutely nothing 
 unusual about it : why then should we assume, while it is, 
 to say the most for it, only an average world so far as we 
 know other worlds, that it is so immeasurably superior 
 in all those points upon which we know nothing about all 
 other worlds ? Such an assumption is utterly without any 
 reason to sustain it. 
 
 Hence we have a reasonable degree of certainty that 
 the entire universe teems with intelligent life ; and we 
 know that the whole observable universe is governed by 
 fixed law. 
 
 All this points to a God ; not because we can compre- 
 hend what God is, or why, or how, He should exist; but 
 just as we are forced to admit eternity because we cannot 
 conceive of anything before or after time ; to admit infinity 
 because we cannot conceive of anything beyond space ; 
 nor even think of the non-existence of either ; so we must, 
 as it seems to him, admit God, because we cannot conceive 
 of universal law, order, and intelligence, without also con- 
 ceiving of a universal source, or centre, from which they 
 flow, of which they are a part, or an emanation ; for law, 
 order, and intelligence imply design, and design cannot, 
 by its very nature, be self-originating. 
 
 That we cannot tell the origin of this source, or centre, 
 does not affect the argument, because we cannot tell the 
 origin of either time or matter, though both assuredly 
 exist. We can only go back within finite limits; and 
 when we have gone back to the earliest source of which 
 we can conceive, that is, for us, the first Great Cause, that 
 must be our God ; and if there be any other cause or 
 source beyond that again, It is what we mean when we 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 249 
 
 think of God ; for this source, or centre, or primal cause, 
 is what we call God, the Supreme Intelligence, and must, 
 from its nature, pervade all time and space, past, present, 
 and to come, must, in a word, be eternal and infinite ; be- 
 lieved in because felt to be a necessity indicated by all 
 Nature, but incomprehensible, because above, beyond, 
 superior to, and out of the realm of our reason. 
 
 This God, revealed to man through His own works in 
 nature, is, and from the nature of the case must be, as we 
 are taught by nature, omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient; 
 and, consequently, as we have already seen, He cannot be 
 angry, because anger necessarily implies discontent, and 
 discontent means disappointment— that matters have not 
 gone to suit Him. We also know, from the same teacher, 
 that He never interferes with His works because they 
 were and are perfect, and in accordance with His perfect 
 plans ; that He sustains, not alters ; and hence is unchange- 
 able. That He is Love and Truth, and neither hates nor 
 deceives. That He acts through Law, and evolves, rather 
 than manufactures; and necessarily governs and maintains 
 all things in accordance with His original, eternal design, 
 unchanged and unchangeable because now and always 
 perfect even in its minutest details. 
 
 Such would be, in brief, the views of Divinity enter- 
 tained by such a person as I have supposed, being what 
 a religiously disposed, highly spiritualized, but healthy 
 and sane mind, would naturally deduce from its study of 
 nature. 
 
 The truth of his belief may not be outwardly demon- 
 strable ; but I know of no argument that can disprove it. 
 It is, to a great extent, a matter of faith, but of that 
 higher faith of which I have already spoken, which only 
 assumes to control in regions where reason admits her 
 
250 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 inability to penetrate ; that truer, purer faith which be- 
 lieves nothing which reason rejects, and relies on that 
 only which reason may accept. 
 
 What, then, is this man asked to believe? That the 
 God whom he adores made man so bunglingly that 
 His expectations of him were not realized. That He 
 gave His creature, man, free-will, power to oppose Him, 
 to thwart Him, and that man used this perilous gift in 
 such a manner as to cause God to repent that He had 
 ever created him, and to determine to destroy him. That 
 He did destroy him, all save eight, and started a new race, 
 a new experiment. That the new experiment succeeded 
 no better than the first, and the first remedy, destruction, 
 having proved of no avail, He determined to try another 
 plan, atonement. That one of the necessary details (and 
 the chiefest of them all) of this plan was what is now 
 called the Incarnation. That He accordingly caused a 
 maiden, who was espoused to Joseph, but who had never 
 known man, to become enceinte by the Holy Ghost, through 
 an unexplained process, to bear her child for the usual 
 time, to be purified after its birth (though purification for 
 giving birth to God would seem to have been somewhat 
 unnecessary), and to raise him up to the carpenter's trade 
 until he was thirty years of age. That this child so be- 
 gotten, born, and reared, was God Himself veiled as a man. 
 That Jesus was very man and very God. That there is 
 God, the Father — God, the Holy Ghost — and God, the 
 Son — yet not three Gods, but one God. That although 
 in the world of which science takes notice 3 times 1 are 3, 
 in the world of which theology assumes control, 3 times 
 1 is one. That this new and remarkable experiment has 
 not succeeded in 1893 years, but is still progressing, and 
 there are strong hopes that it will succeed yet, — in fact it 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 25 1 
 
 must succeed — as it is God's own plan — but when is not 
 yet known. 
 
 Our supposed student would very naturally suggest 
 that this is a very remarkable story ; that it shows a very 
 childish (perhaps I should say primitive) conception of 
 God ; that it is at variance with all experience, and all 
 that is known of nature ; that it represents Him as uncer- 
 tain, changeable, and not very wise; and respectfully begs 
 to know what is the evidence to support so strange a tale. 
 
 In reply he is referred to the Holy Scriptures, com- 
 prising both the Old and New Testaments, with the 
 assurance that they are the word of God, and are the 
 source of all our information on the subject, except 
 such as we derive from the traditions of the Church ; 
 but as such traditions are in confirmation of the Scrip- 
 tures, and their authenticity and validity are dependent 
 upon the infallibility of the Church, which infallibility 
 is founded on the Bible, the Bible is really the all- 
 sufficient basis of the whole system. 
 
 As our unregenerate friend is supposed to be entirely 
 ignorant of any revealed religion, he, of course, cannot 
 make any analytical comparison between other religions 
 than that which he is invited to adopt ; and we will also 
 assume that he knows nothing of the history of the Bible 
 — not Bible-history — but the history of how and when 
 the books of the Bible were written. He is therefore 
 compelled to rely upon the book itself, without outside 
 aid. Hence he will carefully study it, not as it is studied 
 by those who accept it before they know anything what- 
 ever about it, and take it all as a matter not to be ques- 
 tioned ; but fairly, candidly, and earnestly, and equally 
 without prejudice for or against it. But he studies it 
 critically, and for this reason : he knows that the book he 
 
252 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 has been trying to read, Nature, is God's word, and that 
 the only element of error which he has hitherto had to 
 contend with was false interpretation of what he saw ; 
 while in the book now offered to him as God's written 
 word the elements of error must be legion. The inherent 
 inability of human language to always accurately convey 
 human thought, let alone Divine wisdom ; the possible 
 carelessness, incompetency, or even design, of the original 
 writer, or of some of the numerous subsequent scribes ; 
 the mistakes or interpolations of translators ; the suppres- 
 sions or additions of interested editors ; the facility with 
 which marginal glosses, conveying the ideas of the copyist, 
 or editor, may be by some subsequent copyist or editor 
 incorporated into the text ; and many, many more fruitful 
 sources of error, intentional and unintentional, will suggest 
 themselves to him, and any one of them may materially 
 change the original meaning. He therefore naturally 
 requires pretty clear evidence to convince him, when the 
 Bible is in conflict with Nature, that the Bible is right and 
 Nature wrong. 
 
 Commencing then, at the beginning, he discovers that 
 the account of creation, as contained in the first chapter 
 of the first book, is not only inaccurate, but actually 
 absurd ; that the story of the creation of man is utterly 
 at variance with well-known facts of ethnology ; that the 
 dates and order of the various events recorded are 
 totally inconsistent with the demonstrated facts of Geol- 
 ogy and Archaeology. That the story of the Deluge, a 
 little farther on, whether it be viewed as universal, as it is 
 distinctly and clearly stated to have been, or partial, as 
 some' apologists now claim, is simply an imaginative 
 account of a physical and natural impossibility which 
 could have originated only among a people entirely igno- 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 2$$ 
 
 rant of the plainest facts of nature, and which can be be- 
 lieved only by those who are equally ignorant, or else 
 who refuse to apply their knowledge to the story but 
 " swallow it whole," as the whale, still farther on, is said 
 to have swallowed Jonah. And he finds that the far- 
 ther he goes into the book, the more of such impossible 
 stories does he discover. 
 
 Further examination satisfies him that it is unlikely 
 that Moses wrote the account of his own death and burial, 
 announcing where he was buried, his age at the time of 
 his death, and the lamentations over his loss, with the 
 additional fact that no man knew the exact locality of his 
 grave ; and that as such details are a part of the recog- 
 nized text of Deuteronomy, and written in the same style as 
 the other portions of it, the probabilities are that some one 
 else than Moses wrote the whole book. An examination 
 and comparison of dates makes this still more clear, not 
 only with reference to this, but with reference to all of the 
 five so-called books of Moses, and to those of other reputed 
 Bible authors, leaving such books to stand without the 
 sanction of even a mythical name. Further, he observes 
 that if Moses be the author of the Pentateuch, he represents 
 himself as advising God, arguing with Him, and inducing 
 Him, God, to change His, God's, intentions on account of 
 the new light thrown on the subject by him, Moses; and 
 concludes that either Moses is a very unreliable reporter, or 
 the God he writes about a rather inferior sort of a deity. 
 
 Again, he finds that this Moses, who is considered the 
 great lawgiver and chief teacher of the Jews, God's chosen 
 people, this " man of God," either did not know anything 
 of the immortality of the soul, or else thought the infor- 
 mation not worth giving to his people, for nothing in his 
 books teaches that doctrine. 
 
2 54 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 Then he observes that God, in the Old Testament, is 
 represented as countenancing almost every conceivable 
 wickedness, provided it is done by His chosen people, 
 though unforgiving and vindictive as to anything which 
 seemed to interfere with, or reflect upon, His own per- 
 sonal pre-eminence ; and, finally, that the record nowhere 
 claims for itself that it is either inspired or infallible — its 
 inspired infallibility being a discovery of much more 
 recent date. 1 
 
 Certainly, so far, he has found nothing to make him 
 wish to substitute the Jewish conception of God for that 
 which he has derived from Nature, and very natu- 
 rally concludes that a book so untrustworthy as to its 
 facts cannot be infallible as to its theories. 
 
 He now takes up the New Testament to investigate the 
 Incarnation, feeling that the all-wise, all-powerful, all 
 good God whom he adores, if He had taken that extraor- 
 dinary step — if He had so honored this infinitesimally 
 small and apparently unremarkable part of His universe, 
 — would certainly have so arranged it that there could be 
 no question about the fact ; especially as the success of 
 
 1 Paul says, 2 Timothy iii., 16, Protestant version: "All Scripture 
 is given by inspiration of God." The Catholic version is not so strongly 
 put, but is : "All Scripture divinely inspired is profitable to teach," etc. 
 But in either version it was merely Paul's opinion or assertion, as to the 
 holy writings as then known and recognized, and those holy writings do not 
 seem to have claimed inspiration for themselves ; such expressions as 
 "the Lord saith," "thus spake the Lord," etc., etc., when used by the 
 writer, being no more a claim of inspiration for themselves or their 
 writings than when the same or similar language is used by a writer of 
 to-day ; it is merely the recording of a belief or tradition, lhat the Lord had 
 at some time and in some place spoken such things, and that the writer was 
 narrating the circumstance as he understood it. And these remarks apply 
 equally to I Peter i., 20, 21, often cited as claiming inspiration for the 
 Bible ; and, besides, Peter expressly limits inspiration to prophecy. 
 
THE TRUTH OE DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 255 
 
 the plan depended more on its being known and believed 
 than on its being performed. For he has been assured 
 that the object of the Incarnation was to save mankind, 
 but that no one can or, rather, will be saved who does 
 not believe in it ; hence, as just indicated, the most im- 
 portant part of the whole scheme was that it should not 
 merely be consummated, but believed ; and as God could, 
 being all-powerful, have so arranged the event, or, at least, 
 the evidence of it, as to have produced that belief, our 
 friend turns to the New Testament with a feeling of relief 
 — that he will now surely find something to satisfy his 
 mind, something to bring conviction. This is what he 
 reasonably expects — let us see what he finds. 
 
 He finds four Gospels asserted to have been written by 
 four of the followers of the Incarnate God, Matthew, 
 Mark, Luke, and John. He finds that two of them, 
 Mark and John, give no account of the Incarnation. 
 Either they did not know of it, or did not think it of suf- 
 ficient importance to mention or refer to; since this omis- 
 sion could scarcely be because it is mentioned by Mat- 
 thew and Luke, for Mark and John tell of a number of 
 things of comparative insignificance which the other two 
 also recount, while this event was the most important of 
 all that could have occurred, the supernatural character of 
 Jesus' birth being the sanction of his authority to teach. 
 Besides, the two stories of the Incarnation related by 
 Matthew and Luke differ, showing that either one or the 
 other was wrong, or that neither knew the whole history 
 of the affair, but related only a part of it. So that so far 
 from the narratives of Matthew and Luke being a reason 
 why the matter should not have been referred to by the 
 others, the differences in the accounts afforded an excel- 
 lent opportunity to Mark and John to explain and recon- 
 
256 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 cile if they knew of the story and its relation by the 
 others ; if they did not know of the story, it would be 
 conclusive evidence against its truth, and their failure to 
 allude to events that never occurred can be understood ; 
 but if they knew of the story, and did not know of its 
 relation by the others, it is in order for our teachers to 
 explain their silence. 
 
 All this is rather discouraging, and our friend's expec- 
 tations are not as great as they were. Still, he turns to 
 Matthew and Luke for light.- 
 
 So far as he can see, according to Matthew the only 
 reason for believing in the supernatural conception is a 
 dream of Joseph, after Mary's condition is known to him ; 
 according to Luke, a vision of Mary, before the conception, 
 and the interview with Elizabeth. Each evangelist ap- 
 parently tells all he knows about it, and neither alludes to 
 the story told by the other, and as each is supposed to 
 have been inspired of God (for the value of their writings 
 is from their supposed inspiration), and hence to have 
 known all about it from high authority, besides what he 
 may have learned from Mary and Joseph, the two ac- 
 counts are really irreconcilable. But assuming that the 
 two writers were not so fully informed, but only wrote 
 what each knew, or what he thought he knew (which 
 would effectually dispose of the inspiration theory), the 
 whole story, combining both accounts, amounts to this : 
 Mary, at the time of her espousal to Joseph, found her- 
 self in a condition which imperatively demanded expla- 
 nation. She explained it by telling of her vision ; Joseph, 
 a just man, and, from the little we know of him, probably 
 a weak one, and very much in love with Mary, slept over 
 his troubles, and dreamed that her explanation was true. 
 This must, as it seems to him, have been the case if there 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 2$? 
 
 was any truth at all in the story. But it is to be observed 
 that it is merely announced that Mary and Joseph had 
 such vision and dream ; it is not claimed that even they 
 so asserted ; the authority for the story is not given. 
 And the story of the interview with Elizabeth adds abso- 
 lutely nothing to the evidence of the truth of the incident. 
 So much for the conception; now for his life. 
 
 After his birth Jesus lived just as other children, so far 
 as we are informed, and he learned and followed his 
 father's trade as a carpenter until he was about thirty 
 years of age. Is it likely that his mother and Joseph, 
 had they known of his miraculous conception, and that he 
 was very God, would have so treated him ? Would their 
 poverty have caused them to allow their God-guest to 
 work for his food and clothes ? It seems hardly probable ; 
 his Godship must have been veiled even from them. 
 And that it was so veiled, even from Mary his mother 
 and Joseph, is made still more apparent (Luke ii., 46-50) 
 by the fact that, when Mary and Joseph found him in 
 the temple disputing with the doctors, his mother re- 
 proached him for leaving them, and on his replying that 
 he must be about his Father's business, she and Joseph 
 understood not what he meant. 
 
 But further than this, if God had incarnated Himself in 
 this extraordinary manner, and made the belief in such 
 incarnation the most important matter of salvation, is it 
 conceivable that he should never once allude to the won- 
 derful circumstances of his birth? Or that, having al- 
 luded to it, such allusion should not have been recorded 
 and preserved ? Yet it does not appear that he even 
 knew of such a report. 
 
 And those living in the house with him (his " brethren ") 
 did not believe in him ; and they and his mother interfered 
 17 
 
258 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 with him and tried to interrupt his preaching, which would 
 hardly have been done had they known, or believed, him 
 to be God-incarnate. 
 
 And to the very last some of his disciples doubted, even 
 if any ever believed in, his divinity, and there is no proof 
 that any of them ever did so believe, and if there were, it 
 would not be evidence of his divinity, but only evidence 
 that some thought him divine then as many do now. 
 
 Again, he finds upon examination that the so-called 
 prophecies, said to have foretold Jesus' coming, have no 
 more reference to him than to us. That the " inspired " 
 genealogies of Jesus fatally and absurdly vary, and that the 
 attempt to explain the variance by supposing one gene- 
 alogy to be that of Joseph and the other to be that of 
 Mary, is without authority or reason, because nothing of 
 the sort is said or intimated in the account, and the Jews 
 never traced descents through the female ; that, however, 
 even if this explanation were true (which, of course, is not 
 the case), it would still leave the absurdity of tracing Jesus' 
 descent from David tJirougJi Joseph while claiming that 
 he was not descended in any manner from Joseph. Fur- 
 ther, that if the Messiah was to be of the line of David, 
 Jesus could not have been the Messiah, because He was 
 not of David's, or any other human line, but was direct 
 from God, nay, was God. 
 
 That Jesus, if ever claiming to be more than man, 
 did so in such ambiguous terms as to allow of different 
 constructions, or in so contradictory a manner as to throw 
 doubt upon the claim, and to throw doubt upon a matter 
 the belief of which was essential to salvation would have 
 been a crime, and totally foreign to Jesus' character. 
 
 That the miracles ascribed to Him, and even His resur- 
 rection and ascension, though not doctrines, but described 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 259 
 
 as facts, and the most wonderful and important facts in 
 the history of the world, and said to have happened within 
 historic times, in the midst of numerous contemporary 
 writers who, recounting many very much less important 
 and interesting events, would hardly have failed to notice 
 these stupendous ones, and which should therefore be 
 sustained by overwhelming contemporaneous evidence, 
 are, on the contrary, without further proof than the bare 
 assertions of those who were forming a sect, and therefore 
 interested in having such things believed, but who do not 
 even pretend to have themselves witnessed these occur- 
 rences. 
 
 Is the evidence sufficient to the end ? Could any rea- 
 sonable man, with his mind free from bias, be satisfied with 
 such testimony ? Would any one believe the Church's 
 dogma who had not been taught to believe it before he 
 could think and reason, while yet a child, or in the mental 
 condition of a child ? Is there any reason why all nature 
 should be false, and the Hebrew-Gentile Bible true? 
 
 Verily, we cannot blame our friend if he thinks the In- 
 carnation lacks confirmation, and declines to change his 
 views and lower his conception of his God ; refuses to be- 
 lieve that God would make man's salvation through all 
 time and eternity depend upon his believing an asserted 
 phenomenon which is contrary to all experience, and 
 which is supported by evidence so flimsy that it failed to 
 convince those living at the very time and place where it 
 is claimed to have occurred. The New Testament seems 
 to him no better than the Old, and both to conflict with 
 what little we do know of nature and of God. 
 
 And if his would-be teacher can show him wherein he is 
 wrong, he is wiser than the teachers I have met. 
 
 I have thus epitomized some of the points made in the 
 
26o AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 foregoing argument for the purpose of illustrating how 
 weak the cause of the Church really is when deprived of 
 the mere sentiment and force of habit that sustain it. I 
 have nowhere gone into the question of the authenticity, 
 correctness, or age of the books of either Testament, I 
 have merely referred to it, for my purpose, as I have said, 
 has been to present a plain, common-sense view of dog- 
 matic Christianity as it exists at the present time, and to 
 discuss and point out what I conceive to be its errors in a 
 way that may be understood without previous theological 
 study, and without too close application. But to those 
 who desire to know more on the subject, as well as to have 
 a much more complete argument against ecclesiasticism, I 
 suggest the reading of the books already referred to, and 
 quoted from by me. 
 
 As to the position so frequently taken by those who fail 
 in the argument in behalf of orthodoxy — that the fact that 
 so many great, wise, and good men and women have be- 
 lieved, and do believe, in the Church's dogmas and doc- 
 trines, should be considered as an argument in the Church's 
 favor, and that some religion is necessary to man, and 
 that the Christian religion is the best form known, and 
 should not be interfered with, even if it be full of errors, 
 I have already so fully discussed, and, as I hope, disposed 
 of, these points in considering the influence of the Church 
 on man, that I do not care to add to, or even summarize, 
 what I have there said ; but I will give some additional 
 illustrations of the harm that is yet being done by a dog- 
 matic Church, whether it teach the best-known form of 
 religion or not, though in doing so I necessarily repeat 
 and enlarge upon what has been said before. 
 
 In this, and most other civilized countries, the Protes- 
 tant division of Christianity is allowed quite a large lati- 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 26 1 
 
 tude in matters of doctrine, and many who deem them- 
 selves very orthodox reject much that is held to be essen- 
 tial by the Roman Catholics, and even by some sects of 
 Protestants. But there are certain doctrines taught from 
 all orthodox pulpits, so far as I am informed, which seem 
 to me not only erroneous, but to work great harm ; and I 
 now briefly notice one or two of the more prominent of 
 these. 
 
 The doctrine that Jesus is God gives, as I think, not 
 only a false but pernicious conception of Deity. It may 
 increase our idea of our own importance and dignity, but 
 it does it at the cost of lowering our conception of the 
 Almighty ; for to suppose Him anxious to save mankind 
 from His own vengeance, to make them friends with Him, 
 to reform their evil ways — all of which, by an all-powerful 
 God could have been done by the mere exercise of His 
 volition,— by incarnating Himself in a foetus for nine 
 months, and in a child, youth, and man for thirty years, 
 before He should begin to act, and then acting in an in- 
 efficient way for three years, and dying prematurely on 
 the cross, and after some 1893 years of waiting to be no 
 nearer the attainment of His wishes than at first, certainly 
 seems to me to be a low conception of God ; and it is no 
 answer to say that we have no right to question His acts, 
 or His wisdom, and that because all this is mysterious and 
 incomprehensible, it is none the less true. I admit that 
 we have no right to question either the acts or the wisdom 
 of God ; but as I have said before in this connection (Prop. 
 I. b.) it certainly is our right to be assured that the act IS 
 the act of God before we yield to it the respect to which 
 it would be thereby entitled. We may admit the possi- 
 bility of even the Incarnation, on the ground that all is 
 possible with God ; but this does not preclude our examin- 
 
262 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 ing to ascertain if this possible, but improbable, thing was 
 really done. The mere fact that the story is mysterious 
 and incomprehensible does not prove it true, and the 
 narrated event to be the act of God, though some would 
 seem to think so. On the contrary, it would seem that if 
 a purely human and finite mind can see how an object 
 could have been actually attained by simple and natural 
 means, the probability is that Infinite Wisdom would have 
 seen as much ; and when we are asked to believe that In- 
 finite Wisdom rejected the natural, obvious, and effective 
 plan and adopted one mysterious, incomprehensible, and 
 entirely inefficient, we should require indubitable proof 
 before throttling our intelligence and surrendering our 
 reason. 
 
 Without further discussing the reasons for believing in 
 the divinity of Jesus, or the contrary, leaving the truth of 
 the belief to be determined from what has already been 
 said, let us see wherein it is pernicious. 
 
 We are told that Jesus was the only perfect man, and 
 that he was perfect only because he was God. That we 
 must try to be perfect even as he was perfect, but that we 
 cannot succeed, not being, as was he, divine. This dis- 
 courages many from attempting to follow the impossible- 
 of-attainment example of his life ; whereas if they were 
 taught that Jesus was but man, and that it is possible for 
 any other man to live as pure, holy, good, innocent, and 
 useful a life as he did, many would be encouraged to try 
 it. In this way the example of his life would be utilized, 
 and not wasted as it is under the Incarnation theory. Then 
 it could be held out as a point of perfection to be reached ; 
 now it is set up as an example impossible of imitation ; and 
 the really sublime lessons of his life and actual teachings 
 are lost sight of in the assumed benefits of his death. 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 263 
 
 Again, while told that we must follow his example, 
 though without the possibility (he being God) of doing so 
 successfully, we are further told that, no matter how good 
 we may be, no matter how near we may come in acts to 
 imitating his, no amount of honesty, honor, charity, 
 morality, and virtue will avail in the slightest degree to save 
 us, unless we also believe that Jesus was God, that he died 
 to save us, and that we can be saved in no other way. As I 
 have fully argued, and, I trust, established, belief "is beyond 
 our control. Hence many who feel the impulse to lead 
 virtuous lives, but who are utterly unable to believe those 
 dogmas, but do believe what they have been taught about 
 the effect of such unbelief, determine that if they are to be 
 finally damned in any event, they will have a " good time " 
 while they are here, and so fall into various kinds of im- 
 morality, the religion they have been taught making them 
 believe that virtue of itself alone is worthless in the sight 
 of God. 
 
 Besides, taught that God has made a man's salvation 
 dependent on something beyond the man's control — 
 belief ; knowing that the belief which a man holds when 
 grown depends in most instances on that of his parents, 
 and, hence, on the circumstances in which God has caused 
 him to be born ; that if he examines into the question for 
 himself his belief must be determined by evidence and 
 argument and not by volition ; that God could have given 
 satisfactory evidence of what was true, or could have so 
 arranged that the truth should be known to and believed 
 by all men, and would not ;— his mind refuses to believe in 
 so monstrous a conception of Deity, and knowing none 
 other, he flies to materialism pure and simple, and dies 
 uncheered by any hope of a higher life ; and, unless he is 
 naturally good and philosophic, he will not live a life of as 
 
264 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 much purity and usefulness to his fellow-men as he would 
 were he otherwise, and truly, instructed. 
 
 Again, the doctrine deduced from the Incarnation and 
 its sub-theories, that, on account of Jesus having, by his 
 death, taken away the sins of the world, a man may live a 
 life utterly at variance with all morality and virtue, and 
 yet, by a tardy repentance and belief, be relieved from the 
 penalties and consequences of his vicious acts, and be for- 
 ever blessed, causes many to persist in living more in 
 accordance with the promptings of the flesh than the 
 aspirations of the spirit, trusting to wash out all the past 
 with the atoning blood of Jesus. 
 
 Thus this one dogma, with the doctrines necessarily 
 flowing from it, has within it not only error, but the po- 
 tentiality of great harm ; and that potentiality has acted, 
 and is acting now, to the great injury of humanity and 
 human progress by driving many of the most earnest and 
 thoughtful of our race out of the paths of rectitude and 
 beyond the pale of all religion. 
 
 Then the doctrine of future punishment, as punish- 
 ment, generally supposed to be endless, — the great dogma 
 of hell, — has the effect of hardening the heart and deaden- 
 ing the sensibilities, lessening the appreciation of justice, 
 confounding degrees of crime, and tending to develop 
 the most heartless selfishness, by teaching that it is divine 
 justice, wisdom, and mercy to punish forever and cruelly 
 the sin of a moment; that cruelty may be justice, and 
 may be deserved ; that crimes of action are as nothing 
 compared to the crime of unbelief; that one unrepented 
 sin is as bad as another, and the moral man who doubts 
 the Church worse than the murderer who finally believes 
 it ; and that we may enjoy not only contentment, but 
 supreme bliss and happiness, in heaven, with the dearest 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 265 
 
 and most beloved wife, child, or parent in hell ; and by 
 making us suppose that God triumphs (rejoices over 
 success — see Webster) over His enemies — His own cre- 
 ation, His own children, and ever absolutely helplessly 
 in His power. 
 
 And the idea inculcated by the Church that the true 
 believers are especially marked out by God as the recipi- 
 ents of His favors and blessings, while those less favored 
 receive His frowns and curses, must arouse a personal 
 vanity and overbearing pride that cannot but interfere 
 with our consideration and treatment of those whom we 
 look upon as our less fortunate fellow-men. 
 
 But I pause. If I have shown, as I believe I have, that 
 dogmatic Christianity tends to debase our conception of 
 God, and to give us false ideas of our relations to our 
 surroundings, then I have done all I wish — I will have 
 shown it to be a bane, not a blessing, to man. 
 
 I have said that I do not oppose religion but only 
 ecclesiasticism. I may say that I do not oppose true 
 Christianity. I make my meaning plainer. 
 
 I believe that Jesus of Nazareth did actually exist, and 
 did teach many great, though not new, truths. I believe, 
 further, that many, if not all, of those truths, though not 
 new to the world, were new to him, and that they were 
 evolved out of his own consciousness and thought, under 
 and through the laws of God, and were to him, and those 
 to whom he spoke, true inspirations : for I believe that 
 God is truth ; and any truth— whether it first reach the 
 world from the lips of Jesus or Pythagoras, from Christian, 
 Pagan, or Infidel — is an emanation from Him — is Divine 
 Inspiration. 
 
 Hence his ethical teachings, with but few exceptions, I 
 believe to be right, and they, in my opinion, constitute 
 
266 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 true Christianity. The dogmas and doctrines devised by 
 the Church to reconcile obvious discrepancies, and to for- 
 ward its own interests, I would reject, as also such portions 
 of the Bible, whether in the Old or the New Testament, 
 as are plainly repugnant to reason. 
 
 For a creed, I would offer : 
 
 " I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of 
 heaven and earth ; and in a life everlasting." 
 
 For a rule of conduct : 
 
 " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart 
 and with all thy soul and with all thy mind ; and thy 
 neighbor like thyself." 
 
 And to those who require any outside sanction to cause 
 them to observe the law, the teaching of nature that 
 every infraction of her laws, whether physical, mental, or 
 moral, carries with it fixed natural consequences, in the 
 nature of punishment, because disagreeable, certain, and 
 proportionate, but not eternal ; and that man must work 
 out his own salvation, and not depend on the mediation 
 of others ; and that instead of praying to be saved on 
 account of Jesus' death, we had better strive to win our 
 own redemption by following the example of his life. 
 
 In other words, let men live good moral lives, attend- 
 ing to their plain duties here on earth, as indicated by the 
 precepts and example of Jesus and dictated by a sound 
 philosophy and enlightened conscience, and trust the rest 
 to God. This seems to be the extent of the knowable. 
 As to that which lies beyond this world and this life, let 
 men believe what they please, it is but theory after all, 
 and while we may, as I do, try to convince our fellow- 
 men of the truth or falsity of various beliefs, no one 
 should be persecuted, even to the extent of being shunned 
 or reprobated, because his theory may differ from that 
 
THE TRUTH OF DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 267 
 
 generally accepted ; certainly we should not try to force 
 him to adopt our belief in matters of mere faith, under 
 the threat that if he does not conform to our views we 
 will not only not aid him to get to heaven, but will do all 
 we can to send him to hell, by cutting him off from our 
 Church fellowship and our social influence. 
 
 Such is my creed ; and though much of it depends on 
 faith, it is that nobler, truer faith of which I have so 
 often spoken, and none of it seems to me to be repug- 
 nant to reason ; still I do not think it an essential to sal- 
 vation that even my creed should be believed, for much 
 of it is deduction only, and though I think mine are more 
 logical and reasonable than the deductions drawn by the 
 Church, they are deductions still ; and no belief in any 
 doctrine or dogma, which is a deduction, no matter how 
 clear, should or can be an essential to salvation, because 
 what is perfectly clear to one is by no means clear to an- 
 other, and the condemnation for disbelief would be for 
 having either too much, or too little, brains to believe it ; 
 and in either case the sentence would be equally unjust, 
 being an endless spiritual doom for a temporary physical 
 defeat. 
 
 I believe the ideas advanced by me, and, as I think, 
 unsuccessfully controverted by my opponent, lead to a 
 peace of mind, a fulness of faith, and a consciousness of 
 truth, unknown to the orthodox ; we do not have to try 
 to become as little children — to pray for imbecility — lest 
 we may not be able to avoid seeing the errors of our 
 creed ; and when we say, " Lord, we believe," we are not 
 obliged to add, " help Thou mine unbelief," for our 
 belief comes from the head as well as the heart, and is 
 mental conviction, not mere acceptance. And they cer- 
 
268 DOGMATIC CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 tainly tend to elevate our ideas of our duty to ourselves 
 and others, and to raise our conception of God from that 
 of a changeable, uncertain, rather bungling, personal in- 
 terferer in our affairs, to that of an all-pervading, living, 
 unchanging, perfect God, ruling by fixed and immutable 
 laws, and those laws Evolution, Progress, Compensation, 
 Love. 
 
 Surely the changed conception cannot be regretted 
 even if to bring it about we have to differ in our theo- 
 logical views from the pioneer thinkers of an infant 
 world. God's children, the sons of Earth, have pro- 
 gressed in knowledge, in accordance with His laws, in 
 everything pertaining to their physical nature ; shall we 
 believe that physical progress alone is possible? That 
 the Spiritual, which if it exists at all, being eternal, must 
 be the Real, alone is cut off from God's great law of 
 growth ? Rather would I believe, as I do, that the more 
 important the faculty, the greater the capacity for pro- 
 gress, and that in the spiritual as well as in the physical 
 world the mistakes of the past are the stepping-stones to 
 the truths of the future ; and that spiritual truths will 
 always be provided for the yearning human soul which 
 shall thereby continue to grow and progress higher and 
 higher, purer and purer, wiser and wiser, happier and 
 happier, here and hereafter, through all time and eternity. 
 
 THE END. 
 

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