RECAPITULATION. (continued 2)

The New Testament Teaches Intolerance.

“‘He that believeth not shall be damned.’ (Mark 16 : 16.) St. Paul exclaims (Galatians 1), ‘If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.’ He also says (1 Tim. 6), ‘If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to the wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ ... he is proud, knowing nothing ... from such withdraw thyself.’ ‘Of whom (1 Tim. 1) is Hymenæus and Alexander; whom I have delivered unto Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme.’ In these passages persecution and punishment are clearly taught for disbelief. And that such teaching has had an immoral tendency the excommunications, the imprisonments, and sacrifice of the lives of heretics in connection with the history of Christianity abundantly prove.”—B. F. Underwood.

“Are men restrained by superstition? Are men restrained by what you call religion? I used to think they were not; now I admit they are. No man has ever been restrained from the commission of a real crime, but from an artificial one he has. There was a man who committed murder. They got the evidence, but he confessed that he did it. ‘What did you do it for?’ ‘Money.’ ‘Did you get any money?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘How much?’ ‘Fifteen cents.’ ‘What kind of a man was he?’ ‘A laboring man I killed.’ ‘What did you do with the money?’ ‘I bought liquor with it.’ ‘Did he have anything else?’ ‘I think he had some meat and bread.’ ‘What did you do with that?’ ‘I ate the bread and threw away the meat; it was Friday.’ So you see it will restrain in some things.”—Ingersoll.

The Inquisition in Spain, 1568.

“Upon the 16th of February, 1568, a sentence of the Holy Office condemned all the inhabitants of the Netherlands to death as heretics. From this universal doom, only a few persons, especially named, were excepted. A proclamation of the king, dated ten days later, confirmed this decree of the Inquisition, and ordered it to be carried into instant execution, without regard to age, sex or condition. This is probably the most concise death-warrant that was ever framed. Three millions of people, men, women, and children, were sentenced to the scaffold in three lines.” (John L. Motley, “The Rise of the Dutch Republic,” vol. 2, p. 158.)

The Inquisition.

“In 1208. Innocent III. established the Inquisition. In 1209 De Montfort began the massacre of the Albigenses. In 1215 the Fourth Council of the Lateran enjoined all rulers, ‘as they desired to be esteemed faithful, to swear a public oath that they would labor earnestly and to the full extent of their power, to exterminate from their dominions all those who were branded as heretics by the church.’” (Lecky’s “Rationalism in Europe,” vol. 1, p. 38.)

“Llorente, who had free access to the archives of the Spanish Inquisition, assures us that by that tribunal alone more than 31,000 persons were burnt, and more than 290,000 condemned to punishment less severe than death. The number of those put to death for their religion in the Netherlands alone, in the reign of Charles V. has been estimated by a very high authority at 50,000, and at least half as many perished under his son. (Ibid. pp., 40, 41.)

The Church Opposed to Liberty.

“How has the church in every age, when in authority, defended itself? Always by a statute against blasphemy, against argument, against free speech. And there never was such a statute that did not stain the book that it was in and that did not certify to the savagery of the men who passed it. Never. By making a statute and by defining blasphemy, the church sought to prevent discussion—sought to prevent argument, sought to prevent a man from giving his honest opinion. Certainly a tenet, a dogma, a doctrine, is safe when hedged about by a statute that prevents your speaking against it. In the silence of slavery it exists. It lives because lips are locked. It lives because men are slaves.” (Ingersoll, “The Reynolds Blasphemy Trial.”)

“So I say if you believe the Bible say so; if you do not believe it say so. And here is the vital mistake, I might almost say, in Protestantism itself. The Protestants when they fought the Catholics, said: ‘Read the Bible for yourselves—stop taking it from your priests—read the sacred volume with your own eyes. It is a revelation from God to his children, and you are the children,’ and then they said: ‘If after you read it you do not believe it, and you say anything against it, we will put you in jail, and God will put you in hell.’ That is a fine position to get a man in. It is like a man who invited his neighbor to come and look at his pictures, saying: ‘They are the finest in the place, and I want your candid opinion. A man who looked at them the other day said they were daubs, and I kicked him down stairs—now I want your candid judgment.’” (Ibid.)

The Bible Opposed to Liberty.

To-day we say that every man has a right to worship God or not, to worship him as he pleases. Is it the doctrine of the Bible? Let us see:

“If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers;

“Namely, of the gods of the people which are round about you, nigh unto thee, or far off from thee, from the one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth;

“Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him; neither shalt thou conceal him;

“But thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people.

“And thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die; because he hath sought to thrust thee away from the Lord thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage.” (Deut. 13 : 6.)

And do you know according to that, if your wife—your wife that you love as your own soul—if you had lived in Palestine, and your wife had said to you, “Let us worship a sun whose golden beams clothe the world in glory; let us worship the sun; let us bow to that great luminary; I love the sun because it gave me your face; because it gave me the features of my babe; let us worship the sun,”—it was then your duty to lay your hands upon her, your eye must not pity her, but it was your duty to cast the first stone against that tender and loving breast. I hate such doctrine! I hate such books! I hate gods that will write such books! I tell you that it is infamous.

“If there be found among you, within any of thy gates which the Lord thy God giveth thee, man or woman, that hath wrought wickedness in the sight of the Lord thy God, in transgressing his covenant,

“And hath gone and served other gods, and worshiped them, either the sun, moon, or any of the host of heaven, which I have not commanded;

“And it be told thee, and thou hast heard of it, and inquired diligently, and, behold, it be true, and the thing certain, that such abomination is wrought in Israel;

“Then shalt thou bring forth that man, or that woman, which have committed that wicked thing, unto thy gates even that man or that woman, and shalt stone them with stones, till they die.” (Deut. 17 : 2–5.)—Ingersoll.