PRICE, FIVE CENTS.

 

 

 

RELIGION OF REASON, NO. 4.

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE ONE TEST OF CHARACTER.

 

 

A DISCOURSE

 

 

BY

 

GERRIT SMITH,

 

 

 

 

IN PETERBORO, JULY TWENTY-SECOND, 1860.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NEW-YORK:

FOR SALE BY ROSS & TOUSEY, 121 NASSAU STREET.

1860.

DISCOURSE.

 

THE ONE TEST OF CHARACTER.

 

 

“WHEREFORE by their fruits ye shall know them.” — MATT. 7 20.

 

 

THESE are the words of Jesus. This immeasurably greatest of all moral teachers bids us judge men not by their profession, but by their practice; not by their doctrines, but by their deeds; not by their lips, but by their lives. The saying that “Actions speak louder than words,” is not more trite than true. Words are the lowest, and actions the highest grade of evidence. Jesus did not mean that immoral, profane, polluting, shameless words are not evidence of the bad character of him who utters them. They are in themselves such evidence, and also in the fact that bad words are wont to be accompanied by bad deeds. Evil-speaking and evil-doing go together. No, Jesus meant that good words are not proof that the speaker of them is good. Bad words are bad fruits. But it does not follow that good words are good fruits. Good fruits may be hung upon a tree for the purpose of disguising its bad character. And good words may be spoken dissemblingly by one whose disposition is to speak bad words.

There died a few weeks ago one of the wisest and best of men. I mean Theodore Parker. The churches believe that he was wicked. That he lived an eminently pure and loving and benevolent life, and died a peaceful death, they are constrained to admit. Nevertheless, they hold that he lived and died a wicked man. Why? Because his creed was wrong. His fruit was good; but be was not good. And this do they hold, not­withstanding Jesus said: “Neither can a corrupt tree bring

 

forth good fruit; “and notwithstanding, too, that he immediately deduced from this proposition the injunction: “Where­fore by their fruits ye shall know them.”

It is true, that in rare cases we may possibly be deceived by even this life-test of character. Nevertheless, it is not only our best test, but our only one. It is not for man to look directly upon the heart. All he can do is to argue what is within from what is without. “For man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart.”

Outside of the churches, and of the sphere of their conven­tional religion, men judge one another by their fruits far more than by aught else. Happy that it is so. Else would the world get on far worse than it does. But inside of them the creed is the paramount question. I do not say that it is the sole crite­rion. I admit that the life also is recognized as one. But this real test is so disparaged by being coupled with the fallacious one of a bundle of doctrines, as to be made nearly vain. From being put upon the same level with a test so entirely empty, it must soon sink far below it, if only for this reason among sev­eral, that a sectarian church must lose its distinctive character, and lose itself if it cease to make its doctrinal test its main one. It is for its very life that such a church shall not cease to do this. That church-members vote for slave-catching and dram-shop candidates, proves that in the eye of the churches such an im­morality is as nothing compared with errors of doctrine. In their eye, lying is less sinful than unsoundness in regard to the Atonement.

This making of the creed the test is of course justified on the ground that a man’s creed determines his character. Now, I cheerfully admit, that not only does his life give shape to his creed, but that his creed does also give shape to his life. It is, however, his whole creed that does so, and not a very small part of it. It is his ten thousand beliefs, and not some half dozen of them. Just here is the greatest mistake of the churches. A man has this or that view of the future state; this or that view of some of the attributes or offices of Christ; this or that view of one or another ecclesiastical doctrine; and because he has them, the churches approve or condemn him. But what is his creed in regard to feeding the hungry, and clothing the naked, serving the sick, liberating the oppressed,


 

 

supplying the homeless with homes, or in regard to innumerable other things, may have very far more to do with the formation of his character than have all these views on which such undue stress is laid. Yes, if we will judge a man by his creed, it should be by his whole creed. But how can we know his whole creed? He does not know it himself. He may be unconscious of even those elements in it which are exerting the most influence upon his character. The most we can do toward learning his creed, is to observe the effect of it upon his life, and to argue its gen­eral character from this effect. Even in this wise we may be able to do no more than ascertain, and that, too, with but little correctness, the average or mean proportion of the truths and untruths, reason and superstition, wisdom and folly, mixed up in his creed.

We have already admitted the influence of the creed upon the life. But in the light of what we have just said, it is mani­fest that we are to deduce the character of the creed from the character of the man, rather than that of the man from that of the creed—or, more correctly, from that of the few known ele­ments of his creed. In this light do we see how absurd it is to make the creed instead of the life the criterion of the character; for in this light do we see that we must look to the life to learn what is the creed.

The churches, in their bigotry and blindness, look at three or four of a man’s beliefs, and count them for his whole creed. How foolish are they in not reflecting, that it comprises a vast number of other beliefs, some, or even many of which may be far more busy and successful in moulding the character than are any of those few which have been counted for all. Indeed, it may often be that none of those few beliefs are entitled to be called a part of the creed. They may be but speculations float­ing in the brain, and wholly distinct from the convictions which are stirring the depths of the soul, and making the life a good or a bad one—a blessing or a curse.

Theodore Parker’s creed may have contained errors. But that it was, as a whole, a good one, is proved by his good life. The creed of a liquor-drinking and tobacco defiled Doctor of Divinity, may include much truth; but his vices prove that his creed is radically unsound.

This false standard of character set up by the churches—this


 

 

wide departure from that only one set up by Jesus—is fraught with consequences the most deplorable. What less than a bad state of morals is to be looked for in a church where there is more concern because its member has given up the doctrine of election or the doctrine of falling from grace, than there would have been had his life been disgraced and his soul stained by “covetousness which is idolatry”! Or what less than such a state of morals in a church where a member would much sooner be forgiven for getting drunk than for a misapprehension of something in the assumed character of the Virgin Mary! Or in a church where the denial of the Apostolic succession is a graver offense than the occasional soiling of the lips with an oath! Or in a church where sprinkling babies produces more horror than stealing babies!

Self-complacency goes far to promote the growth of bad morals. But how filled with it must he be who is educated to regard devotion to doctrines as the highest merit, and to make far less account of the sins of his own life than of the doctrinal unsoundness of others! The Thugs are probably as self-com­placent as our churches. What if they do commit murder every day? Their test of character is not practical goodness. They, too, as well as the churches, reject Christ’s test. They, too, as well as the churches, have a creed to go by and judge by.

And bad, too, must be the state of morals outside of the churches, as long as it is so inside; and as long as their claim to be “the light of the world” continues to be acknowledged outside.

A handful of men in this country have, for these twenty or thirty years, been laboring to hold back their fellow-citizens from voting for rum and slavery. But all in vain. To vote thus is not held in the churches to be criminal, nor even in the slightest degree censurable. Nay, it is held to be cunning and commendable, and the reverse to be stupid and fanatical. The New-York independent, no less than the other religious news­papers, would have us all vote a party ticket, even though the candidates upon it be in favor of dram-shops and slave-catching. The church-member may vote power into hands that will use it to perpetuate and multiply the dram-shops, and to return the slave to the hell from which he had escaped—that hell in which


 

 

the Bible is not allowed to be read; nor even the name of God to be spelt; and in which parent, husband and wife, are names that carry no sacredness and no rights—and yet he can remain in good standing and in full fellowship with his brethren. But if, instead of having borne these bad and bitter fruits, by which Christ would have him judged, he had so much as cast one doubt upon some favorite tenet in its creed, he would have been hurled out of the church. “By their fruits shall ye know them,” says Christ. By their creed, or rather by half a dozen of the ten thousand things in it, shall ye know them, say the churches.

Every where is the Christ-test dishonored and thrown aside. Even in Peterboro, where so much has been done to restore it, the church-test still prevails. Creeds made up chiefly of a few stereotyped phrases about total depravity, trinity, atonement, election, baptism, etc., are still in the ascendant; and the life is comparatively unimportant. I doubt not that even here in Peterboro there will, at the approaching election, be seen going to the polls, with tickets in their hands for dram-shop and slave-catching candidates, not a few church-members. These, our creed-bound and church-bound neighbors, are conscientious. They have been trained to regard their doctrinal and sectarian churches as very dear to the heart of Christ; and all the world could not suffice to bribe them to lisp a word against their church-creed. Alas! how many ages more must pass away ere ignorance and superstition and bigotry will be so far dispelled as to permit men to see that these churches are, in effect, the worst enemies of Christ; and that the progress of his cause over the earth will be measured by their disappearance from it! They are a libel on his character, and an outrage upon his memory. They have no right to his name. Theirs is another religion than his. Their unconsciousness of the fact does not alter the fact.

We spoke of voting. So paramount to the life is the creed held to be—the profession to the practice—that the good deed of a morally right vote would pass rather to the discredit than credit of one’s ecclesiastical soundness. Indeed, it is not too much to say that an uncompromising attitude in behalf of the great and vital reforms is regarded as at least prima facie evi­dence of infidelity. It was their devotion to these reforms that prepared the way for calling Garrison and Phillips infidels.


 

 

Must not the church, if only from the necessities of self-defense, stigmatize those who are at work to throw down the abomina­tions which she helps sustain?

Our answer to the inquiry by what means the church has succeeded in thrusting aside Christ’s test is, that it has done so by thrusting aside his religion. This religion is simple, intelli­gible, practical. Ignorance and weakness can comprehend it. It is revealed even unto babes. Its test of character corre­sponds necessarily with its own character, and is as simple, intelligible and practical as itself. Were this religion the com­plex and cabalistic one of the churches, the criterion of disciple­ship—of initiation into its mysteries—could not be simple. So simple, however, is the Christ-religion, that its only criterion of discipleship is the fruits of the life—the every-day conduct in the presence of the world. A religion, the sum total of whose requirements is comprised in the injunction “to do as you would be done by,” must of course have a test of character which all men are capable of understanding and applying. But the reli­gion of the churches, not being this common-sense and easily-understood religion, but being a doctrinal and difficult one, must necessarily have doctrinal and difficult tests of character.

How numerous and vast the changes that would result from purging the churches of their spurious religion, and supplying its place with the religion of Jesus! It is in the doctrinal re­ligion that sectarianism lives and moves and has its being. A fish out of water is not more out of its element than is sectarian­ism when out of the foggy atmosphere of the doctrinal religion. Bring the Roman Catholic and the countless Protestant sects into the sphere of the simple, practical religion of Jesus, and they would quickly die. In that sphere are no facilities and no encouragements to continue their work of comparing tweedle­dums with tweeciledees. But to deny them this work is to deny them their life. Catholics and Protestants would not all die. Their sects only. Good Catholics and good Protestants would still live; and their immeasurably higher life in that sphere would be as much more useful and beautiful as it would be more harmonious and happy-

Once succeed in expelling from the churches their conven­tional and unnatural religion, and in bringing into its stead the religion of Jesus, and there will never be another book written


 

 

about the Immaculate Conception, nor the Apostolic Succession, nor Election, nor the points of Calvinism. Turning these nomi­nal churches of Christ into real churches of Christ, would turn them into associations for feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, delivering the oppressed, lifting up the low, and enlight­ening the benighted. Their present degrading, useless, perni­cious occupations would be gone forever; and they would stand forth glorious witnesses for God and his dear Son in every de­partment of outcast and trampled-down humanity.

The abolition of the doctrinal religion, and, along with it, of sectarianism, could not fail to be followed by the abolition of the technical ministry. Not that a Charles G. Finney,a Beriah Green, a George B. Cheever, and a Henry Ward Beeeher would no longer be needed. Far more than ever would they then be sought after :—none of them, however, for the purpose of hav­ing them defend this or that group of church-doctrines, but all of them for the purpose of having them persuade men to buy and sell and vote right, and in all respects live right, and thus honor the claims of a practical every day and every where religion.

Theological seminaries would, of course, go down stream along with the doctrinal religion and the technical ministry. A theological seminary is an institution for training men to teach the doctrinal religion. Hence its Greek and Hebrew studies, its metaphysics and abstractions. But to fit men to teach the one true and practical religion, three years spent in an honest law­yer’s office, or behind an honest merchant’s counter, would avail unspeakably more than that amount of time spent in a theo­logical seminary. Actual contact with a great variety of living heads and living hearts in the busy walks of life serves far more than do poring over books and dreaming over doctrines to furnish the teacher of the religion of Jesus with advantages for making his ministry effectual.

We next inquire how it is that Christendom has consented to remain in bondage to doctrinal religions. The answer is, be­cause her peoples are not yet sufficiently independent and courageous to overcome their habit of submission to authority, nor sufficiently enlightened to desire to overcome it. Every doctrinal religion is a religion of authority, and holds its sub-


 

 

jects, not in virtue of being understood by them, but in virtue of its authority over them.

A great curse is the authority which usurps the place of rea­son. Liberated from their thraldom to this despot, men would soon be more like angels than like the men they now are; and earth would soon be more like heaven than like the earth it now

is. For then, feeling their own responsibility for their own steps, they would not submit to be led blindfold by others. For then, where now the million ignorantly and superstitiously and tamely do the bidding of the ecclesiastical and civil power, there would be a million free minds at work, and most of them at work to swell the tide of human wisdom and human happi­ness. For then, reason being in exercise, where now even in the highest matters it is suffered to be overridden by the claims of authority, truth would commonly be established; and the calmness, order, and beauty which ever wait upon her, would succeed to the confusion and misery that must continue to overspread the earth, so long as it shall be held that ignorant superstitions and cowardly submission better become men than the studying of their duties in the light of their reason.

It is true, that not every one would improve his release from authority. To many it would prove polluting license instead of rational freedom. Nevertheless, even in such cases, it would be more the blameless occasion of revealing an existing charac­ter than the responsible creator of a bad one. It is also true that authority can not be dispensed with every where. The child must obey its commands, even its wrong commands, whilst as yet it is too young to see them to be wrong. Often­times the sick man, not being able to judge of the prescription for his cure, must submit himself entirely to authority. So, too, when in danger of shipwreck, all on board must conform their efforts to the captain’s commands, whether they can or can not see them to be wise. So, too, the jury must acknowledge the authority of the scientific witness or expert, and receive his tes­timony on subjects they do not comprehend. Authority in such instances is proper, is necessary. Reason approves it. To reject it would be most unreasonable. We war with no authority but that which invades the province of reason; but that, in short, which wars with reason.

The assumptions of authority by Civil Government, and the


 

 

abject and wicked submission to them, work very great injury to the human family and very great dishonor to God. It is held that what Government commands, be it right or wrong, must be obeyed. Nay more, that the authority of Government precludes all inquiry into the moral character of its commands. The panting slave must be put back into the pit from which he had escaped, because it is Government that says be must. The innocent Mexicans must be robbed of territory and murdered, because it is Government that says they must. And all this must take place irrespective of what justice and mercy and the God of justice and mercy say, either in or out of the Bible. Government instead of God is looked to as authority. The Legislature and Judiciary, instead of confining themselves to the declaration of God’s law, would have themselves regarded as the very source of law.

What but a boundless authority claimed for Government could have led the Supreme Court of the United States when dooming certain freemen to slavery, to say that: “Every State has an undoubted right to determine the status or domestic and social condition of the persons domiciled within its territory ?"* And what but their recognition of such authority can induce the people to acquiesce in this opinion of the Court? The Chief-Justice, who delivered it, holds in effect that his State of Maryland can, on his returning to it, make him a slave; and that President Buchanan can likewise be made a slave on his returning to Pennsylvania! By the way, there are perhaps no men who would have less reason to complain of such a fate than these two, who have done so much to fasten slavery on millions.

It is owing in no small part to the recognition by the people of this boundless authority of Government, that they suffer, and even welcome, other intrusions of Government into matters with which Government has legitimately nothing to do. Veneration goes far toward explaining the readiness of the peo­ple to let Government meddle with their schools and churches and with their God-given liberty to buy and sell freely in all the markets of the world. The American people are paying three times as great an amount of postage as they would have

 

 

 

 

*Strader et al., v. Graham, 10th Howard.


 

 

to pay, were the carrying of letters and papers left to the free competition of companies and individuals. Their blind admira­tion of a great authoritative power is no small reason why they consent to leave the Post-Office in the bungling and blundering, defrauding and despoiling hands of Government. The legiti­mate limits of Government are very narrow. They comprise nothing but the protection of person and property. The peo­ple of State after State and nation after nation will, as fast as they shall become enlightened, snap asunder the leading-strings of usurped Governmental authority, and assert their right to be no longer treated as children, but to be allowed the liberty of men.

It is, however, in its enormous assumptions in the sphere of religion, that we find authority doing its worst work. To these assumptions more than to the aggregate of all other causes are owing the dwarfed intellect, the shrivelled spirit, the deep de­basement of mankind. Reason is competent to determine all the duties of that sphere. Therefore reason should be allowed to reign in it. Nevertheless reason is shut out from it, and au­thority fills it. Am I asked whether not even God’s authority should be welcomed in the sphere of religion? I answer that it exists every where, and should be welcomed every where. But God’s authority comes to men through their reason. Rea­son is the authoritative voice of God in the soul.

I said that a doctrinal religion is a religion of authority. To render it more fully and effectually such, the mass of the doc­trines are made so metaphysical or rather so muddy, as to be comprehended not at all by the common intellect, and scarcely at all by the uncommon intellect. Take for instance the doctrines of the religion, which is current among ourselves. Not more than ten men in this town, if called on to explain them, would be able to make a decent show of understanding them; and even the ten men, including if you please all the ministers, would interpret them quite differently. Not two of them would agree at all points. In the presence of these mystical phrases, that abound in the formulary of the church faith, learning is about as much at fault as ignorance. Whether you have or have not been to college makes but little difference in your at­tempt to understand them.

How amazing that the common-sense of mankind should


 

 

suffer these unintelligible doctrines to be made tests of character! But even were they intelligible, it would scarcely be less absurd to make them such. The longer I live, however, the more do I see that even common-sense prostrates itself before an ecclesi­astical religion. Such religion is authority: and men of sense as well as men of nonsense have been trained not to dare to speak nor even think against authority.

The true religion is a reasonable one—a “reasonable service”

—to use the words of the Apostle. It makes its appeal direct­ly to reason. Says its great Teacher: “And why judge ye not even of yourselves what is right ?“ Observe that he does not say: “Why feel you it not ?“—or “Why fancy you it not?”— or “Why receive you it not upon the authority of the priest­hood, the council, the church, the book ?“ But he says:

“Why judge ye not?”—or what is the same: “Why reason ye not what is right ?“ That Jesus should thus submit his religion to the reason of his hearers is not strange when we consider the exceeding simplicity of its character. That the churches can not do so with theirs is obvious from the fact that instead of being, as his is, universally intelligible, it is a technique, a trade, a mystery. Whilst his religion is apparent to reason at first sight, their unintelligible one claims assent by force of author­ity. Whilst his religion courts the severest trials of reason, and comes out of them all brighter and stronger, theirs is horrified that reason should presume to pass upon religion.

Mohammedans, Hindoos, and other Eastern peoples, are more earnest and devout worshipers than Christians. This is the natural result of their being less enlightened. For being so, they- are the more ready subjects of authority, and the more implicit believers in the dogmas which that authority imposes upon them. In this wise is it explained that the Roman Catho­lic has so much more faith, and earnestness, and zeal than the Protestant. For whatever may be said of the equality of edu­cated Catholics with educated Protestants, all must admit that, in point of intelligence, the Catholic masses fall below the Protestant. Never were Protestant nations and communities in­creasing so rapidly in knowledge as in our day; and, therefore, never were Protestant infidels (infidels in the sense of having forsaken their ecclesiastical faith) multiplying so rapidly. These infidels have become too enlightened for their religion. They


 

 

have outgrown a doctrinal religion. If a religion of authority would once do for them, it nevertheless can do for them no longer. Their religious want, lying deep in their rational nature, can now be supplied with nothing less than a rational religion; with nothing less than the religion of Jesus. It will yet come, by means of the rapid enlightenment of the Protest­ant world, that between reason on the one hand and authority on the other, there will be no room left for Protestantism. As a religion of authority, Roman Catholicism is admirable. In the breaking up of the Protestant churches, such of their mem­bers as shall still prefer a religion of authority, will go off to Catholicism, and the remainder will mount up to the religion of reason.

The doctrinal religion would soon lose its hold on the public mind, were it not kept wrapped up in mystery. Mystery is as indispensable here, as in the occupation of Signor Blitz and his fellow-jugglers. Preachers there are of this religion, who would no sooner consent to lay bare its methods and machinery than would a quack doctor to reveal the hidden sources of his boasted skill, and tell the ingredients of his never-failing medi­cine. Their use of the Bible (and by some of them a juggling use) is what chiefly enables our clergy to maintain the author­ity of their doctrinal religion. They say that this book—all of it, every chapter and every sentence of it—came from God. Whoever denies, or even faintly doubts this assertion, is a hated, persecuted infidel. Moreover, he is such if he fails to find in it—although ever so honestly intent on finding them—some of the doctrines which the clergy claim to be in it. Protestants encourage a freer reading of the Bible than do the Catholics. But what of that? The Protestant who ventures to oppose the standard interpretations of the Bible, is as promptly and cordially anathematized as is the Catholic, who makes a similar experiment upon ecclesiastical tolerance.

How happy if all the preachers in Christendom could be induced to rise in their pulpits on a given Sabbath, and tell their congregations how the world came by the Bible. This honesty and bravery would be followed by a greater revolution than the world has ever yet seen; and it would be no less blessed than great. Should all the clergy of Peterboro tell their hearers next Sunday the simple facts in the case, Peter-


 

 

boro would be filled with astonishment at the news; and she would be enlightened as she never had been. The thick church-clouds, which still envelop our people, would disappear almost as suddenly and almost as visibly too, as the mists of the morn­ing before the rising sun. It is of little avail—certainly of lit­tle present avail—for persons not belonging to the churches, to tell these simple facts. They can not get a hearing. The men who have parties to back them up, can alone be heard in this party-ridden, party.governed world. The men whose con­sciences compel them to stand outside of both the political and ecclesiastical parties, must be content to live and die without exerting the influence which their “soul breaketh for the long-lug that it hath” to exert. Perhaps, however, (and this is their hope and consolation,) that years or ages after they shall have been gathered to their fathers, rich harvests of good to man and glory to God shall be reaped from the seed which they sowed in faith and watered with tears.

Yes, great indeed would be the sensation in these congrega­tions of Christendom, should their preachers confess to them that the Bible is but a selection from a great heap of Jewish writings. Greater still would it be, should they proceed to con­fess, that some of these writings were selected, and some of them rejected, by small majorities. And into what astonish­ment and staring would not these congregations be wrought, when their preachers had added that the compilers of the Bible lived in a dark and superstitious age; that no one pretends that they were inspired; and that history, so far from informing us of their intellectual or moral character, has not preserved so much as the name of even one of them!

Many, who juggle others with the Bible, are themselves jug­gled by it. It is often the case that men become the dupes of their own dupings. A striking instance of this have we in the Rev. Dr. Gardiner Spring. He justifies slavery. He would not liberate the slaves even if he could do so by offering up a single prayer. He would have his poor colored brothers and sisters sent back into the pit from which they had escaped! Now, whence comes all this diabolism? It comes from his believing in the blasphemous nonsense which ecclesiastical. authority attributes to the Bible. He believes that God cursed the blacks—and with so enduring a curse that, even in the mil­


 

 

lennium, they are still to suffer under it. He confounds the belchings of drunken Noah’s anger with the curse of God. But what blasphemous nonsense is it, that God curses his children! Alas! how still prevalent are the Pagan concep­tions of “OUR FATHER,” who loves all and hates none, who blesses all and curses none! Doubtless Dr. Spring believes, in common with the churches, that God was such a bloody mon­ster as to command the Jews to torture and slay innocent women and children. All these absurdities, which he has been so long trying to make others believe, he has come at last to believe himself. Very likely that fifty years ago he thought he believed them. That he now really believes them is owing not a little to the reflex influence upon himself of his teachings to others. In duping others he has duped himself.

The authoritative interpreters of the Bible have made nearly the whole of Christendom believe that it teaches that children are born devils; and that dying in childhood, they must all drop into an eternal hell, unless the blood of Christ, or bap­tism, or something else exterior to themselves, shall save them from this fate. I do not believe that this doctrine is taught in the Bible—this doctrine of innate total depravity, on which rests the superstructure of the theology of Christendom. But if I did, I should nevertheless refuse to be guilty of such a total and abject renunciation of my reason as to believe in the monstrous doctrine. To believe in it would be to transmute my loving Father into the most hateful of all tyrants. To be­lieve in it, would be to cut all the sinews of my obligation to love and honor Him. This doctrine must be cast out of Christ­endom before Christendom will become like Christ. We admit that thousands of good men believe in it; but their goodness exists notwithstanding it, and not because of it.

As I have already said, I do not believe that this doctrine is in the Bible. David’s saying, “Behold, I was shapen in ini­quity, and in sin did my mother conceive me,” only proves that the dear penitent was in a mood to write the bitterest things against himself. And Paul’s words to the Ephesians, from which the translators and the churches argue that we are all by nature “the children of wrath”—objects of the Divine wrath— mean, probably, but little else than that men are naturally, as he taught the people of Lystra, “of like passions.” Moreover,



 

 

I have but little respect for whatever in the Bible is at war with the teaching of Christ: and if this book says that children are hell-born, nevertheless He says that “Of such is the kingdom of heaven.” I believe that children are born good, and become bad; born religious, and become irreligious. I do not mean that they all become bad and irreligious, though it is certain that the great mass of them do. That they do is in my judg­ment owing in no responsible way to human nature; nor in any comparatively large degree to the imperfections which they inherit from those who had violated the physical, intellectual, or moral laws of that nature; but mainly to the misleading and corrupting influences to which, not in their first years only, but even in their early months also, they are subjected by others.

Not only do I believe that they who die in childhood go to heaven in virtue of their intrinsic and inborn state, but I also believe that men and women can not go to heaven until they have first become as little children—simple, sincere, ingenuous, trustful as little children. Jesus himself says they can not.

Again, these authoritative teachers hold that the Bible de­clares Christ to be the essential God, and that whoever doubts the doctrine must perish. I do not think it is taught there. As I view it, Christ teaches that he is one with the Father in no Other sense than that in which he would have us all one with each other and one with the Father. But this is a great sense; and identifies him in spirit and moral character with God himself.

The world had one God. It did not need another. But it needed a perfect man; and in Christ that was given to it. Had reason been allowed its freedom in the Bible and in religion, this perfect man, “the measure of the stature of whose fullness” is reached in being a perfect man, would have been left to the world. But that same authority, which thrust out reason from the Bible and religion, carried him away from the sphere of simple manhood where, and where only, he was needed; and sublimated him into a superfluous God. Never, until he shall again be restored to that sphere which was robbed of him, will he be generally held, even by the mass of Christians, to be in all things the example of men. And never, until he shall be so held, will they follow or even aim to follow him in all things.

We set before a bad little child the example of a good little one. But who would be so foolish as to think of weaning


 

 

early childhood from its perversities by commending to it the ripe harvests of truth and virtue in the life of some precious white-haired saint? The space between them would be too wide to make the example influential. But infinitely wider is the space between man and God—between the best man and Jesus, if Jesus is God.

Christians will agree with the propositions that Christ would not vote for slave-catching and dram-shop candidates; and that he would not take up a gun to shoot people. But the mass of them will thus agree, because, believing him to be God, they be­lieve that he would not vote for any one, and would not take up a gun for any purpose. They will thus agree, because they believe that to talk of his handling a vote or a gun is to drag him down from Godhood to manhood. It needs a man to be an example for men. In respect to some sublime abstractions we may aspire to copy God. But in respect to the practical, every-day con­cerns of life, He will never be our example. For that we need a man—a man “of like passions” with ourselves; our fellow, who can walk by our side without having to come out of his sphere and down from his nature; and who can walk with us every where where it is right for us to walk, and do every thing which it is right for us to do. Whatever may be said to the contrary, the great body of Christians will never, so long as they look upon Christ to be God, or a being compounded of God and man, make him their example in the whole range of human affairs. They will continue, as now, to go a little way with him, and a great way against him. They will weep with Christ over the slave, over the landless, over the dram-shop-ruined family, and over the desolations of war; and then they will turn against him and vote for slavery and land-monopoly and the dram-shop and war. Some twenty years ago I was urging a man to vote for the slave on the ground that God votes for him. He laughed in my face, and told me that God doesn’t vote. He shut out God from the ballot-box. And so also do the great mass, who believe him to be God, shut out from it Christ and his example and influence.

I do not forget that in these remarks I have exposed myself to the inquiry whether Unitarians do actually more than Trini­tarians, make Christ their example in all things. The compar­ison should be between Unitarians who really believe in Christ,


 

 

and Trinitarians who really believe in him. Both the one and the other are few. Really to believe in Christ is to be imbued with his spirit, established in his principles, and identified with his aims. To such belief, the view that he is or is not God, is in no wise essential. All who thus really believe in him will make him their example. But they who connect with this be­lief the belief that Christ is but a man—but a man, although filled with his Father’s spirit—would, in ten thousand instances, be far more like to recognize his example than would they who believe him to be God. Admit that in every matter of life they would both feel his precept—nevertheless, to associate his ex­ample with it, might be as violent and unusual for the one party as it would be natural, easy and common for the other.

To return to the Bible. It is not perfect. No work of man is. Inconsiderable, however, are the mistakes which are mingled with its essential, sublime and saving truths. Few and small are the spots upon this glorious sun. No where else does the human heart come in contact with such eloquent and mighty inspirations. And in more enlightened ages, when human au­thority shall be driven out of the realm of religion, and human reason shall be installed in its place, the Bible will be no longer an object of blind idolatry, but a treasure comprehended by the understanding and cherished by the soul. Then its religion, instead of being but the superstition of Christendom, will be the accepted and sound religion of the whole world. For the religion of the Bible is a reasonable religion; and when reason shall be left free to investigate the claims of the Bible—to approve here and disapprove there—upon its own solemn responsibility—this book of books will be found to commend itself triumphantly, even to that severe investigator. Its standard teachers make it say much that is very good, and much that is very bad. They make it a book of the very best, and also of the very worst in­fluences. Many a great folly here, and many a great crime there, do they make it sanction. Not a few of them would have us go to the Bible for a warrant for slavery. But as well might they bid us look into heaven for Satan as into this pre­cious book for such warrant. Moreover, the effect of finding slavery in the Bible could not be to whitewash slavery. It could be only to leave a big black blot upon the Bible.

That there are good men in Christendom with great sins


 

 

upon them proceeds more from the worship of the Bible and of its authoritative interpretations than from all other causes. I am often censured for my belief that there are pious slave-holders. Nevertheless there are such, and ever will be, wher­ever slavery exists, and there is also a worshiped book. Inter­pretations of the book are made to suit the interests of its worshipers, and thus to blind them. The great wickedness which there is in some of these interpretations is not perceived by all—no, no even by all who are blessed with Christian dis­cernment. There are sins, and great ones too, which can be so presented as to deceive and win the approbation of even a Christian. But this can no longer be so, after he shall have come to let his reason instead of his Fetich-book decide moral questions for him. If the idolatry of a book and of its author­ity-imposed interpretations can so pervert the vision that even slavery shall appear right, nevertheless in the light of reason there can be no such illusion. No pious slaveholders will there be after the reasonable and practical religion of Jesus shall have taken the place of bundles of theory and superstition.

Never, never can the Bible be loved as it should be by any one, who feels himself shut up to it as an authority, and his free inquiry into the truthfulness of any of its pages forbidden. It can be intelligently and truly loved only so far as reason grasps it. The much talk that we are bound to love things in the Bible, which are above our reason, is all nonsense. We can believe only so far as belief seems reasonable; and we can not love what we can not believe. The Bible is of but little use to those who receive it without understanding it. The dif­ference between the Bible received upon authority and the Bible received through the reason is the difference between un­digested and digested food.

What a blessing to the world will not the Bible be when, in­stead of being clung to superstitiously and bigotedly and hypo­critically and compulsorily, REASON shall own its truth, and be imbued with its elevating and sanctifying spirit! The Bible speaks reasonably through reason. But it speaks absurdly un­der authority. It is the policy of authority to teach absurdi­ties. In proportion to its teaching of the reasonable, would it leave less room for itself and make more for reason. This authority will quite vanish from the world when the world shall


 

 

come to have less taste for the conventional than the natural, for the reasonable than the absurd.

It is this religion of authority which accounts for the poor character of the great mass of church-members. Large-hearted men, such as William Goodell and George B. Cheever, are working hard to arouse them to take bold of the great Reforms so vital to mankind. But they will find their work to be nearly in vain. It had far better be expended upon the more hopeful material outside of the churches—upon the men whose humanity is not suffocated by a spurious religion. The current religion, warring upon reason with its authority, and appalling the heart with its pagan terrors, and substituting policy for principle, is just the magnet to draw into the churches the base and the timid; and is just the power to reduce to baseness and timidity the braver and loftier spirits, who here and there find their way into them.

The espousal of these Reforms, and an unflinching, life-long adherence to them requires honesty, disinterestedness and cour­age. But the last place to look for the growth of these high qualities is under the shadow of an authority religion. Look there for selfishness and abjectness, cowardice and corruption. The noble man you find there is the rare exceptional case, in which resistance is successfully maintained against influences so generally irresistible. A servile spirit and a shrunken intel­lect are the common and legitimate product of the religion of the churches. So it is, that whilst the true church of Christ is the school for producing the choicest specimens of humanity, these sham churches of Christ are the manufactories of the meanest.

I am well aware that I speak offensively. Nevertheless, do I not speak truly? What is meanness if tyranny is not? What is the meanest of all meanness if it is not that tyranny which would “rob the poor because he is poor”? But of this very type of superlative meanness is the tyranny of American slav­ery; and of American slavery are the American churches the bulwark. To this bear witness not only James G. Birney and Albert Barnes, but every other man of just observation. Why, even the churches of William Goodell and George B. Cheevex will, at the coming election, and this, too, notwithstanding the remonstrances of these faithful men, vote, not only for dram-shop candidates, but also for slave-catching candidates.


 

 

No, the first work of the Goodells and Cheevers is to set themselves to displace, with the reasonable religion of Jesus, this authority-reljgjon of the churches — this corrupting and crushing religion. Until this is done they will, as I have already substantially said, do well to look for fellow-reformers outside of the churches to look for them among the men whose generosity and manliness have not been conquered by the withering influences which prevail inside of the churches.

Yet awhile the churches will Continue to be jealous of reason; and no wonder, for it is their enemy-the enemy of all human authority in religion; and hence, the enemy of all doctrinal religions. Yet awhile the churches will continue to talk foolishly about reason, and to deny its right to pass upon religion. Yet awhile the churches will consider it a mark of piety to speak disparagingly of reason, and will regard themselves as honoring God by pouring contempt on this no­blest attribute of man. Nevertheless, God is not with them in this folly. In his sight human reason is greater than the sun and stars. Not only would He have the Bible passed upon by reason, but He submits his own works and ways-nay, his own self—to the inquiries and tests of human reason. I do not say that He submits them to the bundle of passions and prejudices which men are wont to confound with reason. Nor do I say that men Can, by exercising their reason in a proud spirit, learn all of God that they need to know. They will learn little of Him, unless they shall exercise it in an humble spirit. Nor do I say that human reason can, without the help of divine influences, discern divine things. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” They alone who have purity of heart have the heaven-anointed vision. They alone who are “born again” have a reason enlightened and trustworthy in spiritual things. They alone can see the kingdom of God. “Verily, verily I say unto thee: Except a man be born again, he can not see the kingdom of God.”

Permit me to close my Discourse with a few words respecting this Church, which, taking the name of its locality, as did every Apostolic Church, calls itself “The Church of Peterboro” It is now nearly seventeen years since we gathered ourselves front the sects. We could no longer endure the sectarian or creed-tests. We believed in Jesus Christ, and we therefore held that


 

men should be judged by their lives instead of their lips—by their deeds instead of their doctrines. From that day to this we have been misrepresented and maligned by the sects; and from this time onward all who refuse to adopt the Christ-test as the one test of character, will have no patience with us. We are stigmatized as “The Infidel Church” but not at all so be­cause of our lives—and only so because we reject the tests of sectarianism, and persevere in knowing men approving or dis­approving them—” by their fruits.” Most of all, are we disliked and spoken against when “Election” is at hand — especially one of unusual interest. Such an election now agitates the country. The candidates of the sectarian Churches will, as usual, be slave-catchers and dram-shop upholders; and our little Church will, as usual, insist on practical righteousness, and condemn voting for such candidates.

We are told, that a Church should not meddle with politics. There is, however, nothing on earth, that should give it more Concern. Politics, rightly interpreted, are the care of all for each—the protection afforded by the whole people to every one of the people; and hence a Church might better omit to apply the principles of Christ to every thing else than to politics. Manifestly, I am not speaking here of the satanic politics, which have ever cursed every part of the world, but of the Heaven. commanded and Heaven-imbued politics, which have never yet extended their blessed sway over any people. Manifestly, I am speaking not of the politics which are, but of the politics which are to be.

We are told that a Church should say nothing against the wickedness of voting, even for the worst candidates. But we claim, that no wickedness lies outside the jurisdiction of a Church, least of all the wickedness which its members are in danger of perpetrating.

Rum and Slavery may be called the two great “Institutions” of this country. They sway the political parties, and these in turn sway the churches. Were the churches more concerned for right-doing than for acceptable professing, they would be effectual breakwaters against the tide of corruption, which the parties pour over the land. But not being churches of Christ, they are easily turned into tools of the parties. Their morals never rise higher than the morals of the parties. They never


 

 

lead. They always follow. The morals and manners of a church should be such, as to realize our highest conceptions of human dignity. But these sham churches, too low to be taken into partnership even with politicians, are but taken into their service.

Church of Peterboro! Be true to your own God at the ap­proaching Election. He is not your God, who would have men vote for candidates who are in favor of a white man’s Party, and of excluding the black man from suffrage and citizenship. For your God “made of one blood all nations,” and is impartial and loving toward them all. He is not your God, who would have men vote for candidates in favor of seizing the poor inno­cents, as they fly from the pit of slavery, and of casting them back into it. For your God would have the ruler do justice to the “poor of the people, save the children of the needy, and break in pieces the oppressor.” His rulers, in making report of their administrations, can say as the Buchanans and Pierces have never said, that they “brake the jaws of the wicked, and plucked the spoil out of his teeth.” He is not your God, who would have men vote for candidates who recognize a law for slavery. For a law for slavery is a greater and crue