The Influence Of The Bible Upon Civil
And Religious Liberty.

Civil government is a state of society in which men are reduced
to order; it is a government in which every citizen has
full power over his own rights, but is not at liberty to infringe
upon the rights of others. The deepest thought in the word
civil is the idea of being hedged around by restraints, so as to
be shut in from all privilege, or right, of meddling with the
rights of others. The Welsh use the word “cau,” to shut,
inclose, fence, hedge.

Civil liberty is liberty modified by the rights of others. No
man has a right, by any Divine warrant, to infringe upon the
rights of another; and cannot do it without forfeiting more or
less of his own. This thought, that a man may forfeit his
rights, is as essential to proper conceptions of civil government,
and civil liberty, as the thought that a man has rights;
for if there be no forfeiture of rights through crime, then all
legal punishments are without foundation in justice; even the
right of self-defense, individually and nationally, ceases to exist.
And if this be taken away, all support and strength in
civil government is gone; anarchy and ruin only may remain.
In all civilized nations a man is regarded as forfeiting his right,
even to life, by trampling upon the life-right of another, and,
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while the danger lasts, the assailed may defend his life, in the
absence of any other defense, even at the expense of the life
of the assailant. To deny this doctrine of the right of self-defense,
it is only necessary that we deny that a man can forfeit
the right of life. To do this is equal to the affirmation
that God is the author of coexisting and conflicting rights.
Such rights can exist only at the expense of the destruction of
all governments, both human and Divine, as well as all healthy
influences of social institutions. It is essential to civil liberty
to restrain men from all interference with the rights of others.
The greatest degree of civil liberty is enjoyed where men are
successfully restrained from such officious interposition. A
people may enjoy civil liberty without extending the right of
suffrage to all ages and to both sexes; without making all eligible
to office; without abolishing paternal authority over
minors; without abolishing the punishment of criminals, or
the right of the State to the service of its citizens when the
public good requires it.

The word civil also signifies courteous, complaisant, gentle and
obliging, well-bred, affable, kind. From this it will be seen
that civil government depends upon the intelligence and righteousness
of the people. The absence of all legal demands and
all legal restraints would be the absence of all government.
It would be libertinism or lawlessness. The great majority of
men, from the earliest ages of the world to the present time,
have been under the control of tyrants, and have known little
exemption from despotic rule. There is not a single Pagan,
Mahomedan, or anti-Christian country to-day in which the
spirit of liberty has an abiding place. She may have brooded
over them at intervals, but, like Noah’s bird, found no resting
place.

The influence of the Bible preventing the young, the mature,
and the aged from crime, causing men and women to love
and respect our humanity, is of necessity to the same extent
the very life of civil government, and consequently the life of
civil liberty. It has been said the Bible is the great protector
and guardian of the liberties of men. It was an axiom in an
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apostate church, that ignorance is the mother of devotion;
but the true origin of this axiom is that ignorance which fastens
the chains of civil and ecclesiastic despotism.

It is not possible for a people thoroughly under the influence
of the teachings of the religion of Christ to be ignorant of
their own rights and the responsibility of their rulers. Where
the teachings of Christ and the Bible form public opinion the
people must be free. No such tyrant as Caligula or Nero
would be tolerated in Protestant Christendom. The necessary
effect of Christianity upon an abused people is to make them
restless under a tyrant’s yoke. The author of Travels in England,
France, Spain and the Barbary States, although an enemy
to the Bible, said, after leaving the Barbary States and arriving
in France, I could breathe more freely. I no longer
looked upon my fellow men with distrust, and I thanked God
that I was once more in a Christian land. When we survey
the history of past events and kingdoms we, too, find good
reasons to thank the Lord for a Christian land. The only
authoritative history of remote events and kingdoms is in the
writings of Moses and the Prophets. In the times of Moses
there were no historical records in Greece, Chaldea, Phoenicia,
Egypt or Assyria. No other historian lived so remote as
Moses. He was five hundred years before Sanconiathan, and
more than a thousand years before Manetho. He has been
called the father of history. Men have claimed that astronomical
calculations carry us farther back, but this claim has
been successfully refuted by the calculations of Bedford. There
is a fact upon record in Gillie’s history of Greece that confirms
Bedford’s calculations. This man says: After Alexander conquered
Babylon he eagerly demanded the astronomical calculations
that had been preserved in that ancient capital about
nineteen centuries, and ordered them faithfully transcribed
and handed to Aristotle, who was the preceptor of this prince.
They extended back twenty two hundred and thirty-four
years behind the Christian era. There is no reliable history
so ancient as the writings of Moses. All the efforts between
Moses and David are without regular form—a mass of rearranged
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tradition, both fabulous and corrupt; long after the
times of David the pages of writers regarded authentic, are
loaded with absurd and disgusting fictions.

Nimrod’s kingdom was Babel, and he was a tyrant, instigating
war and bloodshed everywhere, laying the nations under
tribute and transmitting his tyrannical spirit and powers from
son to son, until the Egyptians drove his descendants into
Canaan and Joshua drove them into Greece. Ninus inherited
the spirit of his father, and the history of his empire,
until it was overthrown by the Babylonians and Medes, is a
history of absolute Assyrian despotism.

The Babylonian Empire was no better from the revolt of Nebopolassar
to its destruction by Cyrus. Egypt and Persia were
also equally deprived of the blessings of civil liberty. Greece
and Rome were in no better condition with the exceptions of
a few restrictions consequent upon Greece being controlled by
established customs and Rome by the Senate. These nations
were comparatively free, but their freedom did not grow out
of a comprehension of the rights of their citizens.

The Jewish Republic is the first ancient government where the
people exerted any proper influence in state affairs. It is worthy
of special consideration that the Jewish laws were adapted to civil
liberty in an age when human rights were so little understood.
There is no one work so full of the great principles of civil
wisdom as the Pentateuch and the history of Judah and Israel.
They were free in choosing their form of government; free in
the establishment of their laws; free in the fact that their laws
governed and not men. Their form of government was republican,
with healthy limitations. Twelve tribes were united in
one great republic like so many confederated states bound together
for purposes of defence. At first God was their king.
After awhile they desired another king, and their form of
government was changed to a limited monarchy upon their
own request. Their kings did not enter upon their duties
until they were accepted and crowned by the people, and then
they were restricted in their power by sworn stipulations.

Bad men do not make good citizens. There never was a
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nation of infidels or idolaters, existing as such, in the enjoyment
of freedom. Holland was free as long as she was virtuous.
She flourished as a republic, produced great and learned
statesmen; she became corrupt, and infidelity banished her
glory.

When Perrier, of France, the successor of Lafayette in the
office of Prime Minister to Louis Phillipe, was on his death
bed he exclaimed, with much emphasis and zeal, “France must
have religion”—man must be governed by moral truth or by
despotic power. Liberty does not flourish without morality,
nor morality without the religion of the Bible. The love of
law, the love of wisdom, the love of benevolent institutions,
and the love of virtue makes a people free. When these are
absent tyrants are present. When a nation becomes corrupt,
liberty degenerates into parties and factions until the stubborn
necessity of the strong arm of despotism makes its appearance
to control the passions of men. If pride, selfishness, love of
gold, thirst for power and licentiousness, are not controlled
liberty will die. It may be truthfully said that the high-toned
principles of Bible morality are necessary to the good of all
classes. These, and only these, will unite a people in one
grand national brotherhood, wiping out its factions and hatred,
extinguishing party spirit and bringing all the parts into one
great whole. Many minds are so opposed to the Bible that
they are inclined to oppose any government based upon its
contents. This is a fearful current, and we should always
watch against being carried away upon its turbid waters. Ours
is a Christian land, and we shall be a free people as long as we
remain a Christian people. While the Bible is loved and honored
our freedom will continue; beyond this there is nothing
to hinder us from degenerating into slavery. All great struggles
in Christian lands have been great moral and political
struggles.

Liberty Of Conscience.

This phase of the question rises very high in our estimation;
for we have been taught to regard the rights of conscience and
to esteem them above all other rights in a free country. There
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can be no civil liberty where the rights of conscience are ignored.
The teachings of the Bible are opposed to all interference
by law with man’s religious faith and worship. Religious
liberty asks for no laws meddling with the rights of
conscience. Such laws, whether of tolerance or of intolerance,
are always in conflict with the spirit of the religion of Christ;
for it asks for the soul’s free, voluntary service. As American
citizens we ask, at the hands of our Government, to be protected,
in common with all other citizens, in the free exercise
of the rights of conscience. We ask no interference with religion
by law, and we apprehend none in our country. If our
religion cannot take care of itself, by the force of its own
merits, it must perish.

Rivers of blood have been offered upon the altar of a blind
intolerance. Look at Antiochus sacking the city of Jerusalem
and laying the country waste. Look at the slaughter of the
infants of Bethlehem under Herod’s jurisdiction. In many
ages of the world religious intolerance has been the fruitful
source of misery and bloodshed.

The religion of the Bible does not rest itself upon the authority
of man; much less is it responsible for the cruel results
of wicked efforts to establish or overthrow it by law. Causes
outside of Christianity in the hands of wicked men are responsible
for every drop of blood that has been shed in the
name of our holy religion. Christianity has nothing to fear
in our country as long as our law-makers remember that their
whole duty consists, not in making or unmaking rights or religion,
but in making laws protecting all in the enjoyment of
their rights. The principles of religious liberty set forth in
the Bible are the following: First, the word of God is the
only source of authority in religious matters. Neither tradition,
nor remote antiquity, nor ecclesiastical decisions, nor
statutes, but the Bible is supreme in our religion. Second,
the Bible allows, and demands, the right of private judgment
in all matters of faith and duty. This is based upon the well-defined
principles of individual and personal responsibility.
“Let every man prove his own work.”

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The true and intelligent Christian has always been opposed
to ecclesiastical establishments by law, and the authority of
the state to produce unity of faith and worship. In all such
matters we are responsible to God alone. His authority is all
that is needed in order to the soul’s own free service; and this
is the only acceptable worship. The third great principle of
religious liberty is this: the Bible contains the only infallible
standard of faith and worship, and its author is the only infallible
judge. The Bible gives to no man, or set of men,
dominion over the human conscience, but on the contrary lays
the solemn injunction upon each individual: “Prove all things
and hold fast that which is good.” The direction of Christ is in
these living lines: “Call no man master, for one is your master,
even Christ.” Every man’s own works are the only true
expositor of his character, because they are the fruits of the
affections which point him out as an enemy, or as a friend, of
righteousness.

The man who abuses the right of private judgment has a
fearful account to render—let him see to that. If he receives
not the truth in the love of it that he may be saved, it is at
his own peril. The field of investigation is the place where
Christianity has won her most splendid victories. She has
always lost when wicked men have called in the aid of the
secular arm; for it is a very great error to suppose that you
can deal successfully with a man’s spiritual nature by such
forces; it was not made for such government. By the secular
arm you may force a wicked man to be a hypocrite, but you
cannot make him a Christian in that way; for you cannot
reach his understanding, nor give life to his conscience by any
such means.

There are two extremes, however, which we must carefully
avoid: First, that it is a matter of total indifference what
religious principles a man adopts and what form of worship
he prefers. The Bible contains essential principles—principles
which constitute the essence of the gospel of Christ which
must be received, loved and obeyed, in order to the enjoyment
of the promises of salvation. The sentiment that it matters
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not what a man believes, is no part of the religious liberty
which the Bible inculcates. Such a sentiment is everywhere
discouraged and denounced. A forcible writer said: Keep
clear of uncommon pretensions to charity. Believe the love
of God, and be satisfied with his charity, and never dream of
making an improvement upon his character.

The other extreme is to have no charity at all. There are
many things about which men may safely differ, but they are
neither precepts to be obeyed, nor facts to be believed. Differences
may exist in opinions, but not in facts to be believed,
nor in commands to be obeyed. Christians are such in virtue
of faith in Christ and obedience to his commandments.
Wherever the minds of men have been brought under the
power of the Christian religion, there they have been the
devoted friends of such liberty. Such were the adherents of
Luther in Germany, the Lollards in England, and the adherents
of Knox in Scotland. Such was the case with Holland
when her republican virtues, learning and piety, moral and
literary institutions made her famous throughout the earth.
“Where the spirit of the Lord is there is liberty.” One of the
most erroneous objections to Christianity is that it is calculated
to subject the many to the few, but its spirit and tendency is
to bring all, both the rich and poor, on one common level. It
pronounces temporal circumstances matters of no consequence,
all men creatures of God, made of one blood, having a common
nature, subject to common sufferings, common dependence
and responsibilities. It teaches us to “defraud no man,”
to “corrupt no man,” to “love our enemies,” to “pray for those
who despitefully use us,” to “disregard external distinctions.”
In Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, bond nor free, male
nor female, but all are one. The poor are exalted and the
rich are humbled. Tholuck says: “The cultivated heathen
were offended at Christianity because the higher classes could
no longer have precedence of the common people.” A religion
which teaches that all are upon one grand level under its influences
will certainly teach us that all are equal in the presence
of the law. Christianity is not only a stranger to despotism,
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but denounces it in the plainest terms. Its great
founder said: “Whosoever will be great among you let him
be your servant, and whosoever will be chief let him be your
minister.” What greater calamity could we experience than
the loss of the last copy of the New Testament? Who would
bring over the world once more the darkness of Paganism?
Who would have our Government put on Roman character?
Who would have us foster the basest passions of men? Who
would throw the human intellect back into a state of uncertainty
respecting a future existence and the manner of securing
its blessedness? Who would dry up the living fountains of
joy which have been opened to us in the gospel? Who would
destroy the motive power of our religion and wither its fruits
of righteousness? Who would rob the bereaved heart of its
consolations and provoke anew the tears of the mourner which
have been wiped away? Who would go to the widow and
say: Go and visit the grave of your loved one and weep
without hope! Yes, weep with the terrible thought that this
parting is to last forever! Weep with trembling, and at last
step into the grave with awful uncertainty, to learn all there,
and never bring back the secret. Who are they who would
restore to death its sting and to the grave its victory? What
victories have they ever achieved for our humanity? No calculations
could measure the sacrifice it would cost to part
with the Bible forever. Wicked men would toll its funeral,
while the innocent ones of earth would bathe in tears and turn
away in sorrow. Let us never persecute those unfortunate
men who are opposing the truth of our religion on account of
the errors of the creeds of our fathers. Let us always avoid a
spirit of despotism and persecution, because it is dishonorable.
If there must be persecution, let truth be the victim. Error
is not worthy of the honor that martyrs bear.

It is better that we “suffer for well-doing than for ill-doing,”
therefore let us criticise ourselves severely, but deal
with others in love. The Bible is our authority in religion,
and the civil arm is our protection in the state. Religious freedom
is ours—may it long remain the glory of our country. In
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comparison with this freedom all else is mere illusion. You
may enjoy all the freedom that this world can give, and if you
are slaves to sin you are miserable slaves to a cruel master.
The intellectual and moral condition of the soul, constituting
its highest glory, is a liberty worthy of the name. Such an
one, in a very important sense, is free indeed, free in solitude,
free in poverty, free in abundance, free in life, free in death,
free everywhere, and forever free.

The Orthodoxy Of Atheism And Ingersolism, By Rev. S. L. Tyrrell.

“Hail human liberty; there is no God!” Such is the exulting
song of many a human heart when bewildering metaphysics
or superficial science has crowded from its convictions
faith in the Deity and his moral government. Few men have
reached the pure, unclouded heights of religion and morality,
where the unselfish love of the holy and the right, for their
own inherent excellence, forms the controlling motive of their
conduct, regardless of penalty or reward. Humanity is yet
on the low moral plane, where penal laws, human or divine,
are the most potent forces in regulating human life. Hence
the sad fact appears that when theism seems most successfully
assailed we hear from many quarters ill-concealed rustlings of
exultation at the welcome loosening of the bonds of morality
and religion. It seems to be overlooked that a very stern
theological system may be quite rationally evolved from atheistic
premises; and there is now a new and very tempting field
inviting some bold Calvin or Luther in the ranks of positivism
to write an immortal book, with the original and attractive
title, Ethics of Atheism. The great offense of the scientific
(sciolistic) atheist is his lofty arrogance. He complacently assumes
the name of Infallible Wisdom. He “understands all
mysteries;” his mental telescope sweeps eternity “from everlasting
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to everlasting;” his microscopic vision pierces the secrets
of creation,—sees the beauty and order of all celestial
worlds emerge from fiery chaotic dust,—by the fortunate contact
of cooling cinders of the right chemical properties and
temperature, he secretes and hatches into life an egg, or cell of
throbbing protoplasm; to this pulsating mass of jelly there
comes from the unconscious abyss at length a vague instinct,
a drowsy awakening of desire; next a feeble gleam of definite
thought; reason then faintly dawns, and lo! at last this fair
universe burst into glorious light, clothed in surpassing loveliness,
throbbing with love, tender sympathy and sublime aspiration,
and all through the magic potency of blind matter
and unconscious force, without an architect or guide. O, wondrous
matter, could a God do more?

O, divine science (sciolist), we bless thy name; thou hast
delivered us from the terrors of dogmatic fear! Man is but
dust, and unto dust shall he return; “let us eat and drink, for
to-morrow we die.” But ere we run riot in the intoxication
of our new-born freedom from divine law, does not the skeptical,
cautious, scientific spirit admonish us to pause a moment
and look logically at another class of possible achievements of
this wonder-working, material power. In philosophical researches,
analogy is a recognized and legitimate guide to truth.
Admitting, then, that pure matter has done all that materialism
claims it has done in the past, let us look by the light of
analogy at other and graver possibilities it may have wrought
in its reckless, unrestrained creations. Time is a mighty attribute
of evolutionary divinities; its power seems next to infinite.
In a few millions of years Alexanders, Bonapartes,
Bismarks, Miltons, Edisons and Ingersols have been evolved
from thoughtless chaos; now, if in limited time (for what are
millions of years to eternity) such majestic mental forces have
been developed from the inexhaustible store-house of intellectual
nothingness, why should bold mathematical science deem
it a “thing incredible” that in an eternity of time, with an
unlimited amount of matter for capital and infinite space for a
theater of action, this mind-evolving force may not have generated
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beings of almost infinite capacities—even a monarch
who sways a scepter over more worlds than one—even a God.
Why should material philosophy cavil at the creeds which
teach a righteous judgment to come? Have not the judicial
elements of oxygen, carbon and hydrogen combined to organize
on one planet at least courts of equity and judgment seats,
and crystalized into prison walls and hand-cuffs the gallows
and the hangman? Upon the established scientific principle
that nature’s laws are uniform, undeviating and universal in
their action, does not the analogy of earthly tribunals logically
necessitate the belief that our globe is but a province of the
infinite empire governed by righteous laws, of which enlightened
human laws are a partial revelation.

Modern science teaches the oneness of the universe and the
identity and sameness of the matter composing it. What then
can be more strictly scientific and demonstrable from materialistic
premises than the vast conclusion that uniform passive
matter, operated upon by the same undeviating laws, must in
all worlds produce the same results and evolve, as it has on
our planet, intelligence in which a sense of right and justice
shall predominate, and everywhere and in all time, enact and
execute laws discriminating between right and wrong? What
astronomical prediction, then, can be more certain of fulfillment
than this moral prophecy of the final eclipse of evil and
ultimate triumph of the right? With no existing power to
arrest or mitigate the sentence of this relentless, carboniferous
judge, how fearful may be the possible fate of those who disregard
the moral laws of protoplasm. Matter has evolved a
Franklin and a Morse, who learned to wield the lightning’s
power. Why may there not have been evolved in the infinite
past a more profound electrician, who, with his battery and
etherial wires can shiver a planet with his touch? A marvelous
power—the human spirit—has gained a vast control over
the blind, stubborn substances and forces that created it, and
by its immaterial, invisible will, can in a limited degree overrule
the most imperious law of nature by throwing a stone
into the air. Is it unscientific, then, or derogatory to the
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vaunted potency of matter to affirm that the eternal ages may
have developed an intelligent will that can project a planet or
sun, as the human will and muscle project the pebble? Scoff
not, exalted sages, at the weak terrors of those who tremble
at the dogma of a malignant devil; consider that pity and
compassion are not the known chemical constituents of this
soulless creator. Where, then, can we fix the limit of that
unconscious, fiendish force that evolved a Nero, and incarnated
in human bodies the myriads of demoniac spirits that walk the
earth to-day? Egotistical scientist (sciolist) calm the cyclone,
quiet the engulphing earthquake, blot from human history the
records of war, pestilence, famine, the tales of St. Bartholomew
and the Inquisition, and then deny by material philosophy
the possibility of even a Calvinistic hell; deny the personality
of man because your microscope and scalpel can not
find a soul by dissecting the brain of the mathematician, and
then deny a personal God because his spirit eludes the grasp
of sealed crucibles and can not be detected by digging in the
earth with the spade. Deny the existence of conscious life,
and then in the light of reason and science deny that the forces
that generate life must from necessary law work for its continuance
and immortality. Extreme materialism confidently
teaches the birth, death and resurrection of planetary universes;
why should such grand faith stagger at the theory of
the resurrection of a soul? Where is the scientific absurdity
of Renan’s distant hope, that this mighty resurrection of dead
worlds will embrace in its infinite scope the awakening to consciousness;
the universal past consciousness of the universe.
May not both theist and atheist find in this line of thought
a partial answer to the oft recurring modern prayer, “Help
thou mine unbelief.”—From the Religio-Philosophic
Journal.

Can you believe that all things are the result of blind, unintelligent
forces, operating under mechanical laws?

The Shasters And Vedas, And The Chinese, Government, Religion, Etc.

Men who wish to be known as scientific skeptics and unbelievers
often boast that the above-mentioned books are more
worthy of respect than the books of the Bible. For the benefit
of all who may not have access to those books, the following,
from Duff’s India, credited to the Shasters, may be of
service in the search after truth:

“Brahm produced an egg. All the primary atoms, qualities,
and principles, the seeds of future worlds, that had been
evolved from the substance of Brahm, were now collected together
and deposited in the newly produced egg. And into
it, along with them, entered the self-existent himself, under
the assumed form of Brahma; and then he sat vivifying, expanding,
and combining the elements, during four thousand
three hundred millions of solar years. During this amazing
period the wondrous egg floated like a bubble on the water,
increasing constantly in size. At length the supreme, who
dwelt therein, burst the shell of the stupendous egg and issued
forth under a new form with a thousand heads, a thousand
eyes, and a thousand arms. Along with him issued another
form, huge and measureless, which speedily matured into the
present glorious universe.”—Shasters.

In Hindostan we may see on one hand the trident of Neptune,
the eagle of Jupiter, the satyrs of Bacchus, the bow of
Cupid and the chariot of the Sun; on the other, we hear the
cymbals of Rhea, the songs of the Muses, and the pastoral
tales of Apollo Nomius. The Hindoos enumerate four grand
periods in the world’s history called yugs. The first comprehends
one million seven hundred and twenty-eight thousand
years. The second, one million two hundred and ninety-six
thousand; the third, eight hundred and sixty-four thousand
years, and the fourth four hundred and twenty-three thousand
years. Four thousand nine hundred and thirty-seven of the
last yug expired in eighteen hundred and forty-three. The
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incredibility of their chronology will be seen at a glance, if
you recollect that it is claimed that one of their sovereigns
lived through the whole of the first yug. Veda is a generic
name for their four oldest and most sacred books, containing
simply a revelation directly from Brahma.

Many unbelievers in this, and the old world, who have set
themselves against our Bible, have indorsed the Vedas as
scientific, without so much as having read or known one line
in them. These Vedas profess to go back through maha yugs
of 4,320,000 years of men. A thousand of these maha yugs,
or 4,320,000,000 of years make a kalpa, or one day of the life
of Brahma, and his night is of equal length; a hundred such
days and nights measure the time of his life.

These books give, as facts, seven great continents, separated
by that many rivers and seven mountain-chains four hundred
thousand miles high. They record a hundred sons to one
king, ten thousand to another, and sixty thousand to another.
These kings were in no danger from violating the command to
“multiply and replenish the earth;” but there is one difficulty,
at least, about the records concerning the seventy thousand
and one hundred sons born to these three kings, and that is
this, the records say: They were all born in a pumpkin and
nourished in pans of milk, reduced to ashes by the curse of a
sage, and restored to life by the waters of the Ganges. Those
same sacred books say: The moon is fifty thousand leagues
higher than the sun, and that it shines by its own light and
animates our body; they say, the sun goes behind the
Someyra Mountains and this makes the night; they say,
these mountains are many thousand miles high, and are situated
in the middle of our earth; they say, our earth is flat and
triangular, having seven stories, each one of peculiar beauty,
having its own inhabitants, and each one having a sea. The
first story of earth, they say, is composed of honey, the second
is composed of sugar, the third of butter,
the fourth of wine; and the whole thing is carried upon the heads
of elephants, and when these shake themselves earthquakes are produced.
Among the astronomical calculations which confirm
[pg 056]
all this there are accounts of floods of waters rising to the
Polar star. How is that for a flood?

Infidel, if you read this, and remember that you have been
guilty of foisting the Vedas against the Hebrew Scriptures,
hide your face and do it no more. The Hindoos worship cats
and monkeys and holy bulls and sticks and stones. They are
yet sacrificing their infants in that sacred river, Ganges. The
car of Juggernaut, ’tis said, is yet rolling on its bloody wheels,
and women are yet burned upon the dead bodies of their husbands.
What is the trouble with those unfortunates? Well,
they enjoy freedom from the Bible, freedom from the Bible
God, and freedom from the Protestant and Catholic clergy—the
freedom that the infidels of the United States concern
themselves so much about. Give them what they plead for
and it will not be long until they will have more hell than
they will love or worship. Infidels boast of the worth of the
writings of Confucius and the religion of the Chinese. Let
us look after their condition. Here it is, as given in the Universal
Vocabulary. As they are esteemed by unbelievers so
ancient as to put to shame all others pretending to antiquity,
we must be allowed to make the test of their religious and
scientific tree by its fruits. First. “If a person be suspected
of treason he is put to death in a slow and painful manner, all
his relations in the first degree are beheaded, his female relations
sold into slavery, and all his connections residing in his
house are put to death. If a physician treat the case of a patient
in any way different from established rules, and the patient
dies, he is treated as guilty of homicide, though, if on his
trial it be shown that it was a mere error, he is redeemed from
death, but must quit his practice forever. When a debtor is
unable to meet the demand of his creditor he receives thirty
blows, and the same number may be repeated from time to
time till the debt is paid. In case the creditor violently seize
the debtor’s goods he is liable to eighty blows. In order to
the collection of debts, it is customary for creditors to enter
the houses of their debtors on the first day of the year and
pronounce their claims with a loud voice, and continue there
[pg 057]
until they are reimbursed. It is said that this teazing proves
a successful method of collecting debts; inasmuch as the debtor,
fearing that something may befall the creditor while in his
house, and, therefore, suspicion fall on him, he is moved to use
all possible endeavors to answer the demand. Women are
sold in marriage and the highest bidder takes them. Their
government is patriarchial and despotic. The emperor is
styled Holy Son of Heaven, Sole Governor of the Earth.
Their religion is paganism.”

Zell’s Encyclopedia gives the following items as true to-day:
“Their husbandry is, to a great extent, nullified by the rude
and ill-adapted implements employed therefor, and also by the
smallness of the farms. Hence, agriculture, as scientifically
considered, is but little advanced.” The form of government
is strictly patriarchial. The emperor, who bears the various
euphuistic titles of the “Brother of the Sun and Moon.”
Teen-tsye, or the “Sun of Heaven;”
Ta-hwang-li, or the
“Great Emperor;” and Wansuy-yay,
or the “Lord of a Myriad
Years,” is regarded as the father of his people, and has
unlimited power over all his subjects. The emperor is spiritual
as well as temporal sovereign, and as high priest of the
empire, can alone, with his immediate representatives and
ministers, perform the great religious ceremonies. The bamboo,
as the chief instrument of government, is applied without
distinction, to the highest and lowest Chinese.

The imperial palaces are of great extent, consisting of a
series of courts, with galleries and halls of audience beautifully
painted. The temples differ greatly in form and size.
The ordinary temples or joss-houses,
consist each of one chamber
containing an idol. This, gentle reader, is the store-house
of pagan idolatry to which some unbelievers in Indiana and
elsewhere resort for names or titles by which to designate the
houses of Christian worship in our own country. How would
those men like to emigrate to China, where they could have
a language that suits their taste, and a literature and religion
about which they have boasted so much? If Chinese government,
[pg 058]
religion, and literature and science be so old as is claimed
by Chinamen, and by infidels in our country, and its age be
the cause of its great superiority in religion and science, may
we not thank the Lord that we are young?

Ancient Cosmogonies.

The Mosaic method found in the first chapter of the book
of Genesis is not the method of physical science; this seeks,
by induction, after laws, principles and causes, stepping backwards
step by step, seeking, by the light of physical science,
the character of that unit which lies at the base of the whole
series of all created things. “The world by wisdom knew not
God.” The truth of this statement is monumented by the
literature of the unbelievers of the nineteenth century. To-day,
men who refuse Bible instruction talk of the unknown
and the unknowable, thus conceding that their efforts as naturalists,
or “natural men,” are not sufficient in their results to
disclose the character of the great first cause. The same great
failure has been, and ever will be, made by all mere naturalists.
In view of this fact it is well that Moses gives us at
once the great first cause in the phrase, “In the beginning
God created the heavens and the earth.” There is in this sentence
no limitation of time, so there is room here for astronomical
ages, cycle upon cycle. There was time enough in
that beginning for the present system of planets to be arranged
from a single nebulous mass. In it we have a picture of matter
in a crude condition, without fixedness of form, surrounded
with darkness. Then comes the commencement of the great
work of preparing our planet for the home of man, by the
spirit of God moving over the chaos. There is nothing in
this statement that should perplex any man, unless he is that
fool who “says in his heart there is no God.” If the chaos
here described was matter in a rare, gaseous condition, floating
in space, molecular motion produced by the spirit of God
[pg 059]
brooding over it, and a chemical change producing electricity
may have given the light called the first day.

Here is that troublesome word day. Why should it give
trouble to any scientist? It is a part of his duty to know that
neither this word nor the context in the first chapter of Genesis,
nor biblical usage, requires us to limit the term to a period
of twenty-four hours. But the context does limit it, in its
first occurrence, to an indefinite period of light.
“God called the light day!”
In the fourth verse of the second chapter
the word is used to cover the whole period of time past, both
the beginning and the subsequent six work-days of the Almighty,
thus: “These are the generations of the heavens and
the earth when they were created, in the day when the Lord
God made the earth and the heavens.” This is no modern
invention, gotten up to serve a purpose; for Augustine so understood
this matter in the fourth century. He called them
“ineffable days,” describing them as alternate pauses in the
work of God. Such was the interpretation given by the first
Christians. Why should we try to measure this term day, in
its first occurrences, by a chronometer which did not come
into use until the fourth day? The notion that these days
were twenty-four hours, sprang up in the middle ages, and is
the child of the literalism and realism of those times. Moses
gives seven great constructive periods of light, which beautifully
harmonize with the seven great geological ages lying this side
of his beginning. How he came to do this has perplexed the
incredulous scholar and historian beyond measure; it is, indeed,
a remarkable fact in literature, but it gives strength to
the faith of the intelligent Christian. God was with Moses;
his cosmogony bears evidence of inspiration. Compare his
narrative with the cosmogonies of the ancient nations. There
is but little similitude; if there was much it would not prove
identity. It would be strange if the ancient nations should
have no truth in their cosmogonies. And if they had, would
it not be more strange for Moses to leave it out on that account?
It would be well to remind you just here that the Almighty,
and doubtless his man Moses also, knew that men possessed
[pg 060]
at least common sense. In the New Testament we have the
word tartarus in its verb form. Where did it come from?
The Apostle Peter, guided by the divine spirit, found it in
Grecian mythology. Is it to be thrown out on that account?
Nay, verily. A man of God, that is, a prophet, in any of the
ancient ages as far back as Moses, is not to be regarded as under
obligations to shun a truth because it was already in use
among men. The man who would claim such a silly thing
ought to be discarded from scientific and literary circles as a
blockhead. The cosmogony of the Babylonians represents the
beginning of things in darkness and water; in which great non-descript
animals, hideous monsters, half-beasts and half-men,
made their appearance; then a woman, who personates the
creative spirit or principle, was split into two parts, and the
heaven and the earth produced by the division. Next Belus,
the supreme divinity, cut off his own head, and his blood,
trickling down and mingling with the dust of the earth, produced
human creatures having intelligence and spiritual life.
The Phœnician cosmogony presents, first, an ether or a mist
diffused in space. Next, a wind arose, and from this motion
proceeded a Spiritual God, from whom proceeded an egg, which,
being divided, produced the heavens and the earth. Next,
the noise of thunder awakened beings into spiritual life. The
Egyptian cosmogony presents a principal divinity, whose name
was Ptah, the world-creating power, who shaped the cosmic
egg, which again appears here, as in the Phœnician. Next,
there followed from Ptah a long succession of gods, with many
offices and powers—solar, telluric and spiritual—from whom,
after a time, proceeded demigods, and then from these proceeded
heroes, until the link of our humanity was reached. According
to Grote, Grecian mythology opens with the gods prior, as
well as superior, to man; it then descends gradually to heroes
and then to the human race. Along with their gods are presented
many monsters, ultra-human and extra-human, who
can’t consistently be styled gods, but who partake with gods
and man in the attributes of free-will, conscious agency and
susceptibility of pleasure and pain—such as the Harpies, the
[pg 061]
Gorgons, the Sirens, the Sphinx, the Cyclops, the Centaurs,
etc. After a great struggle, or contest, among these wonderful
creatures, there arises a stable government of Zeus, the chief
among the gods. Then appears chaos, then the broad, firm,
flat earth, with deep and dark tartarus below, and from these
proceed different divinities and creatures, some grand and terrible,
some simply monsters; their relations to each other violate
all notions of decency and morality; their wars and slaughters,
their gross and abominable crimes issue in successive creative
products upon earth, which terminate at last in the appearance
of man.

Next we will give you the cosmogony of the Vedas, as it is
presented in what is known as the mystic hymn of the Vedas.
It is Pantheistic to the core. “It is one of the earliest relics of
Hindu thought and devotion:”

[pg 062]

This is Pantheistic throughout, and although it presents no
absurd combinations of matter and spirit, yet it puts the material
creation before the creation of the spiritual, and scarcely
allows consciousness to “the One,” “the It,” from which,
somehow, the creation proceeded. The Book of Menu, which
is of equal value with the Veda among the Hindoos, gives the
following account of the creation:

“Menu sat reclined, with his attention fixed on one object,
the supreme God, when the divine sages approached him, and,
after mutual salutations in due form, delivered the following
address: Deign, sovereign ruler, to apprise us of the sacred
laws in their order, as they must be followed by all the four
classes, and by each of them, in their several degrees, together
with the duties of every mixed class; for thou, Lord, and
thou only among mortals, knowest the true sense, the first
principle, and the prescribed ceremonies of this universal, supernatural
Veda, unlimited in extent and unequalled in authority.

“He whose powers were measureless, being thus requested by
the great sages, whose thoughts were profound, saluted them
all with reverence and gave them a comprehensive answer,
saying: Be it heard! This universe existed only in the first
divine idea yet unexpanded, as if involved in darkness, imperceptible,
undefinable, undiscoverable by reason, and undiscovered
by revelation, as if it were wholly immersed in sleep;
then the sole, self-existing power, himself undiscovered, but
making this world discernible, with five elements and other
principles of nature, appeared with undiminished glory, expanding
his idea or dispelling the gloom. He, whom the
mind alone can perceive, whose essence eludes the external organs,
who has not visible parts, who exists from eternity, even
he, the soul of all beings, whom no being can comprehend,
shone forth in person. He, having willed to produce various
beings from his own divine substance, first, with a thought,
created the waters and placed in them a productive seed; that
seed became an egg bright as gold, blazing like the luminary
with a thousand beams; and in that egg he was born
[pg 063]
himself in the form of Brahma the great forefather
of all spirits. The waters were called nara, because they
were the production of Nara, or the spirit of God; and, since
they were his first ayana, or place of motion, he thence is
named Nayrayana, or moving on the waters. From that
which is, the first cause, not the object of sense, existing everywhere
in substance, not existing to our perception, without
beginning or end, was produced the divine male, famed in all
worlds under the appellation of Brahma. In that egg the great
power sat inactive a whole year of the Creator, at the close of
which, by his thought alone, he caused the egg to divide itself;
and from its two divisions he framed the heaven above and
the earth beneath; in the midst he placed the subtile ether, the
eight regions, and the permanent receptacle of waters.

“From the supreme soul he drew forth mind, existing substantially,
though unperceived by sense, immaterial; and before
mind, or the reasoning power, he produced consciousness,
the internal monitor, the ruler; and before them both he produced
the great principle of the soul, or first expansion of the
divine idea; and all vital forms endued with the three qualities
of goodness, passion and darkness; and the five perceptions
of sense, and the five organs of sensation. Thus, having
at once pervaded, with emanations from the Supreme Spirit,
the minutest portions of six principles immensely operative,
consciousness and the five perceptions, he framed all creatures;
and since the minutest particles of visible nature have a dependence
on those six emanations from God, the wise have accordingly
given the name of S’arira, or depending on six, that
is, the ten organs on consciousness, and the five elements on as
many perceptions, to his image or appearance in visible nature;
thence proceed the great elements, endued with peculiar powers,
the mind with operations infinitely subtile, the unperishable
cause of all apparent forms.

“This universe, therefore, is compacted from the minute portions
of these seven divine and active principles, the great soul,
or first emanation, consciousness, and five perceptions; a mutable
universe from immutable ideas. Among them each succeeding
[pg 064]
element acquires the quality of the preceding; and in
as many degrees as each of them is advanced, with so many
properties is it said to be endued. He, too, first assigned to
all creatures distinct names, distinct acts, and distinct occupations,
as they had been revealed in the pre-existing Veda.
He, the supreme ruler, created an assemblage of inferior Deities,
with divine attributes and pure souls, and a number of
Genii exquisitely delicate; and he prescribed the sacrifice
from the beginning. From fire, from air, and from the sun he
milked out, as it were, three primordial Vedas, named Rich,
Yajush and Saman, for the due performance of the sacrifice.

“He gave being to time and the divisions of time, to the stars
also, and to the planets, to rivers, oceans and mountains, to
level plains and uneven valleys, to devotion, speech, complacency,
desire and wrath, and to the creation, which shall presently
be mentioned; for he willed the existence of all those
created things. For the sake of distinguishing actions, he
made a total difference between right and wrong, and enured
these sentient creatures to pleasure and pain, cold and heat,
and other opposite pairs. With very minute transformable
portions called matras, of the five elements, all this perceptible
world was composed in fit order; and in whatever occupation
the Supreme Lord first employed any vital soul, to that occupation
the same soul attaches itself spontaneously when it receives
a new body again and again. Whatever quality, noxious
or innocent, harsh or mild, unjust or just, false or true, he
conferred on any being at its creation, the same quality enters
it, of course, on its future births; as the six seasons of the
year attain respectively their peculiar marks in due time and
of their own accord, even so the several acts of each embodied
spirit attend it naturally.

“That the human race might be multiplied, he caused the
Brahmen, the Cshatriya, the Vaisya and the Sudra to proceed
from his mouth, his arm, his thigh and his foot.

“Having divided his own substance, the mighty power became
half male, half female, or nature active and passive, and
from that female he produced Viraz. Know me, O most excellent
[pg 065]
of Brahmens, to be that person whom the male power,
Viraz, having performed austere devotion, produced by myself;
me, the secondary framer of all this visible world. It
was I who, desirous of giving birth to a race of men, performed
very difficult religious duties, and first produced ten Lords of
created beings, animated in holiness, Marichi, Atri, Angiras,
Pulastya, Pulaha, Cratu, Prachetas, or Dacsha, Vasishtha,
Bhrigu and Narada; they, abundant in glory, produced seven
other Menu, together with deities and the mansions of deities,
and Maharshis, or great sages, unlimited in power; benevolent
genii, and fierce giants, blood-thirsty savages, heavenly
quiristers, nymphs and demons, huge serpents and snakes of
smaller size, birds of mighty wing, and separate companies of
Pitirs, or progenitors of mankind; lightnings and thunder-bolts,
clouds and colored bows of Indra, falling meteors, earth-rending
vapors, comets and luminaries of various degrees;
horse-faced sylvans, apes, fish, and a variety of birds, tame
cattle, deer, men, and ravenous beasts with two rows of teeth;
small and large reptiles, moths, lice, fleas, and common flies,
with every biting knat and immovable substances of distinct
sorts.”

Reader, I have given you this chapter of ancient cosmogonies
under the conviction that a bare statement of them must
convince any one of either the ignorance or dishonesty of infidels
who claim that Moses learned all that he gave in his cosmogony
from the ancient cosmogonies. How was it that Moses
avoided all their errors and extravagance? How was it that
he gave such a severely simple description of creation, which
no rhetoric can improve, and no scientist successfully refute?

Can you believe that energy, or force, lies behind all things,
operating them, without believing there is something lying
behind it, to which it belongs?

Can you believe that a concourse of dead atoms held a solemn
convention, went into harmonious action and produced
life?

Some Of The Beauties (?) Of Harmony Among Unbelievers.

The author of “The System of Nature” says of the English
Jesuit’s creation of eels by spontaneous generation from
rye meal: “After moistening meal with water, and shutting
up the mixture, it is found after a little time, with the aid of
the microscope, that it has produced organized beings, of whose
production the water and meal were believed to be incapable.
Thus inanimate nature can pass into life, which is itself but
an assemblage of motions.”—Part 1, p. 23. For Needham’s
Eels, see the Volume of Physics.

Voltaire says: “Were this unparalleled blunder true, yet, in
rigorous reasoning I do not see how it would prove there is no
God.”

He says, it is really strange that men, while denying a creator
should have attributed to themselves the power of creating
eels. But it is yet more deplorable that natural philosophers,
of better information, adopted the Jesuit Needham’s ridiculous
system, and joined it to that of Maillet, who asserted that
the ocean had formed the Alps and the Pyrenees, and that
men were originally porpoises, whose forked tails changed in
the course of time into thighs and legs. Such fancies are
worthy to be placed with the eels formed by meal.

Voltaire says the ridiculous story of the spontaneous production
of eels by rye meal is the foundation of D’Holbach’s
“System of Nature.” He says: “We were assured, not long
ago, that at Brussels a hen had brought forth half a dozen
rabbits.” He then adds, “Needham’s eels soon followed the
Brussels hen.” D’Holbach says: “Experience proves to us that
the matter which we regard as inert and dead, assumes action,
intelligence, and life, when it is combined in a certain way.”
Voltaire responds: “This is precisely the difficulty. How
does a germ come to life?”

The author of the “System of Nature” says: “Matter is
eternal and necessary; but its forms and its combinations are
transitory and contingent.” Upon the supposition that all is
[pg 067]
matter, Voltaire answers, it is hard to comprehend, matter being,
according to our author, necessary, and without freedom,
how there can be anything contingent.

Again, the atheistic author of the “System of Nature”
asserts that order and disorder do not exist. This is strongly
refuted by Voltaire, who says the author is to be distrusted
very often, both in physics and in morals.

Spinosa was a pantheist. He, like many modern sciolists,
repudiated design in nature. Voltaire, treating upon Spinosism,
says: “I am aware that various philosophers, and especially
Lucretius, have denied final causes. I am also aware that
Lucretius, though not very chaste, is a very great poet in his
descriptions and in his morals; but in philosophy I own he
appears to me to be very far behind a college porter or a parish
beadle. To affirm that the eye is not made to see, nor the ear
to hear, nor the stomach to digest, is not this the most revolting
folly that ever entered the human mind? Doubter as I
am, this insanity seems to me evident, and I say
so. For my part, I see in nature, as in the arts, only final causes;
and I believe that an apple tree is made to bear apples, as I
believe that a watch is made to tell the hour.” Voltaire
charges Warburton with calumniating Cicero, by saying that
Cicero said, “It is unworthy of the majesty of the empire to
adore one only God.” Voltaire’s words are these: “Warburton,
like his contemporaries, has calumniated Cicero and ancient
Rome.” He then gives the above quotation, along with a short
comment in Cicero’s defense, and closes with the following
words: “It is then quite false that Cicero, or any other Roman,
ever said that it did not become the majesty of the empire to
acknowledge a Supreme God. Their Jupiter, the Zeus of the
Greeks, the Jehovah of the Phœnicians, was always considered
as the master of the secondary gods. This great truth can
not be too forcibly inculcated.” Voltaire was a Deist.

Lucretius, according to Voltaire, denied design in nature.
Voltaire said, in philosophy, he was very far behind a college
porter or a parish beadle.

Spinosa was a Pantheist. Voltaire says, “He frequently
[pg 068]
contradicted himself; that he had not always clear ideas; that
he sometimes clung to one plank, sometimes to another.”

Voltaire says: “A natural philosopher of some reputation
had no doubt that this ‘Needham,’ who made the eels, ‘was a
profound Atheist,’ who concluded that since eels could be
made of rye meal, men might be made of wheat flour; that
nature and chemistry produce all; and that it was demonstrated
we may very well dispense with an all forming God.”
Voltaire calls this an unparalleled blunder. D’Holbach, the
author of the “System de la Nature,” was an Atheist, so
were his assistants in the production of that work.

Voltaire addresses the author of that work in the following
words: “In the state of doubt in which we both are, I do not
say to you, with Pascal, ‘choose the safest.’ There is no safety
in uncertainty. We are here not to talk, but to examine; we
must judge, and our judgment is not determined by our will.
I do not propose to you to believe extravagant things in order
to escape embarassment. I do not say to you, ‘Go to Mecca,
and instruct yourself by kissing the black stone, take hold of
a cow’s tail, muffle yourself in a scapulary, or be imbecile and
fanatical to acquire the favor of the Being of beings.’ I say
to you, ‘Continue to cultivate virtue, to be beneficent, to regard
all superstition with horror, or with pity; but adore,
with me, the design which is manifested in all nature, and
consequently the author of that design—the primordial and
final cause of all; hope with me that our monade, which reasons
on the great eternal Being, may be happy through that
same great Being. There is no contradiction in this. You
can no more demonstrate its impossibility than I can demonstrate
mathematically that it is so. In metaphysics we scarcely
reason on anything but probabilities. We are all swimming
in a sea of which we have never seen the shore. Woe be to
those who fight while they swim! Land who can; but he
that cries out to me, “You swim in vain, there is no land,”
disheartens me, and deprives me of all my strength. What is
the object of our dispute? To console our unhappy existence.
Who consoles it—you or I? You yourself own, in some
[pg 069]
passages of your work, that the belief in a God has withheld
some men on the brink of crime; for me this acknowledgment
is enough. If this opinion had prevented but ten assassinations,
but ten calumnies, but ten iniquitous judgments on
the earth, I hold that the whole earth ought to embrace
it.’ ”—Voltaire’s
Philosophical Dictionary.

This Voltaire says: “The laws punished public crimes; it
was necessary to establish a check upon secret crimes; this
check was to be found only in religion.” In the same article
we find the following: “We are obliged to hold intercourse
and transact business and mix up in life with knaves possessing
little or no reflection; with vast numbers of persons addicted
to brutality, intoxication and rapine. You may, if you please,
preach to them that there is no hell, and that the soul of man
is mortal. As for myself, I will be sure to thunder in their
ears that if they rob me they will inevitably be damned.” His
true position upon the hell question is, that it is necessary to
preach hell to the blind and brutal populace, that there is a
real necessity for such teaching, whether it be true or false.
He seems to regard it untrue, but necessary. What an idea!
The harmony and consistency of unbelievers is (?) grand. It
is no wonder that Voltaire’s name should stand, along with the
names of Atheists and Pantheists and Deists, above the head
line upon the first page of the Boston Investigator.

Is God The Author Of Deception And Falsehood?

There is a want of fair dealing with Bible language manifested
by all the enemies of our religion. The unbelievers of
our time will find it very difficult for them to sustain the reputation
of moral honesty and, at the same time, retain many of
the old, worn out objections which they have urged against the
Bible. They should remember that while the light of scientific
investigation is exposing the old, unscientific and unscriptural
tenets of the creeds of our forefathers, and making it
[pg 070]
hard for candid, sensible men to defend them, it is also shedding
light upon Bible truth to such an extent that unbelievers
are finding it equally difficult to retain their silly objections to
the Bible. They have asserted from 1st Kings 32, that God
kept false as well as true prophets. This charge is not only
without foundation in fact, but also false and contemptible.
The four hundred prophets mentioned in the sixth verse of
that chapter are emphatically denominated “Ahab’s prophets,”
notwithstanding they professed to be the Lord’s prophets.
This wicked King of Israel had those wicked, false prophets
in his service. The address of Micaiah to the two kings in
verses 19-23 is a mere parable showing what, in the providence
of God, would shortly take place, and the divine permission
for the agents, spoken of, to act. Micaiah did not tell
the mad and impious Ahab that his prophets were all liars;
but he represents the whole by a parable, and, in language
equally strong and inoffensive, he says that which amounts to
the same thing. Unbelievers of the schools of modern spiritualism
and Bostonian infidelity, both say that God inspired
prophets with false messages, and violated his own word.

The charge of inspiring prophets with false messages is
founded, pretendingly, upon 1st Kings 22: 22, 23, Jeremiah
4: 10, and Ezekiel 14: 9. To answer this, it is only necessary
to know that it is an idiom of the original languages to express,
in the imperative active, that which is simply permitted.
Thus, when the devils begged permission to enter into the
herd of swine, Jesus said, “Go”—Mat. 8: 31.

And so we are to understand, John 13: 27, where Jesus
says to Judas Iscariot, “What thou dost, do quickly.” No
man is thoroughly posted as a Bible scholar who is honest in
making the above charge. It is either ignorance or dishonesty
that causes men to thus oppose the record. As we are not
justifiable in saying that Jesus commanded his own betrayal,
so we are not justifiable in saying God commanded lying.
Correct principles of interpretation do not justify the unbeliever
in any such blasphemy. When an evil spirit offered
himself to be a lying spirit in the mouth of a wicked prophet—false
[pg 071]
prophet—God said, “Go forth and do so,” which only
signifies permission, not command. In Jeremiah 4: 10, where
the prophet complains that God had deceived them, saying,
“They should have peace, when the sword reached to the
soul,” we are to understand that God permitted the false prophets
to deceive him, prophesying peace to the people, as appears
from the history (Ezekiel 14: 9). I, the Lord, have deceived
that prophet, that is, permitted him to be deceived, and
permitted him to deceive the people, as the legitimate result of
their own wickedness, and a just judgment upon them for
their rejection of the testimony of his true prophets. There
is nothing strange about all this; for as sure as there is a God,
so sure it is that he permits wicked lying men to be deceived
in our own day. He has done this in all ages of the world.
In fact, it belongs to his ordained plan to permit, or suffer,
men, individually or collectively, to fall in their own deceptions
and wickedness. This he threatened in the above case,
as you may see in the fifth verse of Ezekiel 14, in these words,
“I will take the house of Israel in their own heart, because
they are all estranged from me through their idols; because
they have chosen to themselves false Gods, I will suffer them
to be deceived with false prophets; and I will stretch out my
hand upon him, and I will destroy him from the midst of my
people.” Destroy whom? Ans.—The false prophet.

When the prophet of God mistook the promise of God,
who told him, when he commissioned him, that he would be
with him, by which he understood that he would be saved from
all evils, he said, “Thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived.”
This prophet was now a derision, the people mocking him, and
in his passion and weakness he breaks forth in the above language.
It was simply his own mistake, or misunderstanding
of God’s promise. God had not promised him that he should
not meet with scorn and opposition and persecution, but simply
that they should not prevail against him, as we may learn
from the latter part of the first chapter. The second objection,
that the Lord violated his promise, is also founded in ignorance
or dishonesty; it is based upon the statements found in
[pg 072]
Joshua 13: 1, and Judges 2: 20, 21, compared with Genesis 15:
18 and 18: 19, 20. In Joshua 13, it is said that there remained
very much land yet unconquered, which they had not
taken possession of, notwithstanding the Lord had promised
to be with them, and to give them all the land remaining yet
in the possession of their enemies.

In Judges 2: 20, it is said that the people did not perform
their part of the covenant, and this is given as the reason why
the Lord had not driven out any more of the nations before
them.

The covenant with Abraham was in consideration of his
past faith and obedience; yet it was suspended upon the future
obedience of his posterity. See Deut. 7: 12, 13 and 11: 22 to
24; and Judges 2 to 20. The Lord gives the following as the
reason why he had not given them a complete fulfillment of
the covenant upon his part, “Because that this people hath
transgressed my covenant which I commanded their fathers,
and have not harkened to my voice, I also will not henceforth
drive out any of the nations which Joshua left when he died.”
There are none so blind as those who will not see. When we
find a promise from the Lord, and it is in the positive form,
that is, when its terms are not rested upon an expressed condition,
we are authorized to supply the condition which involves
the moral element in the divine government, viz: obedience
upon the part of man, or men, as the case may be. See Ezekiel
33: 13.

Darwinism Weighed In The Balances.

Scientists who claim to be followers of Darwin in scientific investigation
are known as evolutionists. The majority of them
seem to enjoy themselves very much in opposing the statements
of Moses respecting the creation. It might be well for them
to remember that Darwin himself was compelled by his better
sense to declare that science demands a miracle in order to the
existence of the living unit lying at the base of the series of
[pg 073]
evolution. So after all it remains a fact that Darwinism is
chained to miracle. If Strauss had remembered this he need
not have said, Darwin deserves to be praised as one of the
benefactors of the race because of having learned us how to
get rid of miracles. If there is any value in evolution
against the Bible it lies in the use that men make of it to destroy
the idea that God created man out of the dust of the
earth and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. Where
does Darwinism take you to to study the origin of man? To
the dust of the earth? Not exactly! It takes you to the
slime of the sea, or the mud of the Nile, just one step behind
the pulpy mass of protoplasm, or the moneron. God is there
working a miracle; such is Darwinism. According to Moses,
He was doing just as well yonder in Eden working a miracle
with the dust of the earth. Now, in all candor, tell us which
statement is most worthy of God, the one that finds the origin
of man in the Eden earth with a miracle wrought upon the
dust of the ground, or the one that finds his origin in a miracle
wrought upon the mud of the Nile or the slime of the sea? The
one that stands him up erect, a man, with Godlike attributes,
or the one that lays him down in the slimy mass to pass through
ages upon ages in order to get out of his low, slimy paternity
and beastly traits of mere instinct, with groveling habits of
life? Darwin, conscious of the axiomatic truth that no more
can be evolved than there is involved, teaches the doctrine that
variation or change of species is brought about by causes which
already existed in the common progenitor. Such being true,
we ask: In what link below man, in the great evolutionary
chain, is intellect and moral nature to be found? Sensible
men are turning, however, away from the old, threadbare, worn-out
guess-work. The time is not far distant when it will retire
once more from scientific thought. It is very old. Pliny,
eighteen centuries ago, said: “The various kinds of apes
offer an almost perfect resemblance to man in their physical
nature.” This is just equal to Huxley’s statement made in
our own nineteenth century, that, “So far as structure is concerned,
[pg 074]
man differs to no greater extent from the animals
which are immediately below him, than these do from other
members of the same order.” Hence his conclusion: “Man
has proceeded from a modification or an improvement of some
lower animal, some simpler stock.” This idea was fully expressed
in the early Pagan mythologies. Their satyrs or forest
divinities were creatures blending the animal with the human.
So Anaximander, although an advocate of the old
hypothesis of evolution, was not the originator of the thought.
The old guess-up had its origin in Pagan mythology. The
Fauns of the Roman legend were supposed to be the transition
species, or bridge across the chasm between the brute creation
and man—a notion found in Hawthorne’s “Marble Faun.”
So it is plain that evolution, in Darwin’s sense of the term, does
not lie between new discoveries in science and old dogmas in
religion, but it does lie between speculation in science and old
dogmas in paganism—poor science, she carries much that does
not belong to her! Evolution of species from other species is
an idea found in heathen mythology; it is also found in the
ancient heathen cosmogonies. The God of flocks and shepherds
among the Greeks was a compound creature having the
horns and feet of a goat and the face of a man. He was,
doubtless, as near an approach to man as Darwin’s imaginary
link at some imaginary point in his imaginary evolution.

This question is not one of progressive order in the same
species, but a question relative to one species rising out of
another of lower grade, and especially the development of man
from the lower animals. Agassiz says, “Some have mistaken
the action and reaction which exists everywhere in one and
the same species for a causal connection,” that is to say, these
influences produced the species, whereas the species must exist
before any such action and reaction can take place. The
action of physical influences, or external surrounding, or environments
upon species could not take place unless the species
first existed. Action and reaction in one and the same species
already existing, furnishes no evidence upon the manner in
which the species was first brought into existence. Darwin
[pg 075]
says: “The creation of organic matter having already taken
place, my object is to show in consequence of what laws, or
what demonstrable properties of organic matter, and of its
environments, such states of organic nature as those with
which we are acquainted must have come about.” Well, Mr.
Darwin will never get nearer the truth upon this great question
than he was when he marched boldly up to miraculous
intervention in order to get his first unit, or living organism
to place at the beginning of his evolutionary series, unless he
comes back to Moses and takes Christian ground. Geology
does not teach that species have been evolved from lower species.
Geology declares that new forms are new expressions of
creative power. All the physical forces that were operating
upon our earth in the inorganic period, are in operation now.
Why, O why, has it been that the experience and observation
of the ages, as well as the record in the rocks, have failed to
give, in all the earth, one sensible demonstration in support
of the proposition that man, or any other species, was evolved
from an inferior species? The answer is easy—blind physical
forces were, and are, insufficient to bring into existence living
being. Throughout every department of creation there are
evidences of invisible or spiritual powers that lie behind the
events that come under observation in science. Chemical
affinity lies behind, and produces important changes that take
place in organic matter. But chemical affinities do not explain
living, organic, being; for we have our existence at the
expense of chemical affinities. The living force, whatever it
may be, lies behind chemical affinities, and controls them.
Instinct influences many of the manifestations in animal life,
and intelligence controls the sober conduct of men. Yet
above all these there is that wonderful builder and overseer of
the organism called life. As nature was perfect in all her elementary
principles during the inorganic period, and as inertia
was, and is, a property of matter, it follows, necessarily, that
life was a new principle, from an immaterial source, otherwise
inertia is not a property of matter; for a thing can not be—exist
and not be at the same time.

[pg 076]

Vogt reasons in favor of evolution of species from a few
abnormal—that is deteriorated—human beings, which is the
mistake spoken of by Agassiz, that action and reaction in one
and the same species produce species. Action and reaction
does not produce the species, nor yet another species. Men
and apes have lived side by side for thousands of years. Why
is it that apes have made no advance towards the human form?
Poor fellows! An ape is always an ape, and a man is always
a man. The geological record upon the rocks is in favor of
man’s existence as man by creative interposition. The evolution
hypothesis rests its conclusions upon effects that well-known
causes have never been known to produce, for the evolution
of species from lower species was never known anywhere
in history or fact. In reference to Darwin’s ideas upon the
origin of species, Mr. Huxley said: “That, notwithstanding
the clearness of the style, those who attempt fairly to digest
the book find much of it a sort of intellectual pemmican—a
mass of facts crushed and pounded into shape, rather than
held together by the ordinary medium of a logical bond.”
The impossibility of a scientific test is admitted, for vast periods
of time in the infinite past are claimed for the work of
natural selection. Countless ages form the basis of the system,
without which it could not have brought about the present
order of things. But an infinite series of life forms upon our
earth could not be possible, for it has been shown, allowing
that the heat has passed out of our earth uniformly, as it does
at present, that inside of a comparatively limited period in the
past, it must have been so intensely hot as to have been capable
of melting a mass of rock equal to the bulk of the whole
earth. Yet Darwin has his half developed—imaginary animals
strewn along there in the infinite ages of the past. Men
may get around this difficulty by disregarding the facts of
science and of common sense, or by doing as Tyndall did;
that is, by taking up the mechanism of the human body, the
mind itself, emotion, intellect, will and all their phenomena,
and latentizing them in a fire cloud. Tyndall says: “They
were once latent in a fiery cloud.” Farewell to common sense
[pg 077]
or Darwinism—which shall it be? Darwin’s idea that all the
causes of evolution were placed in a common progenitor, by a
miraculous creation of that common progenitor is in very poor
harmony with his denial of design in nature, and also in poor
harmony with the idea of environments contributing so extensively
to the change of species; for if all the causes were
placed in a common progenitor, of course, they are not to be
found in the least degree in environment. If all was placed
in a common progenitor, brought into existence by a miracle,
as Darwin teaches, how is design to be excluded from nature?
Imperfections in nature are urged against design in nature by
all the school of evolutionists. But what kind of imperfection
is that which is involved in the idea of God creating a common
progenitor, lying at the base of Darwin’s series of evolution,
possessing all the causes of all effects in nature, without designing
those effects? What wonderful undesigned results!

There are those, among unbelievers, who profess to see no
evidences of a designing intelligence in all the harmonies of
nature, and yet profess to see the far off man behind the old
stone ax. What wonderful intelligence they have! There
is no want of intelligence; it is want of something else,
which Christianity requires. I think so much of your common
sense that I will leave you to say what that is. Socrates
said: “When I was young it was surprising how earnestly I
desired that species of science which they call physical, for it
appeared to me pre-eminently excellent in bringing us to
know the causes of each, through what each is produced and
destroyed. But happening to hear some one read in a book,
that it is intelligence which is the parent of order and cause of
all things, I considered that, if it were so, the ordering intelligence
placed each thing where it was best.”

Is mind a development upward from the instinct of the
brute creation, or is it an offspring from God? Man’s reasoning
intelligence separates him from the brute by a chasm that
no man can carry the reasoning powers of mind across. All
on that side is brutish. The science of the Bible, dealing with
intelligence as its subject, is the highest order of science known
[pg 078]
to man. To limit the term science to physical phenomena is
unjustifiable, unless matter is the only substance in the universe,
and unless it be true, also, that some things resulting
from matter lie outside of science; for if matter is the one,
and only, substance, and if science deals with all there is, or
may be, connected with that substance, then, according to materialists
themselves, its province is to deal with life, mind and
religion. But matter is not the only substance, unless a thing
can be, exist, and not be at the same time; for if life is a
property of matter inertia is not, and if mind is a property of
matter it must be with all matter everywhere, or the thing is
and is not at one and the same time.

The mind, in all its faculties, lies outside of the domain of
the physical sciences. Each man gets his knowledge of his
own mental and moral self-hood, not through the senses,
but by his consciousness. So there is a mental science that
looks inward, and a physical science that looks outward. Break
down consciousness and philosophy is ruined. But some ignoramus
is ready to say: What care I for philosophy?
Poor fellow! He does not know what philosophy is; his ignorance
is his trouble. Philosophy simply tells us how things
are; it answers the question, how is it? There is nothing in
which we are more interested than we are in the how is it?
Let us not ruin philosophy; consciousness is her foundation
with us; for in order to knowledge there must be primary and
intuitive beliefs; the man who has no faith in his own ability
to see truth, when it is presented through the medium of the
senses, will never come to any definite conclusions about any
thing. So mind is innate, and lies in consciousness, or self-hood,
and is at the bottom of all our knowledge; otherwise we
would not, and could not, be men.

Mind is above matter, and virtue and morals are above both
in their results. The certainties are not all confined to physical
nature, and hence science should not be. Personality and
the freedom of the will, possessed in consciousness, are as certain
as any facts in the physical world. Truth, justice, right
and wrong are equally certain.

Was It Possible?

The miracle of the sun and the moon standing still in the
days of Joshua is urged as contrary to the philosophy of nature,
and therefore untrue. That which is simply above the
ordinary is not necessarily contrary to the ordinary. The objection
is without value until it be proven that there is no God;
for it is in his power to control the planets. Otherwise he
is not omnipotent. On this very account, it is true, that there
is no consistent ground between Christianity and atheism; for
the moment we admit the existence of God, that moment we
concede the existence of the power adequate to the accomplishment
of all the miracles of the Bible. Joshua went to the aid
of the Gibeonites against the confederate kings; went up to
Gilgal all night, and came instantaneously upon the enemy;
having thrown them into confusion with great slaughter, and
chased them from Gibeon to Beth-horon, in a westerly direction,
the Lord co-operating in their destruction by a great hail-storm,
which slew more than the swords of the Israelites, but
touched not the Israelites. In this situation of things the sun
appears over Gibeon eastward and the moon over Ajalon westward.
When Joshua saw it, moved by a grand impulse, he
said: “Sun, stand thou still over Gibeon; and thou, moon,
over the valley of Ajalon.” See Joshua 10: 1 to 28.

The entire machinery of nature is no more in the hands of
an Omnipotent God than a clock or watch in the hands of a
man. How absurd it is for a man, who believes in God’s existence,
to be emptying out his wicked ridicule, the result of
his ignorance or otherwise, of his dishonesty, upon this miracle?
Is not God above his laws? Can not he manipulate,
take hold of and handle the laws of nature?

It is claimed that the miracle was contrary to the philosophy
of nature. God out, it would be true, but God in, it is not.
It is conceded by the best of minds that the Bible is in perfect
accord with the Newtonian system; that the sun is the center
of the solar system; and the earth, and all other planets, move
round the sun in certain periodical times; that the sun revolves
[pg 080]
around his own axis, and round the common center of gravity
included in his own surface; that the solar influence is the
cause of the annual and diurnal motions of the earth, and that
the motions of the earth must continue while the solar influence
continues to act upon it; that no power but that of Jehovah
can change this solar influence; that he can suspend the
operation of this influence; that he can and does manipulate—handle
the laws which he has established—whenever his wisdom
sees proper. It would be degrading to allow that the
Almighty One threw this universe of his under laws over
which he has no controlling power.

The miracle wrought upon this occasion was altogether
worthy of God. Joshua spoke as if he knew all about the
effect of the solar influence upon our planet; it is this influence
that gives to our earth its diurnal motion, and the arresting
of this influence would arrest the motion of the earth and
the day would be lengthened out.

It is objected that if the sun should stand still one moment
everything upon the earth would be swept from existence. It
is the objection that is at fault, for there is no evidence that it
was an instantaneous miracle. A few seconds is all that is
necessary when a carriage is in rapid motion to enable its occupants
to light out with perfect safety when an instantaneous
pause would hurl them over the dash. At the equator the
rotation of the earth is at the rate of fourteen hundred and
twenty-six feet per second; twelve hundred and twelve feet
at Jerusalem. It is the speed of a ball at the moment of
leaving a cannon’s mouth, discharged by one-fifth of its own
weight of powder. This power is allowed to be sufficient to
elevate its ball to the height of twenty-four thousand feet, deducting
the effect of atmospheric resistance. Yet a child of
six summers could destroy all this force by the elastic and continued
action of its fingers inside of two-thirds of a minute.
This last objection is entirely worthless until it be shown that
the miracle under consideration was instantaneous, for eighteen
minutes is time enough to stop, gradually, our planet in its
motion, so effectually that you would not feel that anything
had happened. “The fool hath said in his heart there is no
God.”