George Bethune English

“ In a word, in these maxims we find commands, the fulfillment of which, is impossible by any man who is a husband, a father, or a citizen.
It is an outrage to human nature, and to common sense, to order a virtuous man, in order to reach perfection, to strip himself of his property; to offer the other cheek to receive a new outrage; not to resist the most unjust violence, injury, and insult; not to defend himself, or his property, when sued at the law; to quit his house and goods, and to hate his parents, and brethren, and wife, and children, for the sake of Jesus ”

“ No man has any reason to apprehend any ill consequences to truth, (for which alone he ought to have any concern,) from free inquiry and debate.—For truth is not a thing to dread examination, but when fairly proposed to an unbiased understanding, is like light to the eye; it must distinguish itself from error, as light does distinguish does distinguish itself from darkness. For, while free debate is allowed, truth is in no danger, for it will never want a professor thereof, nor an advocate to offer some plea in its behalf. ”

“ And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations, and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled. And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars, and upon the earth distress of nations with perplexity, the sea and waves roaring, mans hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of the heavens shall be shaken. And then, shall they see the Son of Man coming in a cloud, with power, and great glory. ”

“ Christianity cannot attach himself to any thing here below. Every thing here is an occasion of stumbling, a rock of offence. Every thing here, diverts him from thinking of his salvation. If Christians in general, happily, for society, were not inconsistent, and did not neglect the peculiar precepts of their religion, no large society of them could exist; and the nations enlightened by the gospel would turn hermits, and nuns. All business, but fasting and prayer, would be at an end. ”

“ Nay, more, such is the power of this principle, that even now, women in India burn themselves alive on the funeral piles of their husbands, to prove, as they say, their love for them, and their determination to accompany them to the other world; when it is well known, that they burn themselves from the impulse of vanity, and the fear of disgrace, if they should not do so. Nay, more still, so little support does martyrdom yield to truth, that there are more martyrdoms in honour of the false, ridiculous, and abominable idols of Hindostan, than any where else. ”

“ One law shall be to him that is home born, and to the stranger that sojourneth among you. The stranger that dwelleth with you shall be as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself. I am the Lord your God.
Indeed, so little truth is there in the notion, that the law and religion of the Old Testament were established with the intention of confining them to one people, exclusive of all others, that the Old Testament certainly represents them in such manner, as shows, that they were intended to be as unconfined as the Christian, or Mahometan ”

“ But the gospel annuls this law, and represents a single life to be most pleasing, to the very being, whose very first command was, increase and multiply! It advises a man to die without posterity, to refuse citizens to the state, and to himself, a support for his old age.
It is to no purpose to deny that Christianity recommends all this; I say, it substantially does! and I boldly appeal,—not to a few Protestant Divines,—but to the New Testament; to the Homilies of the Fathers of the Church; to the History, and Practice of the Primitive Christians ”

“ For a man, who is never sure of being in a state of grace, is the most extravagant of men, if, by the hazard of battle, he exposes himself to eternal perdition. And a Christian who ought to love his enemies, is he not guilty of the greatest of crimes, when he inflicts death upon a hostile soldier, of whose disposition he knows nothing: and whom he may, at a single stroke, precipitate into hell? A Christian soldier is a monster! a non-descript! and Lactantius affirms, that a Christian cannot be either a soldier, or an accuser to a criminal cause. ”

“ Is it possible that any sensible man, after reading the History of the Roman Catholic Missionaries, the Baptists, the Quakers, and the Methodists, can be convinced of the certain truth of the Christian religion, or seriously endeavour to convince another of it, by such an argument as the above?
But, much more than this can be said upon this topic; for it can be shown, that the Apostles in preaching Christianity, did not suffer near so much as some well meaning enthusiasts in modern times have suffered, to propagate religious tenets, notoriously false and absurd. ”

“ Indeed, the moral maxims peculiar to Christianity are impracticable, except by one who confines his wealth to the possession of a suit of clothes, sad wooden platter, and who lives in a cave, or a monastery. They bear the stamp of enthusiasm upon their very front, and we have always seen, and ever shall see, that they are not fit for man: that they lift him out of the sphere in which God designed him to move; that they are useless to society, and frequently produce the most dangerous consequences to it. ”

“ And yet we complain that this latter is the sense which Christians labour to obtrude upon the gainsayers. We say, that a kingdom of this world, and not of this world; contempt and adoration; poverty and magnificence; persecution and peace; sufferings and triumph; a cross and a throne; the scandalous death of a private man upon a gibbet, and the everlasting dominion of a universal monarch, must be reconciled, and mean the self same thing, before the prophecies appealed to, can do their cause any service. ”

“ I have no doubt that he or she will avow, without hesitation, to the enquirer, and glory in it, that chastity is more honourable than marriage; that faith is every thing; that doubt is damnable, and a proof of an unregenerated mind; that all the goods and pleasures of this world are trash; that human institutions are mere carnal ordinances; and that human science and learning is a snare to faith and an abomination to a true disciple of the cross. ”

“ Far be it from me to reproach the meek, the compassionate, the amiable Jesus; or to attribute to him, the mischiefs occasioned by his followers*. No, I look upon his character with the respect which every man should pay to purity of morals: though mingled with something like the sentiments which we naturally feel for the mistaken enthusiast. Jesus of Nazareth appears to have been a man of irreproachable purity, of great piety, and of great mildness of disposition. Though the world has never beheld a character exactly parallel with his, yet it has seen many, greatly similar. ”

“ It is said, that Jesus, by giving himself up to suffer death, proved the truth of his mission and doctrines, by his readiness to die for them. But this is an argument which will recoil upon those who advance it. Are there no instances upon record of mild, zealous, and amiable men who preached to the savages of America that they ought to worship the Virgin Mary? and did they not cheerfully die by the most excruciating torments to prove it? Yes certainly! and let any Protestant Christian read the accounts of the preaching, sufferings, deaths, aye! ”

“ If we examine, in detail, the precepts of this religion, as they affect nations, we shall see, that it interdicts every thing which can make a nation flourishing. We have seen already the notion of imperfection which Christianity attaches to marriage, and the esteem and preference it holds out to celibacy. These ideas certainly do not favour population, which is, without contradiction, the first source of power to every state. ”

“ In those times, the deserts, the mountains, the forests were peopled with perfect Christians; who withdrew from the world, deprived their families of support, and their country of citizens, in order to lead unmolested the divine life. It was the New Testament morality that spawned those legions of monks and cenobites, who thought to secure the favour of heaven, by burying their talents in the deserts, and devoting themselves to inaction and celibacy. ”

“ But how is this feeling consistent with the peculiar doctrines of the gospel? According to its maxims, it is a crime to offer God a heart, whoso affections are shared by terrestrial objects. And besides, does not experience show, that devotees obliged by principle to hate themselves, are little disposed to give better treatment to others?
We should not be surprised that maxims, originating with enthusiasm, should aim at, and have the effect of, driving man out of himself. In the delirium of its enthusiasm, this religion forbids a man to love himself. ”

“ Politics are intended to maintain union and concord among the citizens. Christianity, though it preaches universal love, and commands its followers to live in peace; yet, by a strange inconsistency, consequentially annihilates the effect of these excellent precepts, by the inevitable divisions it causes among its followers, who necessarily understand differently the Old and New Testaments, because the latter is not only irreconcilably contradictory to the former, but it is even inconsistent with itself. ”

“ It was one of the principal tenets of the Oriental Philosophy, that all evil resulted from matter, and its first founder appears to have argued in the following manner:—There are many evils in the world, and men seem impelled of a natural instinct to the practice of those things which reason condemns. But that eternal mind, from which all spirits derive their existence, must be inaccessible to all kinds of evil, and also of a most perfect and beneficent nature; therefore, the origin of these evils with which the world abounds, must be sought somewhere else, than in the Deity. ”

“ Should we consider such a man an object of wrath, or of pity? Should we not directly, and without hesitation, attribute such extravagancies to hallucination of mind? Yes, certainly! and therefore the Jews were to blame for crucifying Jesus. If Christians had put to death every unfortunate, who after being frenzied by religious fasting and contemplation, became wild enough to assert, that he was Christ, or God the Father, or the Virgin Mary, or even the Holy Trinity, they would have been guilty of more than fifty murders ”

“ From the very commencement of Christianity, we perceive very violent disputes among its founders and teachers; and through every succeeding century, we find, in the history of the Church, nothing but schism and heresy. These are followed by persecutions and quarrels, exceedingly well adapted to destroy this vaunted spirit of concord, said by its defenders to be peculiar to Christianity; and the existence of which is, in fact, impossible in a religion which is one entire chaos of obscure doctrines and impracticable precepts. ”

“ If that system be verily and indeed founded on a mistake, no language, no indignation, can do justice to its guilt in this respect. All its good moral effects are a mere drop of pure water in that ocean of Jewish and Gentile blood it has caused to be shed by embittering men's minds with groundless prejudices. ”

“ Be it so, it may be said;—Still, it is to Christianity the world owes the consoling doctrine of a life to come. Life and immortality were brought to light by the Gospel, say the Christian divines; and they assert, that the doctrine of a resurrection was not known to Jew or Gentile, till they learned it from Jesus followers. The Old Testament, (say they,) taught the Jews nothing of the glorious truths concerning the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting, their beggarly elements confined their views to temporal happiness, only. ”

“ Indeed the argument of martyrdom will support any religion; and it has, in fact, been cheerfully undergone by enthusiasts and zealots of all religions, in testimony of the firm belief of the sufferers not only in the absurdities of Popery, and Brachinanism, but of every, even the most monstrous system that ever disgraced the human understanding. There have been martyrs for Atheism itself. ”

“ That the New Testament inculcates an excellent morality, cannot be denied; for its best moral precepts were taken from the Old Testament. And if the Apostles had not preached good morals, how could they have expected to be considered by the Gentiles as messengers from God? For if they had inculcated any immoralities, such as rebellion, murder, adultery, robbery, revenge, their mission would not only have been disbelieved, but they would have undergone capital punishment by the sentence of the judge, which it was their business to avoid. ”