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It is high time that men should see that dogma is not religion; that blind faith is more to be feared than rational skepticism and scientific investigation; that whatever is opposed to reason and science in theology can be spared, not only without any loss, but greatly to the advantage of true religion and sound morality. All the religion that is worth having is natural and rational, and corresponds with the facts of the universe as they are demonstrated by the crucibles of science and the inductions of a sound philosophy. The principal moral obligations of men grow out of their relations to each other in life, and nothing can be more complete than the Golden Rule, emphasized in the Sermon on the Mount, but as clearly taught in the Jewish Babylonian Talmud, and in the twenty-fourth Maxim of the Chinese philosopher Confucius, and many others centuries before the Christian era.
Instead of loading down religion with Oriental myths and fables, instead of a gorgeous ritualism and surpliced priests, borrowed literally from the ancient paganism, instead of dogmas and creeds and unquestioning faith and blind submission to ecclesiastical dictation and rule, we want sound moral instruction in the great fundamental truths of nature and of science, which will always be found to strengthen and confirm the principles of true religion. These are the sources from which to gain light. We want less creed and more ethical culture, less profession and paraphernalia in religious worship and more practical philosophy and common sense.
The man who in scientific matters would make false representations and conceal the real truth would be deemed an impostor, and the time has come when hypocrites and cowards in theology should be made to feel their degradation and be forced into an open abandonment of “ways that are dark and tricks that are vain.” If we would scorn delusions in natural philosophy, if we would correct errors in oceanic charts, astronomical diagrams, and geographical maps, why should we hesitate to correct the most egregious blunders regarding those things which are infinitely more important? Can we with any proper sense of propriety and right connive at falsehood and uphold and strengthen it by our silence and cowardly negligence in failing to expose it? Are not all delusions debasing and opposed to the progress of truth and the elevation of mankind? In all the departments of human knowledge religion and morality are most imperative in their demands for pure and unadulterated truth; and he who does not recognize this fact sins grievously against his own soul, against the human family, and against the truth and its eternal Author, the God of all truth.
Finally, let it not be overlooked that it will not, for many reasons, be possible much longer to keep the people in ignorance, and to palm off upon them myths for veritable history and a system of theology plainly at variance with the conclusions of science, the facts of history, and the spiritual and moral consciousness of every true and well-developed man. The schoolmaster is abroad, and the spirit of fearless investigation is in the air, and men will, sooner or later, find out what is true; and when they come to understand how they have been imposed upon by their cowardly teachers, a fearful reaction will be the result; and woe to the hypocrite and time-server when that time comes! It is therefore not only good principle, but good policy, to tell the whole truth now. The following copy of a book-notice well describes the prevalent policy regarding matters of faith:
“A theory of religious philosophy which is much commoner among us than most of us think, but which has never been expressed so fully or so attractively as in the story of Marius.
“‘Submit,’ it seems to say, ‘to the religious order about you, accept the common beliefs, or at least behave as if you accepted them, and live habitually in the atmosphere of feeling and sensation which they have engendered and still engender; surrender your feeling while still maintaining the intellectual citadel intact; pray, weep, dream with the majority while you think with the elect; only so will you obtain from life all it has to give, its most delicate flavor, its subtlest aroma.’” Against such a sham the writer heartily protests, as against the villainous maxim, quoted from memory, accredited to Aristotle: “Think with the sages and philosophers, but talk like the common people.” Come what may, let us cease to profess what we have ceased to believe.
“The two learned people of the village,” says Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, telling of his fanciful Arrowhead Village, “were the rector and the doctor. These two worthies kept up the old controversy between the professions which grows out of the fact that one studies nature from below upward, and the other from above downward. The rector maintained that physicians contracted a squint which turns their eyes inwardly, while the muscles which roll their eyes upward become palsied. The doctor retorted that theological students developed a third eyelid—the nictitating membrane, which is so well known in birds, and which serves to shut out, not all light, but all the light they do not want.”
The Presbyterians have provided for a revision of their creed, though they have stultified themselves by certain restrictions, shutting out the light they do not want! Let us hope that the time will soon come when men will be honest enough and brave enough to follow the truth wherever it may lead. Let there be perfect veracity above all things, more especially in matters of religion. It is not a question of courtesies which deceive no one. To profess what is not believed is immoral. Immorality and untruth can never lead to morality and virtue; all language which conveys untruth, either in substance or appearance, should be amended so that words can be understood in their recognized meanings, without equivocal explanations or affirmations. Let historic facts have their true explanation.
CHAPTER II. SACERDOTALISM IMPEACHED
“The heads thereof judge for reward, and the priests thereof teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine for money.”—Micah 3: 11.
“Put me, I pray thee, into one of the priests’ offices, that I may eat a piece of bread.”—1 Sam. 2: 36.
THE cognomens priest, prophet, presbyter, preacher, parson, and pastor have certain things in common, and these titles may therefore be used interchangeably.
As far back as history extends, the office or order now represented by the clerical profession existed. It was as common among pagan tribes in the remotest periods as among Jews and Christians in more modern times. Service done to the gods by the few in behalf of the many is the primary idea of the priestly function. It has always and everywhere been the profession and prerogative of the priests to pretend to approach nearest to the gods and to propitiate them; on account of which they have always been supposed to have special influence with the reigning deity and to be the authorized expounders and interpreters of the divine oracles. The priesthood has always been a caste, a “holy order;” and it was no less so among ancient Jews than among modern Christians. In all churches clergymen ex-officio exercise certain sacred prerogatives. They occupy select seats in every sanctuary. They lead in every act of worship. They preside over every sacred ceremony. They exclusively administer the ordinances of religion. They baptize the children and give or withhold the “Holy Communion.” They celebrate our marriages, visit our sick, and conduct our funerals. In Romish churches and in some of our Protestant churches they pretend to pronounce “absolution” and to seal the postulant for the heavenly rest. It is not necessary, now and here, to speak of the evil influence that these pretensions exert upon the common people, nor of the light in which intelligent, thinking women and men commonly regard them; but it is appropriate to note the reflex influence which such assumptions have upon the clergy themselves, disqualifying them for such rational presentation of doctrinal truth as their hearers have a right to expect.
The pride of his order makes it humiliating for the priest to admit that what he does not know is worth knowing. Claiming to be the authorized expounder of God’s will, how can he admit that he can possibly be in error in any matter relating to religion? In view of the high pretensions of his order, founded, as he claims, upon a plenarily-inspired and infallible book-revelation, and he professing to be specially called and sanctified by God himself as his representative, it would be ecclesiastical treason to admit, even by implication, that he is not in possession of all truth. Regarding his creed as a finality, his mind becomes narrow, circumscribed, and unprogressive. He was taught from childhood that “to doubt is to be damned,” and through all his novitiate he was warned against being unsettled by the delusions of reason and the wiles of infidelity. His professional education has been narrow, one-sided, sectarian. He has seldom, if ever, read anything outside of his own denominational literature, and has heard little from anybody but his own theological professors and associates. He suspects that Humboldt, Spencer, Huxley, and Tyndall are all infidels, and that the sum and substance of Evolution, as taught by Darwin, is that man is the lineal descendant of the monkey.
Some persons think that ministers are often selected from among weaklings in the family fold. However, this may be, the absorption of the “holy-orders” idea, and the natural self-assurance and self-satisfaction that belong to a caste profession, render delusive the hope that anything original can ever come from such a source. Whether weak at first or not, the habits of thought and the peculiar training of young ecclesiastics are almost sure to dwarf them intellectually for life. The theological student has become the butt in wide-awake society everywhere, and his appearance in public is the occasion for jests and ridicule over his sanctimonious vanity and silly pride. The extreme clerical costume which he is sure to assume excites the disgust of sensible people, though he may march through the street and up the aisle with the regulation step of the “order,” and suppose himself to be the object of reverent admiration on the part of all beholders. No wonder that the churches complain that few young men of ability enter the ministry in these modern times.
The priestly office has always been deemed one of great influence, so that ancient kings were accustomed to assume it. This was true of the kings of ancient Egypt, and the practice was kept up among the Greeks and Romans. Even Constantine, the first Christian emperor (so called), continued to exercise the function of a pagan priest after his professed conversion to Christianity, and he was not initiated into the Christian Church by baptism until just before his death. One excommunicated king lay for three days and nights in the snow in the courtyard before the Pope would grant him an audience! The “Pontifex-Maximus” idea of the Roman emperors was the real foundation of the “temporal power” claimed by the bishops of Rome. Kingcraft and priestcraft have always been in close alliance. When the king was not a priest he always used the priest; and the priest has generally been willing to be used on the side of the king as against the people when liberally subsidized by the reigning potentate. Moreover, priestcraft has always been ambitious for power, and sometimes has been so influential as to make the monarch subservient to the monk. More than one proud crown has been humbly removed in token of submission to priestly authority, and powerful sovereigns have been obliged to submit to the most menial exactions and humiliations at ecclesiastical mandates. The priestly rôle has always been to utilize the religious sentiment for the subjection of the credulous to the arbitrary influence of the caste or order.
Priestcraft never could afford to have a conscience, so admitted, and therefore it has not shrunk from the commission of any crime that could augment its dominion. Its greatest success has been in the work of demoralization. It has always been the corrupter of religion. The ignorance and superstition of the people and the perversions of the religious sentiment, innate in man, have been the stock in trade of the craft in all ages, and are to-day.
It will be shown later how the whole system of dogmatic theology, Romish and Protestant (for the system is the same), has been formed so as to aggrandize the priest, perpetuate his power, and hold the masses in strict subjection. This is a simple matter of fact. History is philosophy teaching by example, and often repeats itself, and it seldom gives an example of a priestly caste or “holy” order of men leading in a great practical reform. The dominant priestly idea is to protect the interests of the order, not to promote the welfare of the people.
In view of these principles and facts, and others which might be presented, it is reasonable to conclude that we cannot expect the whole living, unadulterated truth, even if they had it, from the professional clergy. The caste idea renders it essentially unnatural and philosophically impossible.
But there are other potent reasons why such expectation is vain. All Christendom is covered with numerous sects in the form of ecclesiastical judicatories, each claiming to be the true exponent of all religious truth. The Romish Church is pre-eminently priestly and autocratic. The priesthood is the Church, and the people only belong to the Church; that is, belong to the priesthood, and that, too, in a stronger sense than at first seems to attach to the word belong. Then the priesthood itself is subdivided into castes.:
“Great fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite ’em,
And little fleas have lesser fleas; and so—ad infinitum”
When Patrick J. Ryan was installed Archbishop in Philadelphia, an office conferred by a foreign potentate, our own city newspapers in flaming headlines called it “The Enthronement of a Priest!” And so it was. He sat upon a throne and received the honors of a prince. He is called “His Grace,” and wears the royal purple in the public streets. Bishops are higher than the “inferior clergy,” and the priest, presbyter, or elder is of a higher caste than the deacon, and all are higher and more holy than the people. All ministers exercise functions which would be deemed sacrilege in a layman. The same odious spirit of caste prevails in fact, if not so prominently in form, in all orthodox denominations, especially as to the distinction between the clergy and the laity. Even Quakers have higher seats for “recommended ministers.”
Moreover, priests have laid down creeds containing certain affirmations and denials which are called “Articles of Religion,” to which all students of divinity and candidates for holy orders must subscribe before they can be initiated into the sacred arcana.
The professor in the theological seminary, who perhaps was selected for the chair quite as much for his conservatism as for his learning, has taken a pledge, if not an oath, that he will teach the young aspirant for ecclesiastical honors nothing at variance with the standards of his denomination; which covenant he is very sure to keep (having other professors and aspirants for professorships to watch him) in full view of the penalty of dismission from his chair and consequent ecclesiastical degradation. The very last place on this earth where one might expect original research, thorough investigation, and fearless proclamation of the whole truth is in a theological school. A horse in a bark-mill becomes blind in consequence of going round and round in the same circular path; and the theological professor in his treadmill cannot fail to become purblind as regards all new truth.
What can be expected from the graduates of such seminaries?
The theological novitiate sits with trembling reverence at the feet of the venerable theological Gamaliel. From his sanctified lips he is to learn all wisdom. Without his approbation he cannot receive the coveted diploma. Without his recommendation he will not be likely to receive an early call to a desirable parish.
The student is obliged to find in the Bible just what his Church requires, and nothing more and nothing less. In order to be admitted into the clerical caste and have holy hands laid upon his youthful head he must believe or profess to believe, ipsissima verba, just what the “Confession” and “Catechism” contain. The Rev. Dr. Samuel Miller once said in a sort of confidential undertone, “What is the use of examining candidates for the ministry at all as to what they believe? The fact that they apply for admission shows that they intend to answer all questions as we expect them to answer; else, they very well know, we would not admit them.”
The ecclesiastical system is emphatically an iron-bedstead system. If a candidate is too long, it cuts him shorter; and if too short, it stretches him. He must be made to fit. Then, after “ordination” or “consecration,” the new-fledged theologian enters upon his public work so pressed by the cares of his charge and the social and professional demands upon his time that he finds it impossible to prepare a lecture and two original sermons a week; so he falls back upon the “notes” he took from the lips of his “old professor” in the divinity school, or upon some of those numerous “skeletons” and “sketches” of sermons expressly published for the “aid” of busy young ministers; and he gives to “his people” a dish of theological hash, if not of re-hash, instead of pouring out his own living words that should breathe and thoughts that should burn.
Hence it is easy to see why one scarcely ever gets a fresh, living truth from the pulpit. It is almost always the same old, old story of commonplace fossils that the wide-awake world has outgrown long ago, and that modern science has fearlessly consigned to the “bats and the moles” of the Dark Ages. No wonder the pulpit platitudes fail to attract the masses of earnest men, especially in our great cities.
Then if a clergyman should discover, after years of thought and study, that he has been in error in some matters, and that a pure rational interpretation of the Bible is possible, and he really feels that the creeds, as well as the Scriptures, need revising, what can he do? If he lets his new light shine, he will share the fate of Colenso, Robertson Smith, Augustus Blauvelt, Professor Woodrow, and scores of others. He knows that heresy-hunters are on the scent of his track. The mad-dog cry of Heretic would be as fatal as a sharp shot from the ecclesiastical rifle. Proscription, degradation, ostracism, stare him in the face. Few men who have the esprit de corps of ecclesiasticism and a reasonable regard for personal comfort and preferment are heroic enough to face the social exclusion, financial ruin, and beggary for themselves and families which are almost sure to follow a trial and condemnation for heresy. If the newly-enlightened minister escapes the inquisition of a heresy trial by declaring himself independent, he has a gauntlet to run in which many poisoned arrows will be sure to pierce his quivering spirit. It is true that some sects have no written creed and no trials for heresy; but even among them there is an implied standard of what is “regular,” and more than one grand soul knows by a sorrowful experience, what it is to belong to the “left wing” of the Liberal army, and to follow the “spirit of truth” outside of the implied creed.
Another reason why the whole truth cannot be expected from the regular clergy is, the influence of their pecuniary dependence upon those to whom they minister. The Jews have always been great borrowers and imitators. It was quite natural that they should adopt the “price-current list” of the ancient Phœnicians, whose priests not only exacted the tribute of “first-fruits,” but a fee in kind of each sacrifice. Then the judicial functions exercised by Jewish priests became a fruitful source of revenue, as the fines for certain offences were paid to the priests (2 Kings 12: 16; Hosea 4: 8; Amos 2: 8). According to 2 Sam. 8: 18 and 2 Bangs 10: 11, also 12: 2, the priests of the royal sanctuaries became the grandees of the realm, while the petty priests were generally poor enough—just as is well known to be the case among the Christian clergy of to-day, some receiving a salary of twenty-five thousand dollars and more per annum, while many of the “inferior clergy” hardly average two hundred and fifty dollars a year.
That the Christian clerical profession was borrowed from the Jews, just as the latter copied it from the heathen, is evident from the fact that Paul, while refusing for himself pecuniary support, preferring to “work with his own hands” (weaving tent-cloth), “living in his own hired house,” nevertheless defended the principle of ministerial support, mainly on the ground of the Mosaic law (Deut. 25: 4), “Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn” (1 Cor. 9: 9; 1 Tim. 5: 18). It is a striking illustration of the inconsistency of the modern clergy that they quote, in reference to a salaried ministry, the words ascribed to Jesus (Matt. 10: 10), “The workman is worthy of his meat,” or, as it is rendered in Luke 10: 7, “The laborer is worthy of his hire,” very conveniently forgetting to quote the connecting words requiring them to “provide neither gold nor silver nor brass in their purse, nor scrip for their journey, neither two coats, neither shoes, nor yet staves,” but to enter unceremoniously into any house, accepting any proffered hospitality, “eating such things as might be set before them.” The fact is, the first disciples of Jesus, according to our Gospels, were mendicant monks, leading lives of asceticism and poverty. There is no evidence that one of them ever received a salary; they made themselves entirely dependent on public charity and hospitality. The idea of a “church living” or “beneficed clergy” or a salaried ministry never entered into the mind of Him of whom it is said he “had not where to lay his head.”
It is enough for the present argument to emphasize the point that, in the very nature of things, it is not reasonable to expect the whole truth from a salaried ministry. Those who have a large salary naturally desire to retain it; those who have small and insufficient salaries naturally desire to have them increased.
This can only be done by carefully preserving a good orthodox standing according to the sectarian shibboleth, and in pleasing the people who rent the pews or who dole out their penurious subscriptions for “the support of the gospel.” High-salaried ministers are most likely to be proud, arrogant, bigoted, sectarian. Starveling ministers become broken in spirit, fawning, and crouching, and they generally have an unconscious expression of appeal for help, of importunity and expectancy, stamped upon their faces. The millstone of pecuniary dependence hangs so heavily about their necks that they seldom hold up their heads like men, and they can never utter a new truth or a startling sentiment without pausing to consider what effect it may have on the bread and butter of a dependent and generally numerous family. Ministers with high salaries are almost sure to be spoiled, and those with low ones are sure to be stultified and dwarfed intellectually and morally; so that we cannot depend upon either class for the highest and latest truths. Those who have a “living,” provided in a State Church, and those who depend upon voluntary contributions from the people, are alike manacled and handicapped. We must look elsewhere than to the modern pulpit for that truth which alone can give freedom and true manliness. Perfect indifference as to ecclesiastical standing, backed by pecuniary independence, is an essential condition for untrammelled investigation and the fearless proclamation of the whole truth.
It was noticed in the recent convention of scientists in this city (the American Association) that it was the salaried professors in Church colleges who professed to find no conflict between Geology and Genesis. It will always be so until the ecclesiastical tyranny is greatly weakened or destroyed, and men can utter their boldest thoughts without fear or favor, and when teachers can afford to have a conscience by making themselves free from Church control and menial dependence upon those to whom they minister for the necessaries of a mere livelihood. Science itself has made progress only as it has been fearless of priestly maledictions; and when it shall throw off the incubus of Church patronage it will astonish the world in showing the eternal antagonisms between the dogmas of the dominant theology and the essential truths of natural religion and morality.
CONCLUSIONS.
The following conclusions follow from what has been said:
The clerical fraternity claims to be more than a mere profession. It is essentially a caste, a “holy order,” borrowed from the ancient paganism, but somewhat modified by Judaism and a perverted Christianity.
From such a caste or order the whole truth is not to be expected, especially when the truth would show the order to be an imposture. The assumptions of peculiar sanctity, official pre-eminence, functional prerogatives, and special spiritual authority make such a hope unnatural and quite impossible.
The church system, with its tests of orthodoxy, its ecclesiastical handcuffs, and its worse than physical thumb-screws, puts an end to all independent thinking, and results in an enforced conformity inconsistent with intellectual progress and the discovery and full publication of the whole truth.
The pecuniary stipend upon which professional preachers are dependent has a demoralizing and degrading influence, so that the doctrinal teaching of the pulpit should not be received without hesitation and distrust. The common law excludes the testimony of interested witnesses, and, though modern statutes admit such testimony, the courts take it for what it is worth, but always with many grains of allowance. “A gift perverteth judgment,” and self-interest may sway the convictions of a man who intends and desires to be fairly honest.
The existing systems of ministerial education and support deter many superior men from entering the profession, and have placed preaching upon a commercial or mercantile basis, which has manacled and crippled the pulpit, and must sooner or later result in the consideration of the question whether the services of the clergy are worth what they cost, and whether the truth must not be sought for in some other direction. More than two hundred and fifty thousand priests and ministers (of whom about one hundred thousand are in the United States) are maintained at an annual expense of more than five hundred millions of dollars; and, as a rule, where priests are most numerous, people are poorest and public morality lowest.
A member of the Canadian Parliament (Hon. James Beatty) has recently published a book in which he opposes the whole system of a salaried clergy on scriptural and other grounds; and many other thoughtful men are beginning to inquire how it is that the Society of Friends get along so well without a “hireling ministry.”
It is a great mistake to suppose that we must look mainly to professional clergymen for instruction in divine things. It is a significant fact that the most able and important books that have been published within the last decade have been written by laymen or by persons, like Emerson, who have outgrown the narrow garments of a caste profession and have laid them off. How to get along without professional ministers has been well answered by Capt. Robert C. Adams (quoted in the writer’s book, Man—Whence and Whither? pp. 218, 219).
If ministers would give up the holy-orders idea, cast into the sea the millstone incumbrance of pecuniary dependence, engage earnestly in some legitimate work to support themselves, they would then for the first time begin to realize what soul-freedom is, and they could then preach with an intelligence and power and with a satisfaction to themselves of which they now know nothing. Let them try it for themselves and learn a lesson. Whether the clerical order is so divine an institution that we have no right to call it into question or to abolish it altogether, is a question that must be practically considered soon.
There is a deep impression widely prevailing among thoughtful and sincerely religious persons that the infidelity of the pulpit is largely responsible for the prevailing skepticism of the age. The word “infidelity” is here specially used in a strict philological sense—infidele, not faithful, unfaithfulness to a trust—but it is also used in its more general sense of disbelief in certain religious dogmas.
We impeach and arraign the clergy (admitting a few honorable exceptions) on the general charge of infidelity in the strictest and broadest sense of the word—
1st. In that they fail to qualify themselves to be the leaders of thought in the great, living questions affecting religion and morality. We have elsewhere said: “Not one minister in a thousand ‘discerns the signs of the times’ or is prepared for the crisis. Few pastors ever read anything beyond their own denominational literature. Their education is partial, one-sided, professional. They cling to mediaeval superstitions with the desperate grasp of drowning men. The great majority of the clergy are not men of broad minds and wide and deep research, and have not the ability to meet the vexed questions of to-day.”
It is an admitted policy, especially among the orthodox clergy (so called), not to read or to listen to anything that might unsettle their faith in what they have accepted as a finality; whereas no man can intelligently believe anything until he has candidly considered the reasons assigned by other men for not believing what he does. “He that is first in his own cause seemeth just; but his neighbor cometh and searcheth him.”
