A Legacy to the Friends of Free Discussion Part 10

She said, she had now performed the whole of what G.o.d had commissioned her to do. She was satisfied. She entreated the King to dismiss her to the obscurity from which she had sprung.

"The Ministers and Generals of France, however, found Joan too useful an instrument to be willing to part with her thus early, and she yielded to their earnest expostulations.

"Under her guidance, they a.s.sailed Laon, Soissons, Chauteau, Thirry, Provins, and many other places, and took them one after another. She threw herself into Compiegne, which was besieged by the Duke of Burgundy in conjunction with certain English commanders. The day after her arrival, she headed a sally against the enemy; twice she repelled them, but finding their numbers increase every moment with fresh reinforcements, she directed a retreat. Twice she returned to her pursuers, and made them recoil; the third time she was less fortunate.

She found herself alone, surrounded by the enemy, and having performed prodigies of valor, she was compelled to surrender herself a prisoner.

This happened on the twenty-fifth of May, 1430. It remained to be determined what should be the fate of this admirable woman. Both friends and enemies agreed that her career had been attended with a supernatural power. The French, who were so infinitely indebted to her achievements, and who owed the sudden and glorious reverse of their affairs to her alone, were convinced that she was immediately commissioned by G.o.d, and vied with each other in reciting the miraculous phenomena which marked every step in her progress. The English, who saw all the victorious acquisitions of Henry the Fifth crumbling from their grasp, were equally impressed with the manifest miracle, but imputed all her good fortune to a league with the Prince of Darkness. They said, that her boasted visions were so many delusions of the Devil. They determined to bring her to trial for the tremendous crimes of sorcery and witchcraft.

"They believed that if she were once convicted and led out to execution, the prowess and valor which had hitherto marked their progress, would return to them, and that they should obtain the same superiority over their disheartened foes. The Devil, who had hitherto been her constant ally, terrified at the spectacle of the flames that consumed her, would instantly return to the infernal regions, and leave the field open to English enterprise and energy, and to the interposition of G.o.d and his saints. An accusation was prepared against her, and all the solemnities of a public trial were observed. But the proofs; were so weak and unsatisfactory, and Joan, though oppressed and treated with the utmost severity, displayed so much acuteness and presence of mind, that the court, not venturing to proceed to the last extremity, contented themselves, with sentencing her to perpetual imprisonment, and to be allowed no other nourishment than bread and water for life. Before they yielded to this mitigation of punishment, they caused her to sign with her mark a recantation of her offences. She acknowledged that the enthusiasm which had guided her was an illusion, and promised never more to listen to its suggestions.

"The hatred of her enemies, however, was not yet appeased. They determined in some, way to entrap her; They had clothed her in a female garb; they insidiously laid in her way the habiliments of a man. The fire, smothered in the bosom of the maid, revived at the sight; she was alone, she caught up the garments, and; one by one adjusted them to her person. Spies were set to watch for this even; they burst into her apartment. What she had done was construed into no less offence than that of a relapsed heretic. There was no more pardon for such confirmed delinquency. She was brought out to be burned alive; in the market place of Rouen, and she died embracing a crucifix, and in her last moments calling upon the name of Jesus. A few days more than twelve months had elapsed between the period of her first captivity and her execution."

The preceding history of Joan of Arc, is taken from "G.o.dwin's Lives of the Necromancers." Reader! we see in this tragical account, the dreadful effects of human credulity. The unfortunate; Maid of Orleans, who so well deserved a monument for her patriotism, was thus cruelly put to death. Her hard fate fully shows how superst.i.tion fortifies the mind against compa.s.sion and the dictates of common sense. In that the of religious intolerance, whole nations, had caught this theological fever.

Kings and Parliaments, Judges and Generals, from the highest to the lowest, were alike the subjects of that awful contagion. Justice was banished from the earth, and humanity had no existence. From whence proceeded this state of savage barbarism? The answer is presented to us in bold relief. It was the effects of human credulity. It was brought on by believing without examination; and, in the New Testament, faith is urged as the thing most pleasing to G.o.d, and unbelief as the greatest sin. The existence of the Devil, and his enmity, to G.o.d and man, being supported by the New Testament, to be guilty of forming a contract with the Prince of Darkness was considered a horrid crime. The origin of sorcery, (which consisted in holding a communion with beings from the fabulous world of spirits,) is lost in the night and darkness of antiquity, but all ancient-nations and people were believers in its reality.

It was of heathen origin, yet the Jews practised it, and individuals followed it for a livelihood, as, for instance, the witch of Endor.

Christians have also been believers in it in connection with all the different branches of magic.

But that which has established its truth among Christians, is the part performed by Jesus during his ministry. By his own temptation by the Devil, the Existence of the Devil is put beyond all doubt And when Jesus was about to cast out a devil, the devil is reported to have cried out to the Saviour, "_We know who thou art, and art thou come to torment us before the tinte?_" This mode of expression to Jesus by the Devil who was about to be cast out, implies that when the Devil was ejected, he had to return to h.e.l.l, his native place of torment. It would lead us to infer that devils were permitted to leave their dread abodes, and take possession of men or animals, as a cessation of torture; but when cast out, they had to return home, their vacation being run out Admitting this to be warranted by the New Testament, we can account for those devils whose names were "Legion," pet.i.tioning to _be permitted to enter the herd of swine_. So, then, it appears that the devils had other motives in taking possession of human beings than to rebel against G.o.d, or to torment men. It was a fine holiday to blow off the soot and ashes, and to get fresh air. At any rate, Jesus, by pretending to cast out devils, fully admitted their existence. And by the temptation of Christ, is proved a desire on the part of the Devil to enlist persons into his service.

CHAPTER VII.

THE reader will not fail to notice, that the personage known by the name of the Devil, Satan, &c., is treated of more fully than any other recorded in the Old or New Testament. The reason is, because his influence exceeds that of all the prophets, and even of the Saviour himself. So destructive has been his supposed reign, throughout the earth, that hundreds of volumes could be written, and still the half would remain untold. In the conclusion of this chapter, an account will be given of witchcraft in Sweden, which far exceeds any thing on record.

The bare recital fills the mind with horror, pity, and indignation.

Before giving the dreadful tale, it will not be amiss to indulge in a few thoughts on the probable origin of the existence of a Being who has been a terror to all nations, both learned and ignorant. As the writer is convinced that every thing pertaining to theology is of man's creation, it may be useful to express his opinions how it has happened that all religions have been based on two beings who have ever been opposed to each other, namely, a G.o.d and a Devil. Their opposition to each other is the ground-work of every system, whether it be of saint or savage.

To attempt to go back to the origin of theology, as to when or where it first a.s.sumed the form of religious wors.h.i.+p, is to begin at the beginning of the human race. Religion may be compared to a chain, the first link of which is hidden in the darkness of past ages. The curtain is continually dropping; and the most that we can do is, to peep behind one of its comers. We find ourselves connected with that link which we call Christianity. How many preceding links there may have been, we know not, nor have we any means of knowing. All, therefore, is but conjecture. But carrying our ideas back to a time we know not when, to the beginning of that theology, the basis of which is a G.o.d and Devil opposing each other, the following memories are presented:-Before human beings were acquainted with the laws of nature, the universe must have presented to them appearances which surprised and alarmed them.

Receiving no ideas but through the medium of the senses, the first idea which must strike them would be, the great contrast between a mighty power and their own weakness. They would discover from what they saw around them, a mighty power which no prudence could guard against, and which no strength, which they had, could oppose. They would see, that, if by accident, they fell into water, it would destroy life; if, by any means, their dwellings took fire, it would consume them; that thunder was calculated to alarm them, and that death, often followed the storm; and also, that the slightest accident often caused severe pain, and sickness followed, without their being acquainted with the original cause of all these evils. The first men, then, must have been astonished with the mighty power which every where surrounded them, when compared with their own weakness. Sometimes tasting the sweets of life, and at others, its evils, the first gave them pleasing sensations, the last, pain and distress. Having, then, nothing to guide them in drawing conclusions but the objects by which they were surrounded, they inferred that the mighty power which was every moment visible to their senses, and from which they received every thing that contributed to their happiness, resided in a being like themselves, but possessing wisdom and goodness.

To these children of nature, who saw "G.o.d in the clouds, and heard him in the wind," by a simple process of the mind, such conclusions were very natural. The first theologians, then, who, by way of reasoning, we place at the fountain head of all religious systems which have come down to us, were convinced of the existence of a Supreme Power who governed the destinies of the human race. Power, then, was the first idea which man had, in the infancy of his rea-son, as to the existence of a G.o.d; and it is all that the great-est and wisest of the human race have ever discovered of the Being called by that name. And in this view of the subject, there is no man living who is an Atheist. The power that presented itself to untaught man, required no laborious investigation to discover. It struck his senses with as equal a force as it does the profoundest philosopher. On the contrary, the wisdom and goodness ascribed to G.o.d, resulted from a knowledge of the order and wonderful adaptation which pervades the universe, the investigation of which has employed master minds in all subsequent ages.

But untutored man must be overwhelmed with thinking of that power to whose bounds he could set no limits. The wisdom and munificence that run through all nature, were to him unknown. To those, therefore, from whom theology took its rise, it was a world of confusion. Ignorant of cause and effect in the order of nature, and their imaginations being active, while their reasoning powers were undeveloped, every thing they saw or felt was to them a mixture of pleasurable or painful sensations. The pleasure, ease, or comfort which they enjoyed, would be considered as the gift of a good power which conferred such blessings. On the other hand, it would appear inconsistent to them to ascribe the evils attending them to the author of good, they being incapable of judging that good (pleasure) and evil (pain) could proceed from the same power.

In reasoning from what they saw, they concluded that power was connected with, and resided in, living beings, who had life and motion like themselves. Hence they inferred, that the power from whom they received good, existed somewhere to them unknown. Proceeding in the same track in which they, in imagination, first set out, they conceived this power to be a Being whose residence was in the starry heavens. Untaught man, having imagined a Being from whom he received all the good, in following on in the same course soon came to the certain conclusion that the G.o.d who was the author of all his happiness, must have a location, a dwelling above, in some of the stars-at any rate, beyond the ken of mortals. As men's thinking powers became move expanded, but still under the influence of imagination, they would conclude that this Being who dwelt in the skies, would, of course, have his attendants who fulfilled his orders, and added splendor to his habitation.

It appears, that by such a train of thinking, under the influence of the imagination, that the religious system which has come down to us, and which, from time to time, has had additions and modifications, namely, the existence of a G.o.d and of a place called Heaven, inhabited by angels, had its origin. Ignorant of the laws of nature, the power of imagination has produced, owing to the organization of the human mind, a world of fiction, consisting of a G.o.d, angels, and a habitation in the skies. By the same process of reasoning, (though feeble,) yet propelled by an active imagination, which had fixed the habitation of a good Being in the skies, in a splendid city, with attendants singing his praises, and eager to execute his orders, untaught man now turned hi# attention to the author of his misfortunes and misery. Being totally ignorant that a portion of pain was indispensable to the full enjoyment of happiness in his precarious life, he could not think that pleasure and pain proceeded from the same being; which must have induced him to conclude that an evil and malignant being existed, nearly equal in power to the one that was good; and to such an one, he ascribed all pain and misfortune.

Here, then, are all the materials for a system of theology which has been propagated and believed in by every nation under heaven, in which have been included "saint, savage, and sage." In all the hundreds of systems of religious wors.h.i.+p, the before-mentioned materials have been the ground-work, with the exception of the Jewish; for, during their dispensation, the Devil made no part of it. But when Jesus came to gather up "_the lost sheep of the house of Israel,_" along came Mr.

Devil to oppose him. As the imagination had created a Devil, the Father of all evil, something was still wanting to complete the whole; and that was, an abode of darkness and horror. h.e.l.l, then, is his dread mansion, over which he reigns triumphant.

It has been reserved for the Christian Religion to depict h.e.l.l in all its awful terrors. The New Testament represents h.e.l.l as a place of torment by fire never-ending, where the unfortunate occupants are forever burning, but kept alive, and never consumed. The h.e.l.l of the Greeks and other nations is less horrible, being represented as the abode of darkness, humiliation, and sorrow. But Christianity has a G.o.d in heaven, and a Devil in h.e.l.l, forever contending with each other, like gladiators of old for the prize; and that prize is the human race. But the same New Testament represents that the Devil will have by far the greatest number of prisoners, so that, in the final winding up of this holy war, _Old Nick_ will win the field.

The same process of reasoning, which led man, in the infancy of his reason, to personify the power who presided over the human race, induced him to infer that his pain and misfortune emanated from a malignant being, who delighted to do him harm. He then, by the simple process of his imagination, concluded that there must be two opposing powers which governed the affairs of mortals. The good, proceeded from a being who showered down blessings on mortals; and all evil and pain, from a being who took pleasure in the unhappiness of the human race; and his residence, to correspond with his evil disposition, was by them fixed in the gloomy regions of darkness and horror. This, then, Christians, appears to have been the origin of your G.o.d and Heaven; and also your Devil and h.e.l.l. That both heaven and h.e.l.l are of heathen origin, there can be no doubt; and it is also equally clear, that the Jews, when they returned from captivity, brought these doctrines back with them into Judea. They then made part of the Jewish faith, and Jesus embraced them; for he pretended to cast out devils, and the Devil enticed him in the wilderness to rebel against G.o.d and enlist into the service of his Satanic Majesty. And this heaven, which originated in heathenism, Jesus promised as the reward of his faithful followers; and with this very h.e.l.l he threatened the disobedient.

What can Christians say (after this) of the divinity or the antiquity of the New Testament? Its doctrines originated in an age unknown, among a people more ancient than Moses, or than Adam, who is said to have been the first man. Yes! ye ministers of grace, your heaven and h.e.l.l, by the proclaiming of which you alarm the good man, but make the wicked man worse, have no more existence in reality than the heaven and h.e.l.l of Mahomet. But if there be a heaven, such as you preach up, and the road to it be as difficult as Jesus declared it to be, many of you will have to put up at the half-way house; you will never reach the end of your journey.

The following account of witchcraft in Sweden, is extracted from "G.o.dwin's Lives of the Necromancers:"-"The story of witchcraft, as it is reported to have pa.s.sed in Sweden, in the year 1670, and has many times been reprinted in this country, (England,) is, on several accounts, one of the most interesting and deplorable that has ever been recorded. The scene lies in Dalecarlia, a country forever memorable as having witnessed some of the earliest adventures of Gustavus Vasa, his deepest humiliation, and the first commencement of his prosperous fortune. The Dalecarlians are represented to us as the simplest, the most faithful, and the bravest of the sons of men;-men, undebauched and unsuspicious, but who devoted themselves in the most disinterested manner for a cause that appeared to them worthy of support, the cause of liberty and independence against the cruellest of tyrants. At least, such they were in 1520, one hundred and fifty years before the date of the story we are going to recount. The site of these events was at Mohra and Elfdale, in the province that has just been mentioned. The Dalecarlians, simple and ignorant, but of exemplary integrity and honesty, who dwelt amid impracticably mountains and s.p.a.cious mines of copper and iron, were distinguished for superst.i.tion among the countries of the north, where all were superst.i.tious. They were probably subject, at intervals, to the periodical visitation of alarms of witches, when whole races of men became wild with the infection, without any one's being able to account for it.

"In the year 1670, and one or two preceding years, there was a great alarm of witches in the town of Mohra. There were always two or three witches existing in some of the obscure quarters of this place; but now they increased in number, and showed their faces with the utmost audacity. Their mode, on the present occasion, was, to make a journey through the air to Blockula, an imaginary scene of retirement, which none but the witches and their dupes had ever seen. Here they met with feasts and various entertainments, which it seems had particular charms for the persons who partook of them. The witches used to go into a field, in the environs of Mohra, and cry aloud to the Devil in a peculiar sort of recitation, "_Antecessor! come and carry us to Blockula._" Then appeared a mult.i.tude of strange beasts: men, spits, posts, and goats with spits run through their entrails, and projecting behind, that all might have room. The witches mounted these beasts of burden, as vehicles, and were conveyed through the air over high walls and mountains, and through churches and chimneys, without perceptible impediment, till they arrived at the place of their destination.

"Here the Devil feasted them with various compounds and confections; and, having feasted to their heart's content, they danced and then fought. The Devil made them ride on spits, from which they were thrown; and the Devil beat them with the spits and laughed at them. He then caused them to build a house to protect them against the day of judgment, and presently overturned the walls of the house, and derided them again. All sorts of obscenities were reported to follow upon these scenes. The Devil begot on the witches sons and daughters; this new generation intermarried again, and the issue of this further conjunction appears to have been toads and serpents. How all this pedigree proceeded, in the two or three years in which Blockula had never been heard of, I know not that the witches were ever called on to explain.

But what was most of all to be deplored, the Devil was not content with seducing the witches to go and celebrate this infernal Sabbath; he further insisted that they should bring the children of Mohra along with them.

"At first, he was satisfied, if each witch brought one: but now, he demanded that each witch should bring six or seven for her quota. How the witches managed with the minds of the children, we are at a loss to guess. These poor, harmless innocents, steeped to the very lips in ignorance and superst.i.tion, were, by some means, kept in continual alarm by the wicked, or, to speak more truly, the insane old women, and said as their prompters said. It does not appear that the children ever left their beds, at the time they reported they had been to Blockula. Their parents watched them with fearful anxiety. At a certain time of the night, the children were seized with a strange shuddering; their limbs were agitated, and their skins covered with a profuse perspiration. When they came to themselves, they related that they had been to Blockula, and the strange things they had seen, similar to what had already been described by the women. Three hundred children, of various ages, are said to have been seized with this epidemic.

"The whole town of Mohra became subject to the infection, and were overcome with the deepest affliction. They consulted together, and drew up a pet.i.tion to the royal counsel at Stockholm, entreating that they would discover some remedy, and that the government would interpose its authority to put an end to a calamity to which otherwise they could find no limit. The King of Sweden, at that time, was Charles the Eleventh, father of Charles the Twelfth, and was only fourteen years of age. His council, in their wisdom, deputed two commissioners to Morah, and furnished them with powers to examine witnesses, and take whatever proceedings they might judge necessary to put an end to so unspeakable a calamity. They entered on the business of their commission, on the thirteenth of August, the ceremony having been begun with two sermons in the great church of Mohra, in which we may be sure the d.a.m.nable sin of witchcraft was fully dilated on, and concluded with prayers to Almighty G.o.d, that, in his mercy, he would speedily bring to an end the tremendous misfortune with which, for their sins, he had seen fit to afflict the poor people of Mohra. The next day they opened their commission. Seventy witches were brought before them. They were all, at first, steadfast in their denial, alleging that the charges were wantonly brought against them, solely from malice and ill-will. But the judges were earnest in pressing them, till, at length, first one, and then another, burst into tears, and confessed all. Twenty-three were prevailed on thus to disburden their consciences; but nearly the whole, those who owned the justice of their sentence, as well as those who protested their innocence to the last, were executed. Fifteen children confessed their guilt, and were also executed. Thirty-six other children, (who, we may infer, did confess,) between the ages of nine and sixteen, were condemned to run the gauntlet, and to be whipped on their hands at the church door every Sunday for a year together. Twenty others were whipped on their hands for three Sundays."

This is certainly a very deplorable scene; and is made the more so, by the previous character which history has imposed on us, of the simplicity, integrity, and generous love of liberty of the Dalecarlians.

For the children and their parents, we can feel nothing but unmingled pity. The case of the witches is different. That three hundred children should have been made the victims of this imaginary witchcraft, is doubtless a grievous calamity. And that a number of women should be found, so depraved and so barbarous, as by their incessant suggestions to have practised on the minds of these children, so as to have robbed them of their sober sense, to have frightened them into fits and disease, and made them believe the most odious impossibilities, argued a most degenerate character, and well merited severe reprobation, but not death. Add to which, many of those women may be believed innocent; otherwise, a great majority of those who were executed would not have died protesting their entire freedom from what was imputed to them. Some of the parents, no doubt from folly and ill-judgment, aided the alienation of mind in their children, which they afterward so deeply deplored, and gratified their senseless aversion to the old women, when they were themselves in many cases more the real authors of the evil than those who suffered.

The honest and serious reader is now recommended to pause, and, for a moment, reflect on the foregoing recital; for if ten thousand real devils had been let loose and turned out on the earth in a visible and bodily form, and had been permitted to do their worst against the human race, if such a thing had actually taken place, the evils inflicted by them would have been little compared to what has really taken place by men's believing in the existence of an invisible Devil, who never had a being but in the imagination of mortals. The destructive influence which has spread over the whole earth has brought to a premature grave thousands and tens of thousands of harmless beings, who have been charged with holding converse with this supposed enemy of G.o.d and man.

Of all the crimes which have been committed on earth, to sin against Orthodox faith has been considered the worst; when, in fact, it is no sin at all. There is nothing immoral in it. To differ from any man, or from all men, about religion, cannot be a crime. It is the inherent right of every human being; and to rob him of that right is the worst of felony. But to punish a man with death in addition, is to unite robbery and murder. And what makes it worse is, that religious offenders are put to death without pity or mercy. Few, very few tears of compa.s.sion ever have fallen for them, where Christianity has been the prosecutor.

The baneful influence which has spread over the world, by believing in the existence of the Devil, is shocking to humanity. It has been computed that as many as one million persons have suffered, in various ways, since the commencement of the Christian era. Some have been banished; some have been branded and imprisoned; others put to death, after having been tortured in the most cruel manner; and thousands have been out-lawed and driven from their peaceful homes without pity. All this has taken place because the Scriptures teach and support the existence of a Devil, the inveterate enemy of G.o.d and men. There is no doctrine more fully carried out in the New Testament than the existence and hostile activity of the Devil. Jesus, it is said, "_cast them out._"

He also was tempted to rebel against G.o.d, and to wors.h.i.+p the Devil. In the Book of Job, the Devil is represented as being permitted to afflict Job. And Jesus threatens the unG.o.dly with a punishment in connection with the Devil and his angels. If a devil has no being whatever, why should Jesus pretend to cast out devils? And if there be, in truth, such a personage as the Devil, possessing such power, and, also, forever opposing Almighty power, can it be possible that a G.o.d of goodness would permit him to live and annoy G.o.d and men?

We see that it is the height of folly to suppose that such a personage ever did live, or does now; but the belief of it has been one of the greatest curses which ever befel mankind. Here, then, let us bring up the idea, and reflect upon it, that all the evil which has taken place, and all the sufferings endured by the unfortunate beings in the dark ages, may possibly again occur. The Bible is the same, and mam is the same. The difference is in the actions of men in different ages. When reason and the morality of things are man's guide, then he is peaceable and humane; but when acting under the imagination, he is capable of becoming as bad as is the Devil.

In concluding this chapter, let us look back to those times of ignorance and superst.i.tion. Let us place ourselves by the misortunate victims who were put to torture and death for a crime they could not commit. Could they, in their extreme pain, but have had a hope that a day would arrive when a band of master spirits would arise on the sh.o.r.es of the Atlantic, who, by reason and the moral fitness of things, would upset and prostrate the systems under which they so severely suffered--could the poor, suffering victim, with his broken heart and fractured limbs, have had a.s.surance, when his tortured mind was about to quit its lacerated boundary, that a time would soon surely come when the truth of the Bible and the existence of a Devil would cease to be made the instruments of unspeakable misery and torment, it would have been a cheerful ray of comfort amid the devouring flame. The time _has_ at length arrived, and we ought to improve it. Let us, then, with untiring perseverance and moral courage, give the death-blow to the Divinity of the Old and New Testaments, and thereby forever obliterate, not only the incentives to, but also the remembrance of all religious persecutions.

CHAPTER VIII.

AS this work is about to be concluded, it will be of importance to the reader that a comprehensive view be taken of the mission of Christ to the Jewish nation. In doing which, an opportunity will be given to such of my readers as may hitherto have been afraid to doubt the truth of the Divine authority of the Bible, to see, at one glance, its absurdity.

In the four Gospels, which contain the sayings and doings of Jesus during his ministry among the Jews, and also in the Epistles of the Apostles, it is uniformly declared and enforced, that the main purpose of Christ's (_the anointed of G.o.d_) coming into the world was, to die.

And this death was required by the Father as an atonement for the sins of mankind, that whosoever believed in and obeyed him, their pardon should be sure, not for any thing which they had done as it related to justice, chast.i.ty, or humanity, but for the ransom paid for their sins by the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. An apostle, in speaking on this subject, says-"_He (Christ) being delivered by the determined counsel and foreknowledge of G.o.d, ye have, by wicked hands, crucified and slain._" This decree, then, was absolute, and every movement then made by Jesus, and also his preaching and conversation with the Jews, was so arranged, that die he must, to save a lost and ruined world.

This, according to the Scriptures, was the divine arrangement between the Father and the Son. This doctrine is taught in the New Testament.

And in such a lost condition were the human race, that Jesus _freely gave himself as a ransom to be completed in due time_. If the New Testament does not teach this, it is not possible to know what it does teach. To die, then, as a sacrifice for sin, included the sum and substance of the Gospel, or good news.

Having laid down the ground-work of human redemption, we proceed to carry through the plan said to be the work of mercy and goodness flowing from the mighty G.o.d, the author of all things. In the examination of such an arrangement, it appears impossible to conclude that the Author of the Universe can be considered as the G.o.d of the Jews and Christians.

The Jews had always been taught to believe that they were G.o.d's favorite people, and they retain the same faith to the present day. For ages before the Christian era, they not only expected the coming of the Messiah, but also, that no nation but their own would be interested in that glorious event. It never entered their minds that he would come in any disguise, for many impostors had appeared, who, being discovered, their Messiahs.h.i.+p procured them certain destruction. The Jews, therefore, inferred, that when the proper time should arrive for the long-expected and ardently-looked for Messiah to appear among them, their nation would be raised to more than its former greatness, and G.o.d's chosen people would be held up to the nations of the earth as confirming the truth of what their ancient prophets had foretold of their future prosperity.

It could never, therefore, have entered the minds of the Jews, as a nation, that the Messiah would come in any disguise. And it must have been far from their thoughts to expect that he, when he should arrive, would load them with violent abuse, and reproach them as being too low to be considered as any thing else than a nation of hypocrites. If Jesus came into this world to die, then every thing which he taught, and also all the intercourse which he had with his own people, was preparatory to that event. That the Messiah would come to the Jewish nation to dwell among them, to be their leader, to exalt them above all other nations, was what they had been taught to expect. Instead of which, he calls them "_a generation of vipers!_" and p.r.o.nounces terrible things against the heads of the nation, commencing his denunciations with "_Woe unto you, scribes and pharisees, hypocrites!_" Such violence and abuse surprised them, coming from one who said "_he came to seek and to save that which was lost._"

Again, Jesus said that "_he came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance._" But Jesus gave them no quarter, but sent them head and heels to the Devil. The Jewish rulers must have been more than human to have quietly taken such vulgar abuse. Sometimes, Jesus seemed to soften down in his conduct, as when he says, "_O Jerusalem! Jerusalem! how often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, but ye would not._" So erratic is Jesus depicted, in the account we have transmitted down to us, that we are at a loss as to forming an opinion concerning his manner of treating his own people. But as it was "_by the determined counsel and foreknowledge of G.o.d_" that he was to be a "_sacrifice for the sins of mankind,_" his mode of addressing the rulers of Israel was calculated to bring about the "_will of his Father._"

Admitting, for the sake of argument, that Jesus was the true Messiah, the Jews were in a worse state than if he had not appeared among them.

The statement made by Jesus of the destruction of Jerusalem, and of his second coming, confounded all their ideas of the Messiah's kingdom. In the twenty-third and twenty-fourth chapters of Matthew, after having p.r.o.nounced a number of dreadful predictions against them, he winds up in chapter twenty-third as follows, "*YE SERPENTS! YE GENERATION OF VIPERS!

HOW CAN YE ESCAPE THE d.a.m.nATION OF h.e.l.l?*" In the twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew, Jesus gives a long account of his second coming. How was it possible for the Jews to understand what he there describes? Their desire was, to know if he was the Messiah promised by the prophets; and, if so, what steps he would take for the exaltation of their nation, so that they might enjoy all they had been induced to expect when the "_sun of righteousness should arise with healing in his hands_."