I refuse to accept the Bible as a moral guide because it enjoins submission to tyrants.

“Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man, ... whether it be to the king as supreme; or unto governors” (1 Pet. ii, 13).

“Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God; and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation” (Rom. xiii, 1, 2).

And these sentiments were uttered when a Nero sat upon the throne—when Palestine was being crushed beneath the iron heel of despotism—when brave and patriotic men were struggling for freedom.

The Bible has ever been the bulwark of tyranny. When the oppressed millions of France were endeavoring to throw off their yoke—when the Washingtons, the Franklins, the Paines, and the Jeffersons were contending for American liberty—craven priests stood up in the pulpit, opened this book, and gravely read: “The powers that be are ordained of God; they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation.”

In the American Revolution every Tory was a Christian, and nearly every orthodox Christian was a Tory. Writing in 1777, John Wesley says:

“I have just received two letters from New York.... They inform me that all the Methodists there were firm for the government, and on that account persecuted by the rebels” (Wesley’s Miscellaneous Works, Vol. III., page 410).

Referring to our Revolutionary fathers, Robert Dale Owen says:

“I know not what the private opinions of those sturdy patriots were, who, in the old Philadelphia State House, appended their signatures to the immortal document. But this I do know, that when they did so, it was in defiance of the Bible; it was in direct violation of the law of the New Testament.

“If a Being who cannot lie penned the Bible, then George Washington and every soldier who drew sword in the Republic’s armies for liberty expiate, at this moment, in hell-fire, the punishment of their ungodly strife! There, too, John Hancock and every patriot whose name stands to America’s Title Deed, have taken their places with the devil and his angels! All resisted the power; all, unless God lie, have received to themselves damnation” (Bacheler-Owen Debate, Vol. II., page 230).

From the first century to the twentieth—from Paul to Leo—these Bible teachings have dominated the Christian world. Of the early Christian Fathers, Lecky writes:

“The teaching of the early Fathers on the subject is perfectly unanimous and unequivocal. Without a single exception, all who touched upon the subject pronounced active resistance to the established authorities to be under all circumstances sinful” (Rationalism in Europe, Vol. II., page 136).

Jeremy Taylor, one of the greatest of modern divines, speaking not for himself alone, but for all Christians, says:

“The matter of Scripture being so plain that it needs no interpretation, the practice and doctrine of the church, which is usually the best commentary, is now but of little use in a case so plain; yet this also is as plain in itself, and without any variety, dissent, or interruption universally agreed upon, universally practiced and taught, that, let the powers set over us be what they will, we must suffer it and never right ourselves” (Ductor Dubitantium, Book III., chapter iii).

This has been the chief cause of Christian triumph and Christian supremacy. It has secured for the church the adherence and support of every tyrant in Christendom. Thomas Jefferson truly says:

“In every country and in every age the priest has been hostile to liberty; he is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own.”

Writing of his country and his country’s church, Macaulay says:

“The Church of England continued to be for more than 150 years the servile handmaid of monarchy, the steady enemy of public liberty. The divine right of kings and the duty of passively obeying all their commands were her favorite tenets. She held these tenets firmly through times of oppression, persecution, and licentiousness, while law was trampled down, while judgment was perverted, while the people were eaten as though they were bread” (Essays, Vol. I., page 60).

I refuse to accept the Bible as a moral guide because its teachings have filled the world with intolerance and persecution.

“If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou nor thy fathers: namely, of the gods of the people which are round about you [that is, accept another religion] ... thou shalt not consent unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him; neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him; but thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people” (Deut. xiii, 6–9).

Kill your friend, kill your brother, kill your wife, kill your child, for accepting another religious belief!

Did a merciful God inspire this prayer?

“Let his days be few; and let another take his office. Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow. Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg; let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places. Let the extortioner catch all that he hath; and let the strangers spoil his labor. Let there be none to extend mercy unto him; neither let there be any to favor his fatherless children” (Ps. cix, 8–12).

“In the literature of the world there is nothing more heartless, more infamous, than the 109th Psalm.”—Ingersoll.

Let me quote from the New Testament:

“He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned” (Mark xvi, 16).

“Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire” (Matt. xxv, 41).

“These shall go away into everlasting punishment” (Matt. xxv, 46).

“Cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched” (Mark ix, 45).

These passages ought to consign to everlasting abhorrence the being who uttered them, the book containing them, and the church indorsing them. This dogma of endless punishment is the dogma of fiends, the most infamous dogma that human lips have ever breathed! What needless terror it has inspired! What misery it has caused! Think of the millions of innocent children whose young lives it has filled with gloom! This horrible nightmare of hell has strewn the pathway of childhood with thorns where flowers should have been made to bloom; it has filled the minds of children with fear and made them wretched when their hearts should have been filled with joy; it has robbed home of wife and mother, it has driven thousands of pure and loving women to madness and despair. I had rather trace my descent to the tiger or hyena than to the creation of a God who dooms his creatures to eternal pain; and the time will come when the remembrance of the theologians who have taught this hideous lie will provoke more shame and pity than the ancestral apes do now.

“If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house” (2 John i, 10).

Amid the storms of a winter night, a traveler, perishing with cold and hunger, knocks at your door and begs for food and shelter. You interrogate him as to his religious belief, and finding that he is not a member of your church you forbid him to enter. In the morning when you discover his lifeless body by the roadside, how impressed you will be with the transcendent beauty of Bible morals!

Paul preached a sermon on charity, and then wrote to the Galatians as follows:

“If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed” (Gal. i, 9).

From the same pen, too, came this sneaking, infamous hint:

“I would they were even cut off which trouble you” (Gal. v, 12).

What ghastly fruits these teachings have produced! We see earth covered with the yellow bones of murdered heretics and scholars; we see the persecutions and butcheries of Constantine, of Theodosius, of Clovis, of Justinian, and of Charlemagne; we see the Crusades, in which nearly twenty millions perish; we see the followers of Godfrey in Jerusalem—see the indiscriminate massacre of men, women, and children—see the mosques piled seven deep with murdered Saracens—the Jews burnt in their synagogues; we see Coeur de Lion slaughter in cold blood thousands of captive Saracens; we see the Franks in Constantinople, plundering, ravishing, murdering; we see the Moors expelled from Spain; we see the murder of the Huguenots and Waldenses—the slaughter of German peasants—the desolation of Ireland—Holland covered with blood; we witness Smithfield and Bartholomew; we see the Inquisition with its countless instruments of fiendish cruelty; we see the Auto-da-fÉ, where heretics, clad in mockery, are led to torture and to death; we see men stretched upon the rack, disjointed, and torn limb from limb; we see them flayed alive—their bleeding bodies seared with red-hot irons; we see them covered with pitch and oil and set on fire; we see them hurled headlong from towers to the stony streets below; we see them buried alive; we see them hanged and quartered; we see their eyes bored out with heated augers—their tongues torn out—their bones broken with hammers—their bodies pierced with a thousand needles; we see aged women tied to the heels of fiery steeds—see their mangled and bleeding bodies dragged with lightning speed over the frozen earth; we see new-born babes flung into the flames to perish with their mothers, or with their mothers sewed in sacks and sunk into the sea; in short, on every hand, as a result of this book’s teachings, we see hate, torture, death!

But, thanks to the brave Infidels who have gone before, you, Bible moralists, can use these instruments of cruelty to silence heretics to Christianity no more.