Part 6 (2/2)
** Matthew v, 4.
What did Jesus teach? ”Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”* So far well, but how if thy neighbor will not hear thy doctrine when thou preacheth the ”glad tidings of great joy” to him? Then forgetting all thy love, and with bitter hatred that a theological disputant alone can manifest, thou ”shalt shake off the dust from your feet,” and by so doing make it more tolerable in the day of judgment for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah than for your unfortunate neighbor who has ventured to maintain an opinion of his own, and who will not let you be his priest.** It is, indeed, a mockery to speak of love, as if love to one another could result from the dehumanizing and isolating faith required from the disciple of Jesus. Ignatius Loyola in this, at least, was more consistent than his Protestant brethren,*** ”If any man come unto me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he can not be my disciple.”**** ”Think not that I am come to send peace on earth. I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set men at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, and a man's foes they shall be of his own household.*****” ”Every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father or mother, or wife or children, or lands for my sake, shall receive an hundred fold, and shall inherit everlasting life.”****** The teaching of Jesus is, in fact, save yourself by yourself. The teaching of humanity should be, to save yourself save your fellow.
* Matthew xix, 19.
** Matthew x, 14,15.
*** Luke xiv, 26.
**** Matthew x, 84--86.
***** Matthew xix, 29.
The human family is a vast chain, each man and woman a link. There is no snapping off one link and preserving for it an entirety of happiness; our joy depends on our brother's also. But what does Jesus teach? That ”many are called, but few are chosen;” that the majority will inherit an eternity of misery, while it is but the minority who obtain eternal happiness. And on what is the eternity of bliss to depend? On a truthful course of life? Not so. Jesus puts Father Abraham in Heaven, whose reputation for faith outstrips his character for veracity. The pa.s.sport througli Heaven's portals is faith. ”He that believeth and baptized shall be saved, and he that believeth not, shall be d.a.m.ned.”*
Are you married? Have you a wife you love? She dies and you. You from your first speech to your last had ever said, ”I believe,” much as a clever parrot might say it, if well taught. You had never examined your reasons for your faith for, like a true believer should, you distrusted the efficacy of your carnal reason. You said, therefore, ”I believe in G.o.d and Jesus Christ,” because you had been taught to say it, and you would have as glibly said, ”I believe in Allah, and in Mahomet his prophet,” had your birthplace been a few degrees more eastward, and your parents and instructors Turks. You believed in this life and awake in Heaven. Your much-loved wife did not think as you did--she could not.
Her organization, education and temperament were all different from your own. She disbelieved because she could not believe. She was a good wife, but she disbelieved, A good and affectionate mother, but she disbelieved. A virtuous and kindly woman, but she disbelieved. And you are to be happy for an eternity in Heaven, while she is writhing in agony in h.e.l.l.
* Mark xvi,16.
If true, I could say with Sh.e.l.ley, of this Christianity, that it
”Peoples earth with demons, h.e.l.l with men, And heaven with slaves.”
It is often urged that Jesus is the Savior of the world, that he brought redemption without let or stint to the whole human race. But what did Jesus teach? ”Go not into any way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritan enter ye not.”* These were his injunctions to those whom he first sent out to preach. ”I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel,” is his hard answer to the poor Syrophenician woman who is entreating succor for her child. Christianity, as first taught by Jesus, was for the Jews alone, and it is only upon his rejection by them that the world at large has the opportunity of salvation afforded it.
”He came unto his own and his own received him not,”** Why should the Jews be more G.o.d's own than the Gentiles? Is G.o.d the creator of all?
and did he create the descendant of Abraham with greater right and privilege than all other men? Then, indeed, is great and grievous injustice done. You and I had no choice whether we would be born Jews or Gentiles; yet to the accident of such a birth is attached the first offer of a salvation which if accepted, shuts out all beside. The Kingdom of Heaven is a prominent feature in the teachings of Jesus, and it may be well to ascertain, as precisely as we can, the picture drawn by G.o.d incarnate of his own special domain. 'Tis likened to a wedding feast, to which the invited guests coming not, servants are sent out into the highways to gather all they can find--both good and bad. The King comes in to see his motley array of guests, and findeth one without a wedding garment.
* Matt. x, 5.
** John i, 11.
The King inquired why he came into the feast without one, and the man, whoso attendance has been compulsorily enforced, is speechless. And who can wonder? he is a guest from necessity, not choice, he neither chose the fas.h.i.+on of his coming or his attiring. Then comes the King's decree, the command of the all-merciful and loving King of Heaven: ”Bind him hand and foot, and cast him into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnas.h.i.+ng of teeth.” Commentators urge that it was the custom to provide wedding garments for all guests, and that this man is punished for his nonacceptance of the customary and ready robe. The text does not warrant this position, but a.s.signs, as an explanation of the parable, that an invitation to the heavenly feast will not insure its partakal, for that many are called, but few are chosen. What more of the Kingdom of Heaven? ”There shall be joy in Heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons which need no repentance.”* Nay, it is urged that the greater sinner one has been, the better saint he makes, and the more he has sinned, so much the more he loves G.o.d. ”To whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little.”** Is not this indeed a.s.serting that a life of vice, with its stains washed away by a death-bed repentance, is better than a life of consistent and virtuous conduct? Why should the fatted calf be killed for the prodigal son?*** Why should men be taught to make to themselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness?
These ambiguities, these a.s.sertions of punishment and forgiveness of crime, instead of directions for its prevention and cure, are serious detractions from a system alleged to have been inculcated by one for whom his followers claim divinity.
* Luke xv, 7.
** Luke 7, 47.
*** Luke xv, 27.
Will you again turn back to the love of Jesus as the redeeming feature of the whole? Then, I ask you, read the story of the fig-tree* withered by the hungry Jesus. The fig-tree, if he were all-powerful G.o.d, was made by him, he limited its growth and regulated its development. He prevented it from bearing figs, expected fruit where he had rendered fruit impossible, and in his _infinite love_ was angry that the tree had not upon it that which it could not have. Tell me the love expressed in that remarkable speech which follows one of his parables, and in which he says: ”For, I say unto you, that unto every one which hath shall be given, and from him that hath not, even that which he hath shall be taken away from him. But those, mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring them hither, and slay them before me.”**
What love is expressed by that Jesus who, if he were G.o.d, represents himself as saying to the majority of his unfortunate creatures (for it is the few who are chosen): 'Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.'***
* Matt xxi, 18-22; Mark xi, 12-24.
** Luke xix, 26,17.
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