It is a circumstance indicative of the natural moral defects of the Jewish character, that their most "holy men," who were assumed to be familiar with the counsels of Infinite Wisdom, and on terms of daily intercourse with Jehovah, yet were, according to their own history, men of such defective moral habits and moral character as to be unreliable either as examples of moral rectitude, or with respect to their prophetic utterances. We will here present a brief sketch of the character of the principal prophets, drawn from their own "inspired writings:"—
The leading prophet Isaiah says, "The priest and the prophet have erred through strong drink. They are swallowed up of wine. They are out of the way through strong drink. They err in vision. They stumble in judgment" (Isa. xxiv. 7).
Here is a sweeping charge against all the prophets,—not one of them excepted. If they err in vision (of course he means spiritual vision), then what reliance can be placed in their prophecies, especially if it is true, as he declares in chap. ix., that "the prophets teach lies"? Then we can not confide implicitly in any thing they say. This conclusion, and also the foregoing portraiture of their character, is confirmed by Hosea. 2; who says, in chap. ix., that "the Lord will punish the prophets for their sins and their iniquities;" also, "The prophet is a snare in all his ways; the prophet is a fool," &c. (Hos. ix. 7, 9). Micah says that they divined for money, and made the people err. What confidence, we ask, can be placed in men, either for truthfulness or as moral teachers, who are thus represented by their own historians and their own friends to be almost destitute of moral principle? Each one denounces all the others. The implied meaning in each case seems to be, "Take my pills, and beware of counterfeits." Zechariah, who was one of them, declared the Lord would drive them all out of the land with the unclean spirits (Zech. xiii. 2). We should not, however, be surprised to find them possessing such a character, when their God, Jehovah, is represented as being no better, and is on the same moral plane. They, in fact, make him responsible for all their moral derelictions and sinful acts by representing him as being the author or instigator. "If a prophet be deceived,... I the Lord have deceived that prophet" (Ezek. xiv. 9).
Here the word prophet is used in a general sense, so as to imply that none are excepted. Jeremiah takes God at his word when he exclaims, "O Lord, thou hast deceived me" (Jer. xx. 7).
Here, it will be observed, the moral character of Jehovah and his prophets were all cast in the same imperfect mold.
That superstition reigned supreme in the very highest order of the Jewish minds, to the exclusion of science, is shown by some of the wild, superstitious freaks of the prophets. Isaiah traveled through Egypt and Ethiopia three years stark naked (Isa. xx. 3). Such a disgusting exhibition, if attempted in this age of civilization, would terminate in a few hours by the lodgment of the lunatic in the calaboose. Jehovah, it appears, first prompted the act, and afterwards spoke approving of it by saying it was performed by "my servant Isaiah" (Isa. xx. 3).
Ezekiel and Habakkuk both would have us believe that God seized them by the hair of the head, and carried them,—the former, the distance of eight miles; and the latter, three hundred, miles. How Jehovah himself traveled while performing this feat of carrying the prophets is not explained. It must have been rather an unpleasant way of traveling, and must have caused some serious perturbation of mind lest the hair-hold should slip, and precipitate them to the ground. If this mode of travel could have been continued, it would have superseded the necessity of railroads.
Ezekiel, we are told, lay three hundred and ninety days on his left side, and forty days on his right side; and then, having swallowed a roll of parchment with the aid of Jehovah (Ezek. iii. 1), he was prepared for business. We are not told what was the object in swallowing such a formidable document, or how he managed to get into his stomach an article having a diameter four times that of his throat. Jeremiah wore cords around his neck, and a yoke on his back (rather a singular place for a yoke). Hosea claimed that God commanded him twice to go and marry a whore (Hos. i. Z). This looks like a connivance at, if not a tacit indorsement of, whoredom. Ezekiel relates a "story" about being carried by "the hand of the Lord," and set down among some old dry bones, which he proceeded to invest with human flesh and sinews, and then drew skins over them to hold the flesh and bones together (Ezek. xxx vii.). Having thus manufactured a new supply of the genus homo, he invoked the four winds to inflate their bodies with breath, when, lo! there "stood upon their feet an exceeding great army." We use his own language. Here is a story that casts all the wild and weird tales of heathen mythology in the shade. There would have been no necessity for drafting soldiers in the recent Rebellion if the country could have been blessed with such a creative genius as Ezekiel. Such stories set all logic at defiance. If the first commandment, "Multiply and replenish the earth," had been neglected so as to render it necessary to adopt another process for increasing the number of human beings, certainly a more rational and decent mode might have been invented. We will not relate any more of the curious capers of these "inspired men of God."
Some Christian writers have disposed of such erratic conduct, and such wild freaks of fancy, by assuming them to be the garb or metaphor of some great spiritual truth. This is explained by the proverb, "Necessity is the mother of invention;" but the common mind knows nothing of these inventions of the priesthood to save the credit of the Bible. Hence, whether true or false, such an explanation does not destroy the demoralizing influence of such ideas and language upon the public mind; and then it is derogatory to the character of God to assume he would do such senseless and unrighteous things as are related in some of the above cases. We insist that it would be a serious calamity upon the country to make a book containing such moral lessons, or rather immoral lessons, "the fountain of our laws and the supreme rule of our conduct," as urged by the Evangelical Alliance; and it is a sorrowful and deplorable circumstance that such a book is circulated among the heathen by the thousand as guides for their moral conduct. We wish they would refuse to accept it, as the Japanese have done in the past.
There are some peculiar features in the history of these two Hebrew prophets, for which they seem to merit a special notice. They appear to have been on very familiar terms with Jehovah; and the whole machinery of heaven, we are led to conclude, was under their control, with no special reason why they should merit such divine partiality, as they were not overstocked with practical righteousness. The acts of raising the dead and controlling the elements appear to have been to them very common-place performances. One of Elijah's greatest miraculous feats was that of "shutting up the heavens," so that there was no dew nor rain for three years (1 Kings xvii. 1). Aside from the absolute impossibility of intercepting the action of the laws which control and regulate the entire machinery of the universe, there are several considerations which render this story wholly incredible. It appears, from the language used, that this drought extended over the whole earth, and all nations must have suffered the direful consequences; and yet none of their histories allude to it. The absence of rain and dew for three years must have caused the surface of the earth to become dry and parched to a considerable depth, particularly in the torrid zone. The creeks and rivulets must have been dried up. Every spear of grass, every tree, every plant, must have withered and perished; and all the cattle must have died for want of food and drink; and the people must have shared the same fate. Indeed, not a living thing could have been left upon the face of the earth where this drought prevailed. And yet no other history makes any allusion to such a calamity; and a circumstance which renders it more incredible is, that the moisture which is constantly ascending from the earth could not have been held in the upper strata of the atmosphere for half that period of time. When it ascends and accumulates, and becomes sufficiently condensed, it must fall in the shape of rain.
2. It appears that the prophet himself, in order to escape the fatal consequences of this terrible visitation of divine wrath, was instructed to flee, and hide near the Brook Cherith, which was in the vicinity of Jordan. Here, we are told, he was fed by a raven, which brought him both bread and water. The queries naturally arise here, Where did the raven obtain those articles of food? Why can not suffering and starvation be prevented at the present day by a similar expedient? Why should several millions of human beings have suffered a terrible death by starvation in India within a recent period, if ravens can be employed as messengers of mercy? Why should God be partial? The preservation of the life of the prophet could not have been of so much more importance, judging from his subsequent history, as he achieved but little good afterward; and, as nobody claims to have seen the raven but Elijah, the case looks a little doubtful.
3. The next miraculous feat of Elijah was that of increasing a widow's barrel of meal and cruse of oil after they were nearly exhausted, so that they lasted for many months. In nearly all such cases we find incredible features, in addition to the impossibility of performing the act. No reason can be found, in the history of this case, for bestowing such miraculous favors upon this woman that would not apply to thousands of women now, some of them even in a worse state of suffering, and in greater need of divine aid. It does not appear that the miracle had the effect to convince anybody of the might and power of his God, nor that it was designed to produce such an effect. Hence nothing was accomplished by it but the relief of the poor widow's wants, which was a very good thing; but, as we have already remarked, she had no more claim upon the benevolence and munificence of God than thousands of poor widows and others of the present day who receive no such aid.
4. The prophet performed, we are told, another miracle for the benefit of this woman, though we do not learn that she was more righteous than other women. Her son sickened and died (perhaps the meal was not in a very healthy condition); and Elijah restored him to life. If there were any truth in the story, it could be accounted for by supposing the boy was in a state of catalepsy, or trance, as life has been revived in numerous cases in persons in this condition in modern times; and the conduct of Elijah furnishes some evidence that he understood it in this light. He took the body into an upper room, so the performance should not be witnessed by any of the company (perhaps for fear of being disturbed; and he was probably apprehensive that they would suspicion, from his actions, that the boy was not dead). In fact the narrator does not say he was dead, but only that the breath had gone out of him; and this could be said in any case of swooning, trance, or catalepsy.
5. Ahab is reported as reproving Elijah for bringing so much suffering upon the people by the great drought. The reason the prophet assigns for this divine judgment is worthy of note. It was because Ahab and his subjects worshiped a false God (Baalim). This explains the whole affair. The Jews were always assuming that those who did not worship as they did worshipers of false Gods: but there is no evidence of were this, and no reason in the assumption. As St. John (i. 18) declares, "No man has seen God at any time," it follows that each worshiper, under every system of religion, pictures on the form, size, shape, and character of God for himself; and certainly, other nations had as much right to form their own mental conceptions of God as the Jews had, and were as likely to form a correct idea of him as they. They could not picture out a worse God than Jehovah. Here we have a true explanation of the reason the Jews were perpetually denouncing and would not subscribe to the Jewish creed. The Jews were creed-worshipers.
6. This conclusion is confirmed by the relation, in the next contest between the God of Elijah and the God of the prophets of Baal: We are told that Elijah's God could kindle a fire upon the altar, while theirs could not. Here is admitted the existence of other Gods. The only difference between them is, Elijah's God was a little smarter. The same thing is aimed to be shown in numerous other contests between Jehovah and other Gods. It is merely a trial of skill, strength, and knowledge.
7. And because the God of the prophets of Baal fell a little behind, and could not quite equal the achievements of Jehovah, we are told that Elijah put the prophets all to death. Here is another circumstance tending to show that Elijah could not have been a true servant of a lust God; for such a God would not sanction such cruelty. But the story carries an absurdity upon the face of it. To suppose that four hundred and fifty men would stand quietly, and submit to be slain by one man single-handed and alone, without any resistance, is altogether too incredible to be entertained for a moment.
8. The next achievement of Elijah, after eating a barley cake, baked on the coals, and drinking a cruse of water (1 Kings xix. 8), was to walk forty days and forty nights, without stopping to eat or sleep. This performance was almost equal to that of the Hindoo, Yalpa, who walked round the sun in eleven hours. One story is just as credible as the other.
9. We are told that, when Ahaziah, who succeeded his father making war on other nations: it was simply because Ahab upon the throne, got crippled by falling, and sent to consult the God of Ekron, Elijah, on hearing of it, asked why he did not consult the God of Israel (2 Kings i. G); and, when the king's messengers reported to him what the prophet Elijah had said, he sent fifty messengers to the prophet to invite him to come and see him, that he might consult with him. These messengers treated him very respectfully, and called him "the man of God;" but the prophet, we are told, instead of complying with the king's request, called down fire from heaven, which consumed the whole number. When the king heard of the circumstance, he sent fifty more messengers, who shared the same fate, and were likewise consumed by fire from heaven. An uncivil and very wicked thing for a righteous prophet to do.
10. We are told that Elijah, in the course of his travels, came to a stream of water, and took off his mantle, and smote it. The water parted hither and thither, and permitted him to walk in the bottom of the stream. Another display of his great miraculous power; but it is void of truth.
11. The last astounding feat reported of this miraculous prophet was that of ascending to heaven in a chariot of fire, with horses made of the same material. Rather a hazardous mode of traveling. This story is contradicted both by the laws of nature, and the express declaration of the Bible itself. The former teaches us that the fire would have been extinguished for want of oxygen before he had ascended many miles from the earth; and the latter declares, "Flesh and blood can not enter the kingdom of heaven;" and also that "no man hath ascended up to heaven but he that came down from heaven,"—Christ Jesus (John iii. 13). There are several circumstances which render these marvelous achievements of Elijah wholly incredible, in addition to their setting aside the laws of nature. We can not learn that any good was accomplished by it. It does not appear that anybody was converted to a life of practical righteousness; while we must assume that God must have had some great purpose in view to cause him to thus set aside and trample under foot his own laws. On the other hand, a great deal of bad feeling was engendered, and a great many lives destroyed. And then there is no allusion whatever to these astonishing miracles in any other history. All these circumstances and considerations warrant us in discarding the whole affair, though Christian writers attach great importance to it.
The marvelous deeds of Elisha appear to be, to a considerable extent, a mere repetition of those of Elijah. Like his predecessor, he raised a dead child to life, increased the supply of oil for a widow after it had run short, and also increased the quantity of good water for the people by a supernatural process, though not by a shower of rain, as Elijah did, after a three years drought. There is evidently a disposition to imitate and outdo his predecessor: hence he brings water without the process of rain. There are two or three incidents in his history worthy of notice:—
1. When Elijah took his perilous flight heavenward, and left him alone, we are told he rent his garments. This act, although customary among "the Lord's holy people," was rather an insane way of manifesting his grief. A man in this age doing so would be taken to the insane asylum.
2. The second performance of Elisha, deserving particular notice, was an act of malignant revenge upon some frolicsome boys reminding him that he was bald-headed. For this simple, childish, though rude, act of calling him "bald-head," we are told he caused "two bears to come out of the woods, and tear forty-two of them to pieces." Why the other children escaped this fate, we are not told. This conduct on the part of the prophet evinces a morose, cruel, and revengeful disposition, instead of a philanthropic and benevolent one, as we should have expected the Lord's chosen prophet to manifest. If the story were a credible one, it would be a stigma upon his character while it stands on the page of history.
3. There is one circumstance related in the history of Elisha which seems to indicate that he was a man of rather gross habits. It is stated, that, when he killed a yoke of oxen for food, he "boiled their flesh with the instruments of the oxen," and gave the people to eat (1 Kings xix. 21). We infer, from this lan guage, that the oxen were thrown into the cooking-vessel whole, without being skinned or cleaned. It most have been rather a rare dish, and a tough one also.
4. We will notice one more remarkable incident in the history of this remarkable prophet. We are told, that, as some men were felling some trees on the banks of the Jordan, one of them, by accident, let his ax fall into the stream. On the case being reported to Elisha, he soon relieved the man of his trouble by throwing a stick into the water, which caused the ax to swim. Here is another specimen of the philosophy of the Christian Bible. Heathen mythology is full of such lawless stories. When the boat in which a Hindoo was rowing capsized, and threw his dinner into the Indus, a fish was accommodating enough to arrest it in its descent, and bring it to the surface, and restore it to the hungry boatman. A very accommodating fish! as much so as the stick!
We will now take a view of the moral bearing of the stories of these great "God-chosen" and "God-favored prophets," as one Christian writer styles them. We must assume that God would not suspend the action of those laws which secure order and harmony throughout nature to perform such miracles as these prophets are represented as performing, unless some great and important end was to be accomplished by it. Well, let us see if this was the result; if not, we must assume that these miracles were never performed. According to Dr. Lardner, miracles were always designed to accomplish some great good, and generally to remove the skepticism of unbelievers, and to convince them of the mighty power of God. But we do not find that any such effects were produced by any of the miracles here reported. The performance of Elijah did not convert Ahab nor Jezebel, nor the worshipers of Baal, either to the faith or to a life of practical righteousness; nor did those of Elisha convert Naaman; nor did either of the prophets convert or reform any of the thousands of heathen in the countries through which they traveled. The contemporary kings of Judah and Israel still continued in their ungodly course as before. In a word, nobody was benefited, nobody reformed, and no good effected by any of these miracles, only to a few individuals, which could have been accommodated in the usual way,—by ordinary means. On the other hand, bad feelings were engendered, many lives lost, and much suffering caused by their miraculous proceedings. We must conclude, then, that, so far as any agency of God is claimed in the several cases, these miracles were never performed; and we have the negative testimony of history to prove still further that these miracles were never wrought. The history of no other nation mentions them, not even the three years of drought; yet Christ speaks of it, and indorses it with all its impossibilities and all its bad consequences, which is an evidence of his ignorance of natural law. As these stories, by their stultifying absurdities, do violence to our reason, and also to our moral faculties, on account of the cruelty, injustice, bloodshed (for it shows both prophets were murderers), we hold, from these considerations, that the influence of these stories is demoralizing, and that they should not be put into the hands of the heathen, as they are every year by the thousand.
There is no act, no species, of human conduct, nothing recognized as a sin within the lids of the Christian Bible, which is perhaps more fearfully or more frequently condemned, or denounced with more awful and terrible penalties, than that of idolatry. Those who practiced it are ranked with murderers and liars (Rev. xxii. 15); and it is declared, "They shall not inherit The kingdom of God" (1 Cor. vi. 9), but "shall have their portion in the lake of fire and brimstone" (Rev. xxi. 8). Now, we propose to bestow a brief examination upon the origin, character, and practical moral effect of this ancient practice, that we may learn the nature of the custom which is thus placed at the head of the list of the acts of human depravity, and regarded as the blackest and most infamous crime ever perpetrated by sinful man. We find it manifested under various forms, the original or most primitive aspect of which, so far as disclosed by the light of history, is known as Fetichism,—the worship of inanimate objects. Stretching the imagination far away in the rearward of time,—far back along the receding pathway of human history, over a series of many thousands, not to say millions, of years,—we arrive at a period in which man is found occupying a plane of mere animal, sensorial existence, connected with which was an imperfect development of perception and reflection. In this era of his mental growth he began to perceive and recognize the motions of objects around him. He observed bright and shining bodies rolling over his head,—one by day, and ten thousand more by night. At least he observed that they changed positions,—being in one locality in the morning, and in the opposite direction in the evening. What conclusion from these observations could be more natural, more childlike (for, bear in mind, this was really the childhood of the race), or more reasonable, than that these bodies possessed life,—that they inherently possessed the power of locomotion, the same ability to move that he did himself,—just as the infant, now gazing out upon the sky from the lap of its mother, fancies the darting meteor to be a bird or an animal? Wherever the ignorant, illiterate, primitive inhabitants of our globe perceived motion,—whether it was displayed in the revolution of the planets, the falling tree, or the rippling stream,—there they associated life and motion. And, soon learning that these adjuncts of nature possessed a power and force superior to that with which they themselves were endowed, their feelings of awe and veneration were thereby excited; and to the highest degree their deep in-wrought devotional feelings first found an outlet by bowing in humble acknowledgment to the superior greatness of the shining orbs wheeling in such majestic grandeur along the deep blue sky, and "bidding defiance to all below." This is believed to have been the first form, the first practical manifestation, of religious worship, and the first form or phase of idolatry now denominated Fetichism.
"God;" and hence is used to denote a belief in many or several Gods, which comprehends the second form and stage of idolatry! We have spoken of the early recognition by the primitive inhabitants of the earth of the motion of the heavenly bodies as giving rise to the belief that they possessed self-constituted life and volition. But, progressing a step farther, their attention was turned to motion where there was no visible agent to produce it,—action without a visible actor. The thunder rolled and reverberated along the great archway of heaven, the winds whistled and moaned through the thick foliage of the trees, and rushed along the valleys, oft-times with such violence as to overturn their rude tenements, and prostrate the towering oak at their feet. Yet nothing could be seen of the agent which produced these direful effects. No being, no agent, no cause adequate for their production, was visible. Hence they very naturally concluded that they were produced by invisible beings who could wing their way through space without being seen. This assumed discovery soon gave rise to the thought that the stars might be moved by these beings, instead of possessing, as they had previously been supposed to do, an inherent power of motion of their own. And these prime movers of the planets they concluded to be Gods, or moving spirits. Thus originated the notion of a plurality of Gods, each planet having a separate ruling Deity. And the sun—being greatly superior to, transcending in magnitude, light, power, and influence, all the other luminaries, with their qualities all combined—was, with the most childlike naturalness, supposed to be ruled by the chief of the Gods, "the Lord of lords and King of kings." It was he who, every morning throwing open the magnificent portals of the Orient,—the huge golden gates of the eastern horizon,—slowly lifted aloft his stupendous body of light to dispel the deep dark gloom which fur many hours had been spread like a pall over universal nature.
It was he who, plowing his way through the heavens, despite the mist and clouds piled upon the great highway of his wonted march, rolled down at eventide the western declivity of the cerulean causeway to give place to Luna, queen of night, realizing that,
and that
It was this mighty solar orb, "the king of day," who, having performed his wonted journey to the south, returned in early spring to banish the chilling blasts of the drear cold season; to drive from off the earth the biting frosts and freezing snows of gloom-dispensing winter, and pour down, in lieu thereof, his genial and vivifying rays to waken the flowers; to call forth vegetation, and ultimately ripen the golden harvest. In a word, he dispensed heat, light, life, and blessings innumerable over all the earth. How easy, how natural, then, it was for the untutored savage to conclude that the indwelling or on-dwelling spirit of the sun was "the chief of the Gods," to whom all the inferior Deities (those who presided over the stars) bowed in humble allegiance, acknowledging his superior sway, his right to rule over the boundless universe! The sun, being thus the great central wheel of all recognized power,—i.e., the tabernacle or dwelling-place of the supreme, omnipotent God,—became the principal object of admiration and adoration, the pivot around which clustered their deepest devotional aspirations; the subordinate Deities of the planets holding but a second place in their devout contemplations and uprising venerations. The worship of these imaginary beings, including the ruling and overruling "God of all," with his tabernacle pitched in the blazing sun, is now termed idolatry, and may be regarded as the second phase or form of this species of worship. Hence we may note it as a remarkable circumstance, that all the principal systems of religion now existing, as well as most of those which have passed away, exhibit very strong marks of this ancient solar worship; and it is more especially remarkable, that both Judaism and Christianity, with all their exalted claims to a supernatural origin, should be, as they seemingly are, deeply tinctured with this ancient Sabean or solar worship. Distinct traces of it are observable in the whole religious nomenclature of Christianity. It, in fact, pervades the whole system. This declaration is borne out by the fact that nearly every divine epithet, nearly every name applied to the Deity in the Christian scriptures, including those addressed to Jesus Christ, and also nearly every theological term in both the Old and New Testaments, are traceable to the ancient solar worship; that is, the words, when traced to their roots, or original form, are found to have been solar titles. We will present some samples by way of proof: The divine title Lord, in the New Testament, is translated from the Greek Kuros, which is the Persian name for the sun; God is from Gad, an Ammonian name for the sun; Jehovah, by translation and declension, becomes Jupiter, which, according to Macrobius, is "the sun itself;" Deity is from the Latin Deus, which is traceable to dies, a day,—a period of time measured by the sun; Jesus is from Jes or J-es (with the Latin termination us), which means "the one great fire of the sun;" and Christ is derived from Chris, a Chaldean term for the sun; and so on of other divine titles. And whole phrases of scripture-texts disclose the same idolatrous solar origin. Why is Jesus Christ called "the sun of righteousness"? (spelled s-u-n, let it be noticed), as this text, quoted from Malachi, is assumed to apply to him; and why is the term "light," so frequently used and preferred throughout the Christian scriptures, to denote the spiritual condition of man? Why are nations, whose minds are cultivated and stored with knowledge, said to be "enlightened"? Certainly, to our external vision, they are as opaque as the most grossly ignorant barbarians. But they are called enlightened when advanced in knowledge, simply because all knowledge was once supposed to be imparted by the God of the sun through its descending rays of light. Hence light and knowledge are now synonymous terms. David says, "The Lord is my light and my salvation" (Ps. xxvii. 1),—just what the ancient pagans used to say of the sun. Isaiah says, "The Lord shall be to thee an everlasting light" (Isa. lx. 19),—exactly such a conception as the ancient heathen entertained of the sun, to which its application is more obviously appropriate. Habakkuk says, "His brightness was as light" (iii. 4). Apply this language to the sun, and its meaning becomes strikingly significant. Christ is said to be "a light to lighten the Gentiles," "the true light," "the light of the world," &c.; and yet we can not discover that those who have embraced his doctrines, and thus come into possession of this "true light," shed any more light upon a devious pathway, traveled in the darkness of night, than the veriest Jewish pharisee or infidel. The Christian reader will reply, "These phrases are mere figures of speech." To be sure they are: we admit it. But then their derivation and origin are none the less obvious, and, when scrutinizingly examined, disclose remote traces of Oriental idolatry; and, moreover, they most unmistakably prove Christianity to be of heathen extraction with respect to its verbal habiliments, or external vestment, as well as the main drift and scope of its doctrines and teachings, as shown elsewhere. We will observe further, that such conceptions (found in the Christian Bible) as "God is a consuming fire," "God is light," &c. (John i. 5), originated in the primeval ages, when God was supposed to reside in the sun; also such ejaculations as "O Lord, the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising" (Isa. ix. 3). The words "light," "brightness," and "rising" apply with striking force to the sun, and were used by the ancient Persians in such a relation, while, on the other hand, it is difficult to discover any sense or appropriateness in applying them—at least the word "rising"—to the Supreme Being; for he is represented as always occupying "the highest heavens:" so there can be no higher point to rise to. We might also ask, Why are "the Lord's day" and "Sunday" used as synonymous terms? or why is the Lord now worshiped on the very day anciently set apart for the worship of the sun or solar Deities? Do not these facts prove that many remnants of the ancient idolatrous religions are still retained in Christian theology?
Monotheism.—This word—from monos, one, or alone, and Theos, God—represents a belief in but one God. We have shown in the preceding section how a belief in a plurality of Gods originated. We will now trace the progress of this idea to a unitary conception of the Deity. It will be observed, by the study of ancient theology, that, as the human mind becomes enlightened and expanded by the discovery of the laws governing the heavenly bodies, the lesser or inferior Deities gradually fall into disbelief and disuse, and "the Supreme Holy One" proportionally becomes exalted in the devout affections of the worshiping multitude, until most religious nations become, in one view, virtually and practically monotheists. And it may be remarked here, that, as neither the imaginary God nor carved images of God were objects of worship by the most enlightened classes of any nation, they can not strictly and truthfully be termed idolaters. Hence some writers are bold to affirm there never was a nation of idolaters; and we incline to this opinion. We are also bold to affirm that there never was, properly speaking, a nation of monotheists,—believing in but one God, and no more,—neither Jews nor Christians excepted; and we are likewise prepared to exhibit the proof of the affirmation, that every nation, reported in history making a profession of religion, has acknowledged the existence of one supreme God. This is true even of those who believe in a multiplicity of Gods,—a circumstance which places both Jews and Christians in rather an awkward position, claiming as they do, and always have done, a monopoly of this faith; and the fact that they have long professedly labored to bring other nations to this belief, while some of those nations have, as we shall show, been much more consistent, both in the belief and practice of this doctrine, than themselves, places them, as we conceive, in rather a ludicrous aspect. The Christian Bible and the Christian world have arrogated vastly too much to themselves, and overstepped the bounds of truth, in claiming to be the only propagators of the unitary conception of a God, as the following citations from historical authorities will clearly manifest:—
1. Christians have a numerous cortege, or retinue, of angels in their system of inspired theology, as is shown in various parts of the Bible, which, in theological parlance, must be regarded as so many secondary Gods, inasmuch as they are assigned the same duties, perform the same functions, and sustain precisely the same relation to the supernal Deity as did the subordinate Gods of the pagans under the ancient systems. It is, in fact, only a change of name, in order to get rid of the illogical dilemma of holding to the existence of but one God, while virtually acknowledging the existence of many. We might cite many facts and testimonies from history in proof of this statement, but will restrict ourselves to one. Mr. Higgins says, "All nations believed in one supreme God, and many subordinates. The latter some termed angels; others called them Gods." More anciently than the Jews, we find that the Babylonians, Chaldeans, Persians, and Syrians all vested these subordinate beings with the properties of mere angels. "Angels," then, with Christians, we legitimately infer, is only another name for second-class Gods, or subordinate Deities of the Orientals.
2. Even if we should pass over, as unworthy of consideration, the historical facts which go to identify the Christian angels with the subordinate Deities of the ancient pagans, there is yet spread out before us a broad and tenable ground for charging Christians with being polytheists,—that is, for rejecting their pretensions of worshiping and preaching a unitary God; for it is a very striking and depreciating fact, that, notwithstanding their boastful and arrogating claims, there are many texts in the Old Testament which imply, in the most distinct manner, a belief in a plurality of Gods. Indeed the first passage in the book, according to Mr. Parkhurst, would read, if correctly translated, "In the beginning the Gods created the heavens and the earth," thus disclosing an acknowledgment of more than one God. And we find many other passages which are made to conceal the old polytheistic idea by a wrong translation. Fortunately, however, for the disclosure of truth, there are many texts in which it comes very distinctly to the surface. As for example, in Genesis i. 26, we have the undisguised language, "Let us make man in our own image." Now "us" and "our" being plural pronouns, it would be folly and nonsense to deny that they refer to a plurality of Gods. "Let us make man" means, "Let us Gods make man;" for no sophistry, shifting, or dodging can make sense of it with any other construction. And several times, in this and other chapters, is similar language used. We will cut the matter short by observing, upon the authority of Parkhurst, that Aleim and Elohim are the Hebrew plurals used to represent God in the Old Testament; that these are much more frequently employed than the singular forms, Al and El, thus disclosing the conception of a plurality of Gods beyond dispute.
3. And this argumentation acquires additional logical strength when based on the fact that the Jews did not claim Jehovah as the only God, but merely as supreme to other Gods. He was "God of Gods" and "Lord of Lords." Nor was he claimed to be a God of any but the Jewish nation. Jethro is made to say, "Now I know that Jehovah is greater than all Gods" (Exod. xviii. 11). And in Exodus xv. 11 it is asked, "Who is like unto Jehovah among the Gods?" Just such a claim as is put forth for Jupiter by Homer in his Iliad:—
Hence it will be observed, that if there were any merit or any honor in professing faith in a unitary Deity, or any truth forming a basis for such a claim, neither Jews nor Christians could justly arrogate a monopoly of such faith, inasmuch as there is an older claim to the doctrine.
4. But we find that the professors of the Christian faith occupy still more untenable and more palpably erroneous ground than the Jews with respect to the profession of holding strictly to the unitary conception of Deity; for they not only tacitly accept the contradictory phases of this doctrine, which we have pointed out above, in the Jewish writings, but they add thereto a new installment or chapter of errors by having accepted into their creed the old Oriental doctrine of a trinity of Gods. They have "God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost," which present us with a family of Gods as complete and absolute as the confederated union of Gods in either the ancient Hindoo or Grecian Pantheon. To allege, in defense, that these three Gods were all one, while we find each in various parts of the Bible spoken of separately, and discriminated by peculiar and distinct properties and titles, instead of mitigating the error and contradiction, such a plea only aggravates it. In the same sense the Hindoos claimed that their thousand Gods were one. And all the triads or trinities of Gods swarming through the ancient mythologies were proclaimed to be each "a trinity in unity;" so that such a defense only lands the professor of Christianity amongst heathen myths.
5. The absurdity of the Christian Church in professing to worship a single God, also making a profession of rising above and contemning the idolatrous, polytheistic conception of Deity, culminates in their act of embodying and incorporating the infinite deityship in "the man Christ Jesus," and declaring him to possess "the fullness of the Godhead bodily" For we thus have one full and absolute God perambulating the earth in the person of Christ during his temporary sojourn here, while another absolute God (the Father) occupied the throne of heaven, thus presenting us with a plurality of Gods too marked and undisguised to admit a rational defense. A profession of monotheism arrayed with such facts bespeaks folly supreme. The polytheism of the ancient heathen is science and sense compared with such jargon. For, with all their Gods, they never paid divine honors, or prayed to but one God ("The Supreme Ruler"); while Christians, on the contrary, worship all of theirs,—Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,—frequently naming each one separately in their supplications to the throne of grace, thus rendering themselves more open to the charge of polytheism, and that species of idolatry which consists in worshiping several Gods, than those whom they condemn as heathen for committing similar acts. We will prove this statement. The reverend missionary, D. O. Allen, says of a large body of heathen professors, "They believe in the existence of beings whom they call Gods, but do not recognize them as possessing any qualities, or as having any agencies in human affairs, which properly make them objects of worship. They resemble the angels in the Christian system. Brahma with them is the supreme God, and all the other Gods offer him worship." It is evident, then, that they virtually worship but one God, the inferior Deities being but angels; while Christians, on the contrary, have placed two, if not three, Gods on the throne. Which, then, have the best claim to be considered monotheists?
6. And what sense, we would ask, can attach to the profession of monotheism with such a God as the Bible sets forth,—a limited, local, personal God. No doctrine stands out more prominently as a fundamental tenet of the Christian faith than that which makes God appear a circumscribed, finite being. He is represented in their "inspired" book as possessing those qualities, properties, faculties, and functions which only a local, organized being can possess,—such as a body, head, eyes, nose, mouth, arms, fingers, feet, stomach, bowels, heart, &c.; as eating, sleeping, walking, talking, riding, laboring, resting, laughing, crying; and as getting angry and jealous, and cursing, swearing, smiting, fighting, &c., and on one occasion getting whipped or vanquished in a fight because the enemy were fortified with chariots of iron. (See Josh. 17-18.) And hardly was creation completed before he was down in Eden striding over the bushes, hunting for his lost child Adam,—the first sample of the genus homo. And several times he had to leave his golden throne, and descend to earth before he could be posted in human affairs.
Now it must be evident to any person possessing a moiety of common sense that such a limited, local, circumscribed being, limited in size, and restricted in powers and qualities as Jehovah is represented in the Bible to be, could neither be omnipotent, omniscient, nor omnipresent. True, Christians consider him so; but the Bible fails to make him so. And hence there would be room in infinite space for countless millions of such Gods, and the doctrine of polytheism would be perfectly consistent. Indeed, such a dwarfish and circumscribed God would need thousands of such confederates to aid him in governing the countless worlds of the vast universe; so that the polytheistic doctrine from the Christian stand-point becomes a necessity, as it does also from another plane of view. We are told in Gen. i. that the work of creation was completed in six days; that the myriads of worlds which now chase each other through the sky were all rolled out of the vortex of infinitude in a week. But it is evident to every scientific or reflecting mind that a million of years would not have sufficed for the work, especially for such a God as Moses describes and sets to the task Hence the period of creation should be extended, or the number of Gods increased ad infinitum, to save the credibility of the cosmologic traditions. We would say, then, that, for the following reasons, the more Gods Christians acknowledge, the better for the consistency of their cause:—
1. Their conception of the Divine Essence is that of a local, limited, anthropomorphic, organized being, in exact conformity with the notion of the ancient pagans; with which, in order to have every part of the infinite universe supplied, would require more in number than the most fertile imagination of the heathen ever created. 2. A countless host of such finite Gods would have been required to complete the work of creation in six days. 3. There is room enough for any number of such finite Gods to exist without encroaching on each other's dominions. 4. There should have been at least one such God to be assigned the creation of each planetary world, which would require many millions of creative entities. 5. And the superintendence of the endlessly complicated machinery of each planet, and the supply, specifically and individually, of the various wants of its swarming millions of diversified inhabitants, would require an infinite host more of such local Gods as Jehovah of the Jews. 6. And, as Christians already practically acknowledge the worship of three Gods, the addition of three hundred or three thousand more would only be an extension of the principle, and could not be a whit more objectionable. For it is not any specific number of Gods they object to, but a "plurality;" and three is as certainly and absolutely a plurality as three hundred or three thousand. From the above considerations, founded on views of consistency, we think Christians should ground their arms, and cease their moral warfare upon the votaries of other religions for being polytheistic or idolatrous. And "the sin of worshiping many Gods," which they declaim so much on, is all a mere phantom. We can not see how the divine mind could possibly be offended at the simple mistake of over-numbering the Godhead. We will illustrate the case. We will suppose a merchant in Cincinnati orders a bill of goods from New York, addressing the order to John Ap John & Co. The latter opens and examines it, then returns it unfilled, with the following quaint protest: "Sir, there is no 'Co.' attached to my address. It is simply John Ap John; and you have insulted my dignity by this mistake, thus assuming that I have not the brain and bullion to do business on my own hook, but must have partners. I therefore return it with contempt for your insolent blunder." Now, we ask if there can be a man found who would be guilty of displaying such coxcomb vanity as this. We trow not. Then, why charge it upon an infinite God—an all-wise Deity—by supposing that a prayer addressed, by an innocent mistake, to a hundred or a thousand Gods would not be as acceptable to him as if addressed to him alone, or even if erroneously addressed to the Christian trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost?
The Construction and Worship of Images.—In Exod. xx. 4 we find the following command: "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth." Here, it will be observed, is a sweeping interdiction against image-making; and, as it prohibits the likeness of any thing that "is in heaven above or the earth beneath," it is a dead-lock upon the fine arts. All engravings, paintings, photographs, &c., with which the civilized world is now flooded, and which hold high rank among the arts and sciences, involve an open infraction of this command. And hence, this biblical interdiction being devoid of reason, and of an anti-civilizing tendency, the enlightened portion of Christendom, by common consent, tramples it heedlessly under foot. And we are bold to say that this command is both foolish and of impracticable application; for a living, thinking human being can no more avoid forming images of every thing that comes within the range of his mental vision, whether situated in heaven above or the earth beneath, than he can stop the entire machinery of his thoughts, or the blood from circulating through his veins. It is as natural as eating, and as inevitable as breathing. To be sure, he does not give expression with wood, metal, or canvas to every image formed in the mind; but the nature of the act, morally speaking, is precisely the same as if he did. St. Clemens admits this when he declares it to be a sin for women to look in the glass, because they form images of themselves. All true! viewed from the Christian stand-point, which regards image-making as a sin. The most sinful or reprehensible act of image-making, however, in the view of Christians, is the construction of idols or images to represent the Deity. Living in a civilized age, they would be ashamed to occupy the broad ground assumed by the command which we have quoted above, which forbids the likeness of every thing that exists; yet they still hold that it is wrong to make images of the Deity,—not anymore so, according to the above command, than the acceptance of engravings of animals and photographs of friends. But where is the man now living, or when did the man live, who has not formed images of the Deity, or who does not instinctively and habitually do it every day of his life? Every man makes a likeness of God, or what he supposes to be such, every time he thinks of such a being. It is impossible to make him the subject of thought without constructing a mental image of him,—i.e., without constructing an image of him in the brain. And can it be more sinful to make an image of him with the hand than with the head?—in other words, to construct a likeness of him externally, than to construct it internally. Certainly not. One is shaped out in the mind; the other is shaped out of a block of wood or metal: and most certainly, if the latter is idolatry, the former is also. The Christian kneels in supplication with the image of God set up in his mind; the pagan worships with the image set up in the temple or on the altar. One is externally represented with words; the other, with wood. The only difference between the Christian and pagan idolatry is, that, after each has sketched out a likeness of the Creator upon the tablet or dial-plate of his mind according to his conception of the form of Deity, the Christian stops short with his work but half completed, while the pagan goes on and gives practical expression to his by representing it with wood, stone, or other material, by which it is more thoroughly impressed upon the memory, and "the devout contemplation," "the remembrance of God," kept more constantly in the mind; and thus the savage is proved to be the most practically religious of the two. We have shown that the representation and delineation upon canvas, paper, wood, or steel, of the various objects of art,—of human creation,—are set down as the highest marks and the most distinguishing proofs of civilization. And can it be right and laudable to thus represent or Image the works of the Creator, and wrong to image the Creator himself? Not according to the above command. Or can one be pleasing to him, and the other offensive? There is neither sense nor science, logic nor lore, in such conclusions. Christian reader, do you not know that your little innocent daughter 'violates the command every day of her happy life by nursing, dressing, and caressing her wax doll, her image miniature man? For if it be true—and the Bible teaches it—that "man was created in the image of God," then these artificial human likenesses, these images of the infant man, are also images of God; and your little girl daily commits "the awful sin of idolatry," and you, too, for countenancing her in the act. It may be noticed here that the pious Christian confers upon himself an honor which he denies to the Creator when he has his photograph struck off for the accommodation of a friend, while he denounces as idolatry all attempts to construct an imaginary likeness of God. But consistency is a jewel rarely found.
Image Worship.—We may be met here with the answer that "it is not the making of images, but the worship of images, in lieu of the worship of God, that constitutes idolatry." To this we reply, we have no proof that any nation or people reported in history were ever obnoxious to the charge. True, the people of many countries have been in the habit of prostrating themselves before idols in their daily worship. Yet in no case which we have examined do we find that those idols were worshiped with the thought of their being the true and living God, or of their being endowed with divine attributes, but only as types or representations of God. It is possible that some of the lower stratum of society—some of the debased and ignorant—may have been deluded into the idea that God had taken up his abode in those lifeless images. In fact we are assured that the priest, in some cases, labored to instill this belief into their minds. Some of them may have been ignorant and pliable enough to be misled by his artful misrepresentation. But, by a large proportion of the idol-worshipers of every nation, we have the highest authority for asserting that these artificial images were not regarded as any thing more than the mere representation, or outward type, of the Deity, and were venerated with the same religious conviction which Christians experience in part aking of the body and blood of Christ with the images of bread and wine, and without the suspicion of incurring the charge of idolatry. The two acts are precisely the same in spirit and essence. But the untutored denizens of the Pacific isles do not conceive that the dumb and lifeless sylvan figure before which they prostrate themselves in worship is the omnipotent, self-existent God, the Creator of heaven and earth, more truly than the Christians believe they are really eating and drinking "the body and blood of Christ" when partaking of the sacrament. They are both mere symbols, or representations, of something higher. It is irrational to suppose that beings endowed with minds believe that inanimate figures of gold, silver, iron, &c., possess omnipotent thought, power, and feeling. That able, pious Mahomedan writer, Abel Fezzel, declares (in his "Aren Akberry") that "the opinion that the Hindoos (who make many idols) are idolaters has no foundation in fact; but they are worshipers of God, and only one God." "This," says the modern traveler, Mr. Ditson of New York, "I know to be true; for I had it from the lips of the Hindoos themselves." And this will apply with undiminished force to other nations habitually styled idolaters. "Even the most savage nations," says Mr. Parker, "regard their idols only as types of God." And we might quote whole pages from heathen writers to that effect. The ancient Grecian poet Ovid says, "It is Jove we adore in the image of God." "The Gods inhabit our minds and bodies," says Statius, a Latin writer, "and not the images made to represent them." Hence it is evident they had a perception of their true character. And the missionary, Rev. D. O. Allen, tells us that even those who have been represented as worshiping the sun, moon, and stars, only contemplate these planets as symbols of the Deity, and that "their worship is really aimed to the invisible, omnipotent, omnipresent God." It appears, then, that whatever external objects the most ignorant and savage tribes have addressed, or have been supposed to worship, have been used merely as types and symbols to enhance their devotion in the worship of the true God. Though, as Cicero remarks (in his philosophical works), "A few may have been so feeble in their perceptions as to confound and identify the statues and Gods together." But another writer avers, "There is not in all antiquity the least trace of a prayer addressed to a statue." He also says, "All paganism does not offer a single fact which can lead to the conclusion that they ever adored idols; nor was there ever a law compelling them to do so." When Paul declared to the Athenians, "Whom ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you," he confessed most explicitly that they worshiped the true God through their idols. Where, then, is the sin of idolatry?
In one of the Hindoo Bibles (the Baghavat Gita) God is made to say, "They who serve other Gods with a firm belief of being right do really involuntarily serve me, and shall be rewarded." How admirable, how noble, how magnanimous and merciful is this sentiment compared with the damning, death-dealing denunciations against idolatry by the Jewish Jehovah! And the Mahomedan Bible (the Koran) contains a similar sentiment to the above. Thus, we observe, both the Hindoo and Mahomedan Bibles evince in this respect a higher degree of moral sense than that of the Christian Bible, whose violent interdictions against idolatry have caused many nations to be butchered, and their lands deluged with blood. "There is nothing in the Christian Bible," says Mr. Higgins, "of one-twentieth part of the value of this text of the Hindoo Bible in the way of preventing a foolish persecution and bloodied." It may be remembered here that Christians inherited their extreme hatred of idolatry from the Jews, which is fostered by the Jewish Bible, and that the Jews derived their feelings of opposition to it from the two nations under which they were long enslaved,—the Persians and Egyptians,—both of which, according to Herodotus, forbid the making of idols, the former interdicting it by law; as did also the Roman emperor, Numa Pompilius, 600 B.C. The Parsees of India to this day oppose idolatry; and the learned among the Chinese have always discountenanced it. Strabo and other Grecian philosophers wrote against it. "And many sects arose among the ancient heathen," says the "Hierophant," "who rejected all external symbols of the Deity." On the other hand, neither Jews nor Christians have been entirely free from this "sin" so called. As for "the Lord's holy people," there probably never was a nation who manifested a stronger or more invincible proclivity to idolatry than they, or who indulged more eagerly in the practice of it whenever opportunity presented; and frequently did they break over all restraint to plunge into this seemingly untiring luxury, not even withholding their ear-rings when a molten image or golden calf was to be constructed. And even their lawgiver Moses consented to the construction of a number of imitations or substitutes for the carved images of the pagans. Their brazen serpent displayed upon a pole; their carved cherubims with the body of a man, the head of an animal, and the wings of a bird; and the ark of the covenant, which was borne about in the same manner the heathen carried their idols,—were all compromises with and concessions to idolatry, and were all venerated with the same spirit and in the same fashion the heathen adored their carved or molten images. As for the holy ark, the Jews as solemnly believed that God Almighty was shut up in that little box of shittim-wood as truly as ever the pagans believed that he sometimes condescended to a transient abode in their idols; while it was death to touch it with "unholy hands," and sixty thousand were butchered because one man (the pious Iliza), on a certain occasion, instinctively and devoutly clapped his hand on it to keep it from falling. In fact, the golden image which it contained was an idol to all intents and purposes; nor were the brazen serpent and cherubim of the altar much less so. Hence the vindictive condemnation of other nations for making and adoring images came with an ill grace from the Jews. Nor are the skirts of the disciples of Christ any freer from the stain of idolatry. In fact, it constitutes the very substratum of their religion. In the first place, they quote approvingly such texts as the following: "The Lord is my rock" (Ps. xviii. 2); "Who is a rock save our God?" (Ps. xviii. 31); "The shepherd the stone of Israel" (Gen. xlix. 24). Peter calls him "a living stone" (1 Pet. ii. 4). And there are a number of other similar texts, all of which disclose real fetichism, or the first form of idolatry. The ancient Laplanders.
Arabians, Phoenicians, and several tribes of Asia Minor used rocks and stones as representative images of Deity. And here we find the same association of ideas in the Christian Bible. Do you reply, "They must be considered figurative"? Very well: prove that the ancient heathen tribes did not also consider them figurative.
But we have a much more serious and conclusive proof than tins that nearly the entire retinue of Christian professors are practical idolaters, and that their "holy religion," in all its essential characteristics, comprises, in its very nature, the highest species of idolatry. Some Christian professors tell us that those who worship idols must have a limited conception of the character and attributes of the Deity; thus conceding that idolatry consists in ascribing to God a false character. Well, now, this is the very objection which we would urge as one of the first, and one of the most serious charges against the Christian system. It presents us with a cramped, dwarfish, and childish conception of Deity. In the first place, the disciples of Christianity still cling to the old tradition, which they inherited from the heathen, of investing God with the form and characteristics of a man. For if the Deity possesses the human form, as they and their Bible teach, then he must possess the human characteristics,—a logical sequence, which science defies all Christendom to overturn, as it is the infallible testimony of the natural history of all time that nothing can possess the form of one being and the characteristics of another. As is form, so is and must be the character, is an axiom supported by numberless proofs of daily and hourly observation. Hence, Jesus Christ possessing, according to the scriptures, the form of a man,—"the form of a servant,"—must inevitably have possessed the character of a man. Hence we are not surprised to find, that, in spite of the combined efforts of his evangelical biographers to make him a God (if they are really to be understood as designing to elevate him to the Godhead), his finite human qualities are dis-played in his history in every chapter. Every saying and every credible incident of his life prove him to have been a man, notwithstanding some of them are apparently set forth as prima-facie evidence of his being a God. Therefore the conclusion that, as Jesus Christ had the form of a man, he could not have been a God; and to worship him as such was and is idolatry in the highest and fullest sense. And, besides the form, there are other evidences of his having been a man. He walked, talked, ate, slept, wept, shed tears, &c., and finally died just as other men do. And, furthermore, he believed and taught some of the traditions and superstitions of finite, ignorant men,—such as a vengeful God, an endless hell, disease produced by demons, a personal devil, the speedy conflagration of the world, &c. Thus we have a threefold proof of his manhood, and disproof of his Godhead, and a proof that those who worship him are idolaters. And as the primitive or primordial Bible God Jehovah is represented as possessing, as we have already shown, a comprehensible body, eyes, nose, mouth, hands, arms, legs, feet, bowels, &c., and as being a jealous, angry, revengeful, fighting God (the God of battles), and inferior in several respects to some of the men who worshiped him, such worship is consequently idolatry. We observe, then, that the Jews worshiped one idol (Jehovah); and the Christians, three ("Father, Son, and Holy Ghost"),—the two former possessing the form of man, and the latter the form of a bird (a dove). There is exactly the same objection, and it is to exactly the same extent idolatry, to worship Jesus Christ as to worship Chrishna, Confucius, Mahomet, or any of the wooden Gods or graven images of the idolatrous pagans. In each case it is assuming that God, instead of being eternally infinite in all his attributes, has been invested with the finite, limited, and comprehensible form of man, to say nothing of the corresponding finite qualities which his worshipers have assigned him. And this narrow, childish assumption, with its attendant conceptions, keeps the mind of the worshiper in an intellectually cramped and dwarfish condition, besides perpetuating their dishonorable and disparaging views of Deity. And herein lies the great objection to idolatry. If any of these venerated beings could possess divine attributes, there would be less moral objection to worshiping them as Gods. The error is not in ascribing divine attributes to the wrong being, but in the conception of wrong qualities and attributes as comprehensible in a divine being.
For God is not possessed of the vanity to be offended by the simple mistakes of men and women directing their prayers and devotions to another being or object instead of to him. The grand error consists in mistaking the real character and attributes of Deity; that is, in constructing false images of him,—whether mental or material is all the same. In other words, idolatry consists in worshiping, for God, beings or objects possessing finite forms, with whom, consequently, infinite and divine attributes could not be properly associated, and through whom they could not possibly be displayed. And so self-evident was the proof that these beings, possessing the form, size, and physical outline of men, and presenting every appearance of men (as Christ, Chrishna, Confucius, &c.), were nothing but men, that even those who were habitually taught to adore them as the supreme, omnipotent Deity, naturally and instinctively, in their intercourse with them and their descriptions of them, invested them with human qualities as well as divine. And thus they came to present to the world the awkward and ludicrous figure of beings displaying both finite and infinite attributes,—i.e., of being demi-gods, half God and half man. This is especially true of "the man Christ Jesus." And it may be safely assumed as an incontrovertible proposition, that just so long as men are in the habit of worshiping beings in the human form, whether Jehovah or Jesus Christ, or beings possessing any conceivable form as the great "I am," just so long will they entertain, to their own injury and to the disgrace of religion, inferior and dishonorable views of God. They must learn that a finite body can not contain an infinite spirit, nor possess an infinite attribute; and that to worship an object or being known to possess or even supposed to possess any conceivable form, size, or shape within the comprehension of man, whether the materials composing this adored object or being are gold, silver, wood, brass, iron, or flesh and blood (as in the case of Jesus Christ), constitutes the highest species of idolatry. It can make no difference what the materials are, as it is just as impossible to associate divine and infinite attributes with an image of flesh and blood or a finite body, as to associate them with an image of wood, stone, or metal. All is alike idolatry.
The Christian world have an image or idol, constructed in part of flesh and blood, restricted, as they tell us, to a spiritual body, which they call Jesus Christ, and which they place upon an imaginary throne situated in or above the clouds, and worship it as God; while the Babylonians had the same image carved from wood and metal, which they called Dagon, and set upon a throne in the temple: and, in both cases, we are told, by way of apology, that it was not the external form, or outward body, which constituted the divinity, but the spirit within. Now, as there is room in infinite space for millions of such beings (such finite Gods), there could be no moral objection to multiplying their number, and worshiping as many of them as the imagination could conjure up, or the polytheist's fancy could create. We worship none but the infinite God; the living, moving, all-pervading, and all-energizing spirit of the infinite universe, who has no finite or comprehensible body, and never had; and hence, being infinite in extent and in all his attributes, but one such being can possibly exist, and monotheism thus becomes a virtue and a necessity. We will only remark further, that the man who can worship a being with the human form or any form as the infinite God, no matter if he swells his proportions by imagination to the size of the planet Jupiter or the whole solar system, yet still, as this is not one step of an approach toward infinitude or omnipresence, his conceptions of Deity are puerile, childish, belittling, and dishonorable, if not blasphemous. If there is such a thing as blasphemy, it is found here. And his ignorance of the essential characteristics of an infinite being, or the scientific view of God, is on a par with the child's ignorance of astronomy, who exclaims, "Give me the moon!" Here we desire to apprise the reader more distinctly that we do not regard idolatry as a crime or blameworthy act in those who originated it, but actually useful when restricted to its legitimate uses. To those groveling in spiritual darkness, on the lower plane of religious development, it is as "eyes to the blind, and crutches to the lame." It is only in those, who, like Christians, profess to be enlightened, that it becomes a culpable act. Several writers have shown that idols were really practically useful, in a religious point of view, in the primitive spiritual condition of mankind, and are yet so to the lower classes in various countries; that is, to those who dwell upon the sensorial plane, and whose spiritual perceptions are hence too feeble to soar to an ethereal world to find the great object of spiritual worship. The learned Hindoo, Roh Mun Roy, who wrote a work against idolatry, and who condemned the Christian churches for "worshiping an idol in the person of Jesus Christ," beautifully sets forth the true nature and purpose of idolatry when he says (after stating that idols were not made for the learned), "The Vedas [Hindoo Bible] directs those who are spiritually incapable of adoring the invisible Supreme Being to apply their minds to some visible object as an external manifestation of the only true God, rather than lose themselves in the mazes of irreligion, the bane of society. As God exists everywhere, and pervades every thing (even idols), such means were mercifully provided for the ignorant and untrained to lead them on to true mental adoration and spiritual worship." And thus idols were used as aids and stepping-stones to the true worship for those who were mentally incapable of raising their minds from "nature up to nature's God," as taught by this heathen writer. Thus they served the same purpose as pictures do for children, and were equally innocent and useful. It is, therefore, no more sinful to be an idolater than to be a child. In fact, idolatry was a necessity of man's religious nature. The Vedas makes God say, "The ignorant believe me visible while I am invisible." The able, pious Abel Fezzel (a Mahomedan writer) says, in his "Aren Akberry," "The Brahmins and Hindoos all believe in the unity of the God-head; yet they hold images in high veneration, because they represent celestial beings, and prevent the mind from wandering." Swedenborg says in like manner, "The heathen kept images not only in their temples, but in their houses, not to worship them, but to call to mind the heavenly being they represented." Thus it will be observed that the idol was the sanctuary where man, in his childhood, met to commune with his God, just as the Christian now seeks his spiritual presence at the communion-table or the altar. The pagan, who was a child in religious experience, was morally necessitated to have a God, or representation of God, he could see, feel, and handle. And it is remarkable that the Christian world, after two thousand years' religious experience, still occupy the same plane,—are still pagans or children with respect to believing in visible external Gods, as they virtually worship two, Jehovah and Jesus Christ, who, according to the teaching of their Bible and their established creeds, were often seen in the human form, and one of them with a human body. Thus it will be observed they have not outgrown or advanced beyond the essential principle of idolatry,—that of worshiping a visible or imaginary form for an invisible God, who, the "positive philosophy" teaches, never has been and never can be seen under any circumstances, because, being omnipresent (that is, present everywhere, and everywhere alike), if he could be seen at all, he could be seen at all times and in all places. This is a self-evident, axiomatic truth.