Morality and Religion.

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Mat. vi. 24. Ye cannot serve God and Mammon.

I Like this text. There is about it an aspect of "no compromise," which at once engages the sympathy and commands the assent of lovers of straightforwardness and plain dealing. For compromise is the bane of the present age, and the main cause of the prevailing want of integrity. By comparison it is positively refreshing to read of the times when men—thinking it right to mutilate themselves and burn their neighbours alive for the kingdom of heaven's sake—did so;—and blessed God for every opportunity of maiming and sacrificing for his glory, his asserted children made by him in his image. If their belief was savage—it was certainly sincere—for their conduct was consistent with it. Contrast Calvin sacrificing poor Servetus on a slow fire of green faggots—with the Rev, Thomas Binney writing a book on, "How to make the best of both worlds !" How to serve God and mammon too ! Imagine Jesus—in lawn sleeves and a carriage and pair—preaching the community of goods, and woe to the rich.

The fact is that the progress of knowledge and the struggle for civilized existence now compel men to be so practical—that they have little time to be pious; and the upholders of religion find that comfort and common-sense are gradually becoming so much more popular than asceticism and faith, that they are compelled to yield point after point; and their tactics are now reduced to attempts to compromise matters between obsolete doctrines...and the certain revelations of science. They are at their wit's end to serve both, God and mammon !

My object is to show that Jesus was right;—that religion—or the love and service of God—is incompatible with the love and ser page 2 vice of mammon—or of the world;—with morality;—That morality and religion are thus in inverse proportion to one another;—that a moral man cannot be religious; and that a religious man must be so far immoral.

Religion may be defined as a sanction—or something which binds—to a certain line of conduct which is called godliness. Such conduct has special relation to a supposed God and future life of rewards and punishments; and erects them as objects of exclusive regard and attention. If the principle of religion be consistently pursued, the worldly interest of one's self and one's neighbour must be subordinated and even sacrificed without hesitation to God's glory and our own heavenly interest. Morality means—the manners of men in relation to each other—to Society; and the word morality has come to mean—good social conduct;—immorality—bad social conduct. The principle of morality requires that the paramount object of men should be to promote their own interest and that of Society at large, in the world in which they find themselves; it pronounces asceticism and intolerance to be equally crimes; affirms the identity of ultimate interest of each and all; and asserts that while vice causes its own ample punishment—virtue is its own best reward. But the absolute antagonism between our moral and our religious duties and interests is not more broadly laid down and forcibly insisted on thus by me—than it was by Jesus in my text (whatever Mr. Binney may say.) Ye cannot serve God and mammon !

Religion requires allegiance to God alone, and—so far—contempt for the ties of humanity and defiance of social authority. Witness the judicial murders of Socrates and Jesus—the wholesale massacre of St. Bartholomew—and the assassination of Henry the Great of France by Ravaillac. Witness also the holy zeal with which Philip H. of Spain, devoted half his life to devastating the fairest portion of Europe, and pitilessly sacrificing to God by sword and fire and stake—thousands upon thousands of his innocent subjects, whom he believed that he was divinely commissioned to convert—or destroy. Yet Philip was naturally a humane man. At his first battle he vowed he would never witness anothor, and he never did. Reli. page 3 gion made him hate for God's sake, and act the part of a devil as a sacred duty.

Morality on the contrary inculcates conformity to social ordinances, and universal forbearance and tolerance. As Lord Bacon says—"Atheism leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to "laws, to reputation; all which may be guides to outward moral "virtue, though religion were not; but superstition dismounts all "these and erecteth an absolute monarchy in in the minds of men; "therefore Atheism never did perturb states; for it makes "men wary of themselves as looking no further; and we see the "times inclined to Atheism, as the the time of Augustus Cæsar, were "quiet times; but superstition hath been the confusion of many "states, and bringeth in a new first motive cause that ravisheth all "the spheres of Government." Bacon uses the word superstition. But as Hobbes has well said,—Superstition—is any religion but ours;—Religion—is our own superstition. Bacon shows plainly that religion is—while Atheism is not—inimical to morality. It is however my present purpose to recommend—not Atheism, but—morality, simply.

Religion teaches that virtue consists in self-mortification and in foregoing worldly advantage for the sake of the glory of God and future heavenly bliss. It is herein radically inconsistent, for if it were really true that self-mortification is virtue, man ought to study and to act so as ultimately to reach hell, and he would thus be most virtuous when most vicious! All disinterestedness is thus proved to involve a positive contradiction of the premisses. And those premisses are based upon as great fallacies—from which all religions start. All hold not only the doctrine of sin—but also that God created sinners; which necessarily involves God's entire responsibility for all sin,—on the very same principles by which it is imputed—illogically—to man. All religions also assume that it is possible to act in either of two opposite ways in the same circumstances; in other words—that the same causes may produce different effects. Whereas every act of man—being but a link in the infinite chain of causes and effects—could not possibly be different without a break in the chain. These absurdities are inherent page 4 in every religion, and form the basis and apology for all intolerance and persecution; than which nothing can be more immoral.

The first of these fallacies—namely—that virtue consists in self-mortification, or say merely in the foregoing of advantage, proceeds upon another false assumption—that the interest of an individual is or may be opposed to that of others. If this were true, morality would be a problem—hopeless and impossible of solution. But the simple fact that the manners of men have improved, is a guarantee that a sufficient reason for the improvement exists. That the intercourse of men is advantageous to the mass, is learned by experience of their necessary and complete interdependence, and of the benefit that each evidently derives from the multiplication and closeness of his relations with others. If their interests were really antagonistic, the multiplicity and completeness of these relations would lessen instead of increase—individual advantage. The improvement made therefore—demonstrates that the real interests of each and all are necessarily identical. And it should not be necessary to prove this by an elaborate argument, for it is practically admitted to be proved—as a general principle—by experience; and it is only contested in special and apparently anomalous instances, in which observation does not penetrate beyond superficial appearances. But—the great need of scientific education and habits of consistent reasoning among all classes, is shown in nothing so much, as in the general want of confidence in general principles. If a general principle is of any real value at all, it admits of no exception whatever; and apparent exceptions merely indicate that further investigation is required. To give confidence in general principles is the main thing for which a scientific education is of value. And general principles are of greatest value, inasmuch as nothing else can give stability to morality. Nothing else can give an adequate guarantee in exceptional circumstances, that the true interest of every one must lie in being virtuous. It is only in such exceptional circumstances that men err and come to grief,—simply because they have no confidence in their own principles, and have no time or inclination then to reason back to them. That two and two make four, is not to me more certain, page 5 than that the true interest of every one lies necessarily in being moral virtuous, under any circumstances.

Religions as a rule teach that repentance, or perhaps restitution, may annul crime and avert evil consequences. Nothing can be more false—absurd—and pernicious. Experience teaches in the interest of morality that evil results of bad acts can by no possibility be evaded;—and thus—instead of provoking repetition by impunity,—proves—that every error causes its own inevitable retribution. But priests fatten by imposing—with this glaring fallacy—upon weak minds. Hence—conscience money;—the miserable subterfuge by which fools try to justify to themselves their past and future crimes,—and blindly do more thus to destroy their own judgment of wise and foolish—of right and wrong, than even the inventor of the immoral doctrine himself. That doctrine offers a direct premium to crime, and it is difficult to over-estimate how much it causes.

Religion essentially teaches the efficacy of prayer,—which thos who are moral but irreligious enough to reason—are compelled to discard. Cromwell's injunction to his soldiers expresses the contra diction involved as clearly as my text condemns it. "Trust in" providence—But keep your ponder dry !" Religion in the first clause—morality in the second. Serve God—but—in any case—serve mammon ! The fact that religionists (including priests) work to attain their objects, is proof that practically they disbelieve what they preach. I do not say but that theoretically they may believe it. The advantage they derive from teaching it, is quite sufficient to give a practical color to their theoretical belief. The glaring inconsistency—if not impiety—of doing one's self what one has prayed God to do, is not only proof that the belief is merely theoretical, but indicates the truth;—that the Deity invoked is really—our own egotism simply, projected and personified by an exalted and diseased imagination.

What is the prayer of morality? Work!

The doctrine of a superintending providence is fundamental in religion. In ordinary circumstances, what is this—but a stupid apology for apathy, or an attempt to evade responsibility for failure?

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But what becomes of it in face of the Earthquake of Lisbon? with its half million victims? The decrepit and the infant—the strong man and the delicate woman—the atheist and the priest—the innocent and the guilty,—all whelmed in one common destruction! Where was justice? or discrimination? or tender mercy? What was the lesson to be learned? Even the chattering priest is silent and abashed. What if we are thus to learn that the fool—is he—who hath said in his conceit, There, is a God!

Another phase of this same fallacy I must not neglect.

Imagine, for the nonce, all human institutions for the maintenance of morality at once and completely abolished—our laws, courts, magistrates, police, gaols, and penal establishments suddenly annihilated. What would result? would all the elaborate machinery and most strenuous efforts of our religious establishments prove of the slightest efficacy in restraining the immorally disposed from indulging their propensities at the expense of their neighbours? Would our property or our lives be safe for a single day? No—not for an hour. Now let me put the converse proposition.

Suppose on the contrary, our human moral Government intact, but our religious institutions suddenly and entirely obliterated:—that every priest, bible, church, and religious idea were to vanish from the earth. Would our social moral machinery for the repression of crime be in the least degree less efficacious than before in protecting our lives and property? Not a bit. The fiction being exploded, the truth would be more efficient.—In fact the existence and maintenance of social checks upon immorality, prove the general practical disbelief in the efficacy of any others—even though divine. A constable is felt to be far more potent than a theoretical God, and a Lockup—immeasurably more useful than an imaginary hell.

When a George Stephenson by patient labor—on every Sabbath—invents railways;—when a Priestley discovers gas and the constituents of the air we breathe;—when any man devotes his time and energy to add to the worldly comfort and happiness of his fellows,—he serves mammon, and is rightly charged with page 7 doing so by pious people. If anyone devotes his attention to such objects, he contravenes the religious obligation to hate the world, and to set his affections on things above. For he cannot serve God and Mammon. Had Galileo, Harvey, Jenner, and Watt been engrossed with their heavenly interests only, we might now have been ignorant of the movements of the solar system, of the circulation of the blood, of vaccination, and of steam power. But how did religion affect them? It made them suffer cruelly for the good they effected. What could more distress a man with such a keen appreciation of the value of truth as had Galileo, than to be compelled to testify publicly and solemnly to a deliberate falsehood? Harvey and Jenner were denounced as atheists, and lost their practice. I have no time, however, to shew how all the great mammon servers, who have blessed humanity, have been rewarded with pious curses, stripes, and flames—in the interest of religion—by God servers. By their fruits ye shall know them. That my view that such conduct is in strict accordance with the fundamental principles of religion, is curiously corroborated by nearly every ancient religious text book. The bible begins by relating how the being that it states procured for man his best and most valuable knowledge—that of good and evil,—was cursed by God for doing so. And in another mythology, Prometheus, for giving the knowledge of fire and of various arts to man, was punished by Zeus or God, by being chained fast, with an eagle constantly tearing at his liver. These pregnant fables prove the early instinctive recognition of the essential antagonism between God service and Mammon service,—between religion and morality. The same antipathy is exhibited to-day in the consistent opposition of religion to science, and the pious hatred shown by the servants of God to those of humanity. No wonder. It is the struggle for life.

I propose now to anticipate a few objections to my theory, and in doing so to continue my own argument.

First it may be said that what I attack, is not religion, but the abuse of it. I reply "By their fruits ye shall know them." If my opponents do not approve of the lengths to which Philip II., page 8 John Calvin, and the founders of the Spanish Inquisition carried their principles, let them beware themselves of halting between two opinions, and endeavoring to serve both God and Mammon The fact is, as I before said, that no principle can be trustworthy or true, unless it will bear pushing to its ultimate consequences. Like Philip II., and Calvin, the founders of the Spanish Inquisition are known to have been men of "undeviating and incorruptible integrity;"—they were naturally moral.—Yet we find that their merciless cruelty in carrying out their religious principles—spared neither age, sex, nor innocence; and that therefore for their crimes—their immorality—scarcely a parallel can be found in history. On the other hand we find men who have worked all their lives for the good of humanity, were either of no religion, or of the most various religions; in the latter case the good they did was exactly proportioned to the extent to which God service was subordinated by them to mammon service. There could not be a greater mistake than to suppose that religious persons are naturally more cruel or immoral than others, or that they are less kindly or virtuously inclined than the victims they sacrifice. As I have said, Philip was exceptionally humane, Calvin an upright conscientious man, and the Spanish Inquisitors were unimpeachably moral. Yet these men stand out in history as monsters of cruelty, in matters in which religion swayed their conduct. Did not Calvin labor as disinterestedly as Servetus himself, for what he thought the best interest of man,—nay of Servetus himself? If he acted immorally to Servetus, it was because he desired to act piously towards God, and made that his principal object.

It may be said, also, that religions teach morality; and it is a fact that every religion has incorporated in its treachings various moral rules. But why? not because those rules were a part of—essential to—or identified with—the religion, but simply because, without the plausible pretension of teaching morality of some kind, no men on earth would receive any religion. Not only so, but the morality taught is mostly in general terms, and frequently directly contradicted by their religious principles. If they say, Do good to all men, and love the brotherhood,—they page 9 say also that you must hate the world, your nearest kin, and your own life also, or you cannot be a genuine disciple. Such conflicting alternatives arise constantly in social life, and were, doubtless, the reason of the adoption of the hermit's life, as the only chance for virtue. But is uselessness no crime?

Perhaps my opponents will point to the laws, among others, of Moses. In the first place, it is certain that as societies existed long before Moses, so the immorality of murder, theft, and lying. must have been recognised, and prohibited. Moses repeated what he was taught, as we do to-day. But I will not thus pass the decalogue. The first four laws^* are religious; not moral—but rather immoral. For they place supernatural duty above natural duty. The fifth, Honor thy father and mother, &c.,—is simply vicious. For it asserts that we should honor certain persons—not because—or in so far as—honorable, but because they stand in a certain relation to ourselves! Nothing could be more destructive of a proper sense of right and wrong. It is just what old savages would inculcate to maintain their own authority in their tribe. The 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th, (Thou shalt not kill,—nor commit adultery,—nor steal,—nor bear false witness;) were—as I said before—not part of Moses's religion, but adopted into it to give it respectability and credit. But the 9th is very imperfect, and does not inculcate truthful speaking under any circumstances. The 10th, Thou shalt not covet,—is evidently supplementary, and intended to compensate—which it cannot—for the defects of the 7th and 8th against stealing and committing adultery. But the Bible relates that immediately after the promulgation of these laws, the Jews were specially commanded by God, through the same Moses, to violate all those of a moral tendency—point blank and wholesale. And they were all broken again with impunity by their vile king David, the man after God's own heart; to say nothing of less prominent instances. Nay, God himself is said to have repeatedly violated the 9th, against false page 10 witness, both directly, and by speaking falsely through prop ets. (See Genesis ii, 17, I Kings xxii, 23, Ezekiel xiv, 9.) So much for the Old Testament. In the New Testament he is asserted to have broken the 7th with Joseph's wife. (Matt, i, 18, 20.) And is it to be wondered at that the servants of God are bloodthirsty—break their own laws and solemn engagements, and are unjust and cruel,—when they believe that their master has notoriously done the same? He never fulfilled his promises to Abraham, nor to any other man. First he agreed—by a spontaneous offer, after knowingly making man so that he must sin,—to accept the blood of innocent annimals as a solace to his wounded vanity, (for "vanity" is commonsense for "glory.") He broke that agreement, and afterwards required and accepted human blood. (2 Samuel xxi. 9.14.) Insatiable still, he repudiates that self-dictated engagement, and nothing will satisfy his morbid taste but the blood of his own perfectly virtuous son! He seems to have hated virtue even more than man. Even this last covenant he is asserted to have repudiated, and to have discovered that the atonement for sin—proposed by himself as sufficient, is really valueless. In spite of all these solemn covenants—capriciously altered and broken from time to time,—he still requires that man shall after all himself expiate in hell—the imaginary sins for which repeated expiations had been exacted and accepted.

Jesus himself sums up the whole law by saying, "Thou shalt "serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, "and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength, This is the "1st commandment." (The God that I have just described!) "And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy "neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment "greater than these." Mark xii., 80.1. Why he calls the second Like the first it is difficult to see. It is more like Falstaff's half-penny worth of bread to the intolerable deal of sack. But as Jesus says in Luke xiv., 26, that we must hate—beside our father, mother, wife, children, brothers and sisters,—our own life also, the love for our neighbour must be less than none at all! (Luke xiv., 26.)

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I have written this paper because I think a spade should be called a spade, and that truth demands that if we have given up the essentials of religion, we should not retain the name. If we recognise the absurdity of its main doctrines of prayer and a providence, and that good or evil conduct causes—in this world—its own ample reward or punishment;—we are not entitled to say that we have only improved or developed our religion, when we have really cast it aside, and obtained something infinitely better. It we have eaten the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, we should not be ashamed to admit being naked. If Adam and Eve were ashamed, they were obviously in error. For they were no more naked than they were before, and the responsibility for their nakedness (by the story) was not theirs but their creator's, who, if any one, should have been ashamed. We are unworthy of the privileges we have gained, if we are ashamed or afraid to acknowledge them.

I know that many think the religious faculty in man, is too important and useful to be discarded. Not so. In the first place, its absence in many intellectual men proves that it is not a necessary or original one, and that it is but a fictitious compound of imagination and emotion. These, if diverted from religious fictions, may be made useful to morality. But their mis-direction by religion in such cases as that of Ravaillac, must be admitted by nearly all; and I have shewn that the like mis-direction of them by religion is more or less universal. And the same elements can easily be shewn to constitute the spring of action in every case of crime, theft, murder, &c. When they are duly subjected to the direction of an exercised reason, better results may be expected, but not before. To claim to be religious, when in fact we are not, is to be ashamed—and unworthy too—of being clothed and in our right mind; to assert that we are naked when better clad than ever; to dishonor a good cause, and to claim consideration under false pretences. But we cannot consistently so serve God and mammon.

Finally I would point out, that as there are no men whom it does not take all their time and all they know to be properly moral—or page 12 to do all the good they can to themselves and to their neighbours;—so for them to devote any attention to the concerns of another hypothetical life which religion concerns, is to neglect their duty as well as their interest. And here I shall again quote Jesus. "Take "therefore no thought for the morrow, for the morrow shall take "thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof," (Mat. vi. 34.) and I think still more the work thereof. This precept of Jesus, we all feel to be nonsense if applied literally to tomorrow,—to a year,—or to less than our probable life. It cannot refer to the past, and the only reasonable interpretation, or rather the only interpretation which can make it reasonable, is to take it as applying to the distant hypothetical to-morrow which religion invents. Let us then devote our exclusive attention to promoting morality here, and fear not that that will ever prevent our being amply religious hereafter, if the appropriate season should ever arrive.

But verily, verily, I say unto you, except our righteousness (morality) excel the righteousness of the religious scribes and pharisees,—we are not fit for the kingdom of Earth.