Charles Pettit McIlvaine on Christianity blamed on the woes of history
The evidences of Christianity; in their external, or
historical, division: exhibited in a course of lectures, by Charles Pettit
McIlvaine ... Revised and improved by the author, with the addition of a
preface, by Olinthus Gregory ...
McIlvaine, Charles Pettit, 1799-1873.
2 p. l., xiii, [15]-108 [1] p. front. (port.) 19 1/2cm.
Philadelphia,
Smith, English & co.,
1861. http://www.hti.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=moa;idno=AJF6316.0001.001
LECTURE X.
THE FRUITS OF CHRISTIANITY,
Defence of Christianity against the Charge of being the Cause of the Wars, Persecutions, &c., which are connected with its History, p. 306.
Application of the Argument. The Absurdities
necessarily involved in the Creed of the Infidel, p. 312.
I am well aware, and I desire not to conceal, that it is
very common with infidels to ascribe wars,
intrigues, bloodshed, and persecutions,
to the influence of Christianity, and to assert that the world has been covered
with slaughter by the hand of the gospel. The truth is, that whenever any
evils, such as wars or persecutions, arise, though infidels by profession, or
mere nominal Christians, are at the bottom of them; though originated and
carried on out of direct enmity
to the gospel; yet, because the Christian name is involved in the contest,
infidels set down the whole to the account of a religion, which, nevertheless,
their chief men confess, has a direct tendency to make every body do his duty,*
* Rousseau.
and “to promote the peace and happiness of mankind.”t
t Bolingbroke.
But on the other hand, whenever any good is done in society, such as the banishment of the crimes and
vices of heathenism; the promotion of virtue, peace, good laws, good
institutions,
benevolence, domestic and public happiness; then infidels have great difficulty
in seeing how these blessings are connected with Christianity, even though, by
their own acknowledgment, the life of Jesus “showed at once what excellent creatures men would be, when under the
influence and power of that gospel which he preached.”’* Chubb’s True
Gospel, § viii. 55, 6.
It is freely granted that in countries called Christian, great evils remain to
be cured; their history abounds with wars, some of which have been on account of the Christian religion, and
have been accompanied with great slaughter and lasting enmities. But before
these deplorable facts can justly be attributed to the influence of the
peaceful and gentle religion of Jesus, a number of important questions, which
we shall presently name, must be decided. By the confession of one
of the most noted infidels: “We have in Christ an example of one who was just,
honest, upright, and sincere, and above all, of a most gracious and benevolent
temper and behaviour. One who did no wrong, no injury to any man; in whose mouth
was no guile; who went about doing good, not only by
his ministry, but also in curing all manner of diseases among the people. His
life showed what excellent creatures men would be when under the influence and
power of that
gospel which he preached unto them.”t
t Chubb’s True Gospel, §viii. 56, 57.
But hear on this head the eloquence of the profligate Rousseau,
venturing for once to speak the truth: “I will confess that the majesty of the
scriptures strikes me with admiration, as the purity of
the gospel has its influence on my heart. Peruse the works of our philosophers
with all their pomp of diction; how contemptible are they compared with the
scriptures! Is it possible that a book at once so simple and sublime should be
merely the work of man? Is it possible that the sacred personage whose name it records, should be himself a mere man? What sweetness, what purity
in his manner! What sublimity in his maxims! What profound wisdom in his
discourses!
Where is the man, where the philosopher, who could so live and so die without
weakness and without ostentation? If the life and death of Socrates were those
of a sage, the life and death of Jesus were those of a God.” Such are the
confessions of a man whose vice and vanity constrained him to say: “I cannot believe the gospel.” No wonder,
when at the same time he was saying in his heart, I will not renounce my debaucheries. But such confessions abound in the writings
of infidels, so that “the whole Christian argument might be maintained on the
admissions of one or other of the leading infidel writers, and no contest
remain, unless, if it could then be called one,
with the miserable, ignorant ferocity of Paine and his associates.”
**
On the ground of such acknowledgments, and of the
acquaintance which any who ever read the New Testament must have with its
principles and tendency, let the following questions be answered: Is there any
tendency in the principles of the gospel to the enkindling of strife, hatred,
war, or bloodshed? Was the character of its founder; were the characters of the
apostles and primitive Christians among whom the
native influence of Christianity was most unequivocally exhibited, in any
manner indicative of such a tendency in its principles? Is not the whole
history of the purest ages of the gospel, as well as every page in the New
Testament, directly in proof of the very opposite effect? Did not all the evils
of war and national dissension prevail much more
universally before the establishment of Christianity, than they have done
since? Is not the influence of this religion plainly visible in mitigating
those horrors of war which she has not
exterminated? And as to those which have continued to subsist, are they in
direct consequence, or in spite of her influence; the fruit of the tree, or the
poisonous weeds at its root, which oppose its growth? Are the men who have been
concerned in promoting these evils, and who are called Christians, believed to
have been real Christians? Do not
infidels discriminate sufficiently between genuine and nominal religion, to
understand that, in thus acting, they were departing from the principles of the
gospel, and proving that they were Christians but in name? “Have not the courts
of princes, notwithstanding Christianity may have been the professed religion
of the land, been generally attended by a far greater proportion of deists,
than of serious Christians; and have not public measures been directed by the
counsels of the former, much more than by those of the latter? It is well known
that great numbers among the nobility and gentry of every
nation consider religion as suited only to vulgar minds; and therefore either
wholly absent themselves from public worship, or attend but seldom,
and then only to save appearances towards a national establishment. In other
words, they are unbelievers. This is the description of men by which public
affairs are commonly managed, and to which the good or the evil pertaining to
them, so far as human agency is concerned, is to be attributed.”* * Fuller’s Gospel its own
Witness.
It is a favourite maneuvre with infidels to charge Christianity with all the
persecutions on account of religion, and, at the same time, to speak in high
terms of “the mild tolerance of the ancient heathens;” of “the universal toleration of polytheism;” of “the Roman princes
beholding without concern a thousand forms of religion subsisting in peace
under their gentle sway.”tt
tt Gibbon.
Better information on this subject is greatly needed in the
community. Heathen toleration was any thing but virtuous, and much less
universal than its modern eulogists would represent. It allowed all nations to establish
whatever description of religion they pleased, provided each
would acknowledge that all, in their several spheres, were equally good. But
pagan nations required of every citizen conformity to
the national idolatries. This yielded, he might believe
and be, whatever he pleased. This denied, immediately toleration ceased. Take a
few examples.
Stilpo was banished
the rights of the Roman state, that “no man shall have separate gods for
himself; and no man shall worship by himself new or foreign gods, unless they
have been publicly acknowledged by the laws of the state.*
* De Legibus, ii. 8.
The speech, in Dion Cassius, which Maccenas is said to have
made to Augustus, may be considered a fair index of the prevailing sentiment of
that polished age. “Honour the gods,” says Meecenas, “by all means, according
to the customs of your country, and force others so to honour them. But those
who are for ever introducing something foreign in these matters,
hate
and punish, not only for the sake of the gods, but also because they who
introduce new divinities mislead many others into receiving foreign laws also.
Suffer no man either to deny the gods, or to practise sorcery.” Julius Paulus,
the Roman civilian, gives the following as a leading feature of Roman law: “Those
who introduced new religions, or such as were unknown in their tendency and
nature, by which the minds of men might be agitated, were degraded if they
belonged to
the higher ranks, and if they were in a lower state, were punished with
death.” Under this legislation, many of the governors endeavoured to compromise
with Christians, by allowing them to believe and honour what they pleased in their
hearts, provided they would observe outwardly the religious ceremonies ordained
by the state.t
t See Neander’s Church History.
Examples to the same effect, might be greatly multiplied. I have furnished enough to show in what sense the heathen princes “beheld, without concern, a thousand forms of religions subsisting in peace under their gentle sway;” and how far Voltaire was accurately informed or honestly disposed, when boasting that the ancient Romans “never persecuted a single philosopher for his opinions from the time of Romulus till the popes got possession of their power.”
It is willingly conceded that persecutions on account of religion were
enormously increased immediately after the promulgation of Christianity; inasmuch
as nothing had ever before attacked the superstitions and vices of the heathen with
her undaunted, uncompromising spirit. But did Christianity persecute; or was
she the object of persecution? Was Jesus
the persecutor of Pilate? Did Paul persecute the worshippers of the Ephesian
Diana, or the heathen of Iconium, or those who stoned him at Lystra? By whose
intolerance was it, that, for three hundred years, the Christian church was
continually overflowed with the blood of her martyrs? Did the multitudes who perished for Christ’s sake, under the paw of the lion,
and the sword of the gladiator, and the screws of the rack-did they persecute
the heathen priests, and people, and magistrates-Nero, and Trajan, and
Diocletian-with their proconsuls, and governors, and executioners? I grant that
in the lapse of centuries the guilt of persecution did attach to the church. Christian
powers, and ministers, and people have, in various ages, been justly liable to
this lamentable charge. But who does not know that the church, before ever she
began to persecute, had manifestly degenerated from the purity of the gospel, and
become deeply poisoned with the spirit of the world, having her chief places
occupied by such men as infidels know were not influenced by vital Christianity?*
* The emperor Julian acknowledged that persecutions were the inventions of the
later Christians; that neither Jesus, nor Paul, nor any other of the first
preachers of the gospel, had taught men to kill others for being of a different
religion, or for differing about lesser matters among themselves. Lardner, iv. 337.
Who is so blind as not to see that wherever such evils have
existed among any people called Christians.
Any people called Christians, they have been
because those people had so little of the spirit of the gospel, and not because
they had any of it? They have been directly the reverse
of the religion professed by such persons; the fruits of their own native
disposition, combined with the character of the ages they lived in, assimilating
them thus far to infidels, who have always been persecutors in proportion to
their power. True Christianity desires but one favour: liberty to preach “Jesus
Christ and him crucified.” Her whole dependence is on “the demonstration of
the Spirit.” “God giveth the increase.”
We have now applied to Christianity the test by which she claims to be proved;
one universally employed as safe, and approved as just; the tree is known by its fruits. The religion of the gospel we have
seen coming into the world at a period when every moral evil abounded. The
grossest
idolatry, attended with the most inhuman and indecent rites, prevailed among
the most enlightened nations. Spectacles of slaughter and suffering constituted
the public amusements. Parents without
natural affection, children in slavery to their parents, and at the mercy of
their displeasure, the female sex degraded to a rank of servile inferiority,
murders and cruelties characterized the age. Vices of the most beastly kind
were practised and avowed in the highest and most influential classes of
society. What would now shame out of the world the most degraded of mankind,
could then be acknowledged, even by a public teacher of morals, without reproach.
Public opinion, the thermometer of public virtue, had no condemnation for
habits not only against all the securities of domestic happiness and social
welfare, but against every dictate of nature, and requiring for their
permission the lowest debasement of the moral sense of the community. Among all
the gentile nations, none possessed the benevolence to attempt, nothing had
power to effect, the reformation of a world thus sunk in wretchedness, and
paralyzed with vice. It was the era, indeed, of the world’s wisdom; but of a
wisdom by which the world knew not God. For
centuries, had the wise men after the flesh been teaching, and writing, and
boasting; and as long had every wo been increasing, and every school becoming
more perplexed in its doctrines, and more abandoned in the practice of its
disciples. No change, for the better,
was hoped for from any human source.
Then appeared “the wisdom of God.” Christianity,
uninvited, unwelcomed, rejected; Christianity, persecuted as intrusive,
despised as foolishness, ridiculed as weakness, commenced at this crisis the bold
work of regenerating the world. Wherever she gained acceptation the face of society
was renewed. Order, purity, benevolence, justice, mercy, every personal,
domestic, and public virtue increased as her influence extended. Under her
charge, immense communities of men and women were formed, who soon
became famous in the world for their earnest self-denying benevolence, and
their devotion to holiness. No sooner was Christianity professed by the rulers
of the
What, then, is Christianity? “Do men gather grapes of thorns,
or figs of thistles?” “Can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit?” This
religion is either a truth or a fable; the revelation of God, or the wicked and
blasphemous contrivance of man. If it be the work of human contrivance, it must
be unspeakably offensive to God, inasmuch as it ascribes all its doctrines
directly to His teaching; exalts its Founder to the dignity of the divine
nature, calling him the Son of God, and making him equal to the Father in power
and glory. Between its entire truth as a
divine revelation, and its unparalleled audacity and impiety as a human
imposture, there can be no middle ground. The unbeliever, in rejecting the former,
must resort, if consistent, to the latter. Then let us see how much he is bound
to believe in maintaining his position. He must believe that since the truth,
according to his views, does not reside in Christianity, it does reside in some
or all of the systems of religion, or of philosophy, or of infidelity, to which
Christianity is opposed. His creed, therefore, is substantially the following:’
I believe that in proportion as the world has ever been committed to the
influence of those antiChristian systems among which the truth is to be found;
it has been continually increasing in all moral degeneracy, having in it no
spirit nor power of reformation. I
believe, also, that in proportion as Christianity, which should be regarded
only as a human contrivance of the grossest blasphemy and impiety, has reigned
in the hearts and lives of men; the world has been morally renovated, society
humanized, benevolence invigorated, personal and public happiness extended and
purified. Consequently, I believe that a God infinitely wise, holy, and true,
has so constituted mankind, that for the improvement and well-being of society,
we are under the necessity of believing and promoting what is not only false,
but heinously offensive to Himself; truth must be concealed because we learn by
experience that its currency can only be accompanied with the greatest evils to
the morals, the peace, the whole interest of mankind; teachers of error and
darkness must be depended upon as instruments of human elevation, while
teachers of the truth should be discountenanced as capable of nothing but the
unhinging of the whole frame-work of private and public welfare.’ These, I say,
are the articles of belief which, whether avowed or not, do lie wrapped up in
the rejection of Christianity. The proof of this assertion is in the lecture we
are now closing. I need not say that it sets, in strong and shining relief, the
truth of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, as a revelation from Him who is
the giver of every good and perfect gift. “For the preaching of the cross is to
them that perish foolishness: but unto us which are saved it is the power of
God. Where is the wise? Where is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made
foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that in the wisdom of God, the
world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to
save them that believe; for the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after
wisdom: But we preach Christ crucified; unto the Jews a stumbling-block, and
unto the Greeks foolishness: But unto them which are called, both Jews and
Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God.”*
* I Corinthians, i. 18-24.