Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - LatestIngersoll, Robert Green
Religion
Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest
Ingersoll, Robert Green
Free thought
The next great doctrine is on the preservation of the saints. Now,
there are peculiarities about saints. They are saints without their
own knowledge or free will; they may even be down on saints, but its no
good. God has got a rolling hitch on them, and they have to come into
the kingdom sooner or later. It all depends on whether they have been
elected or not. God could have made me a saint just as easy as not,
but He passed me by. Now you know the Presbyterians say I trample on
holy things. They believe in hell and I come and say there is no hell.
I hurt their hearts, they say, and they add that I am going to hell
myself. I thank them for that; but now let's see what these tender
Presbyterians say of other churches. Here it is:
This confession of faith calls the pope of Rome anti-Christ and a son
of perdition. Now there are forty Roman Catholics to one Presbyterian
on this earth. Do not the Presbyterians rather trample on the things
that are holy to the Roman Catholics, and do they respect their
feelings? But the Presbyterians have a pope themselves, composed of the
presbyters and preachers. This confession attributes to them the keys
of heaven and hell and the power to forgive sins. [Here extracts are
read.] Therefore these men must be infallible, for God would never be
so foolish as to entrust fallible men with the keys of heaven and hell.
I care nothing for their keys, nor for any world these keys would open
or lock; I prefer the country.
We are told by this faith that at the last day all the men and women
and children who have ever lived on the earth will appear in the self
same bodies they have had when on earth. Everyone who knows anything
knows the constant exchange which is going on between the vegetable and
animal kingdom. The millions of atoms which compose one of our bodies
have all come from animals and vegetables, and they in their turn drew
them from animals and vegetables which preceded them. The same atoms
which are now in our bodies have previously been in the bodies of our
ancestors. The negro from Central Africa has many times been mahogany
and the mahogany has many times been negro. A missionary goes to the
cannibal islands and a cannibal eats him and dies. The atoms which
composed the missionary's body now compose in great part the cannibal's
body. To whom will these atoms belong on the morning of the
resurrection?
How did the devil, who had always lived in heaven among the best
society, ever happen to become bad? If a man surrounded by angels
could become bad, why cannot a man surrounded by devils become good?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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