The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 01 (of 12): Dresden Edition—LecturesIngersoll, Robert Green
Religion
The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 01 (of 12): Dresden Edition—Lectures
Ingersoll, Robert Green
Free thought
The Episcopal creed is substantially like the Catholic, containing a few
additional absurdities. The Episcopalians teach that it is easier to
get forgiveness for sin after you have been baptized. They seem to think
that the moment you are baptized you become a member of the firm, and as
such are entitled to wickedness at cost. This church is utterly unsuited
to a free people. Its government is tyrannical, supercilious and absurd.
Bishops talk as though they were responsible for the souls in their
charge. They wear vests that button on one side. Nothing is so essential
to the clergy of this denomination as a good voice. The Episcopalians
have persecuted just to the extent of their power. Their treatment of
the Irish has been a crime--a crime lasting for three hundred years.
That church persecuted the Puritans of England and the Presbyterians of
Scotland. In England the altar is the mistress of the throne, and this
mistress has always looked at honest wives with scorn.
VIII. THE METHODISTS
ABOUT a hundred and fifty years ago, two men, John Wesley and George
Whitfield, said, If everybody is going to hell, somebody ought to
mention it. The Episcopal clergy said: Keep still; do not tear your
gown. Wesley and Whitfield said: This frightful truth ought to be
proclaimed from the housetop of every opportunity, from the highway
of every occasion. They were good, honest men. They believed their
doctrine. And they said: If there is a hell, and a Niagara of souls
pouring over an eternal precipice of ignorance, somebody ought to say
something. They were right; somebody ought, if such a thing is true.
Wesley was a believer in the Bible. He believed in the actual presence
of the Almighty.
God used to do miracles for him; used to put off a rain several days to
give his meeting a chance; used to cure his horse of lameness; used to
cure Mr. Wesley's headaches.
And Mr. Wesley also believed in the actual existence of the devil. He
believed that devils had possession of people. He talked to the devil
when he was in folks, and the devil told him that he was going to leave;
and that he was going into another person. That he would be there at a
certain time; and Wesley went to that other person, and there the devil
was, prompt to the minute. He regarded every conversion as warfare
between God and this devil for the possession of that human soul, and
that in the warfare God had gained the victory. Honest, no doubt. Mr.
Wesley did not believe in human liberty. Honest, no doubt. Was opposed
to the liberty of the colonies. Honestly so. Mr. Wesley preached a
sermon entitled: "The Cause and Cure of Earthquakes," in which he took
the ground that earthquakes were caused by sin; and the only way to stop
them was to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. No doubt an honest man.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 01 (of 12): Dresden Edition—Lectures — John Shaqi
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