gone and served other gods, and worshiped them, either the
sun, or moon, or any of the host of heaven, which I have not commanded;

"And it be told thee, and thou hast heard of it, and inquired
diligently, and behold, it be true, and the thing certain, that such
abomination is wrought in Israel;

"Then shalt thou bring forth that man or that woman, which have
committed that wicked thing, unto thy gates even that man or that
woman, and shalt stone them with stones till they die." (Deut. xvii,
2-5.)

That is the religious liberty of the bible--that's it. And this god
taught that doctrine to the Jews, and said to them, "Any one that
teaches a different religion, kill him!" Now, let me ask, and I want to
do it reverently, if, as is contended, God gave these frightful laws to
the flesh, and come among the Jews, and taught a different religion,
and these Jews, in accordance with the laws which this same God gave
them, crucified him, did he not reap what he had sown? The mercy of all
this comes in what is called "the plan of salvation." What is that
plan? According to this great plan, the innocent suffer for the guilty
to satisfy a law.

What sort of a law must it be that would be satisfied with the
suffering of innocence? According to this plan, the salvation of the
whole world depends upon the bigotry of the Jews and the treachery of
Judas. According to the same plan, we all would have gone to eternal
hell. According to the same plan, there would have been no death in the
world if there had been no sin, and if there had been no death you and
I would not have been called into existence, and if we did not exist we
could not have been saved, so we owe our salvation to the bigotry of
the Jews and the treachery of Judas, and we are indebted to the devil
for our existence. I speak this reverently. It strikes me that what
they call the atonement is a kind of moral bankruptcy. Under its
merciful provisions man is allowed the privilege of sinning credit, and
whenever he is guilty of a mean action he says, "Charge it." In my
judgment, this kind of bookkeeping breeds extravagance in sin. Suppose
we had a law in New York that every merchant should give credit to
every man who asked it, under pain and penitentiary, and that every man
should take the benefit of the bankruptcy statute any Saturday night?
Doesn't the credit system in morals breed extravagance in sin? That's
the question. Who's afraid of punishment which is so far away?