We have previously written that the process of vaccination is “doing evil that good may come,” per Romans 3:8:
And not rather, (as we be slanderously reported, and as some affirm that we say,) Let us do evil, that good may come? whose damnation is just. (KJV)
Vaccination is doing evil that good may come because it is definitely endangering one in order to supposedly avoid a hypothetical danger; like intentionally receiving a bite from a poisonous snake in the hopes of being immune to a poisonous snake bite in the future. In both mad cases, one poisons the bloodstream in the name of avoiding danger!
(What about necessary surgery that has risks, you may ask, and vaccination? Are they the same concept? Not that I accept that vaccines are effective, given the use of statistical manipulation, but for argument’s sake, let’s note that necessary surgery is taking a potential danger to avoid an existing danger, while vaccination subjects one to an existing danger in the name of avoiding a potential danger. Thus, necessary surgery and vaccination are actually opposite concepts, with the latter being an insane process, once one thinks about it. More about surgery and vaccination here.)
Christians have always been divided on the ethics of vaccination. As for those who have seen vaccination for the evil that it is, the recognition that vaccination is “doing evil that good may come” is not novel; there has been Christians who have discerned this throughout the history of vaccination (and its forerunner, inoculation). It’s not, after all, hard to recognize vaccination as “doing evil that good may come” once one learns about the countless deaths and injuries caused by vaccines, whether from the past (see, for example, here and here) and the present.
Below are some examples of the historical testimony. We include not just statements on vaccination, but inoculation, since the latter was the forerunner to the former, and both processes are analogous – and thus an ethical argument against one is an ethical argument against the other.
(Smallpox inoculation would be replaced by smallpox vaccination, and, of course, other vaccinations would follow.)
Note: while we are not sure if every person quoted here was a professing or actual Christian, they were at least living under the influence of a Christian culture, and in their statements sought to apply biblical ethics. Those quoted lived in either America or Great Britain.
Reverend John Williams (1721)
Reverend John Williams (1664-1729) was a Puritan minister in New England. He was a leading voice in the colonies in opposing smallpox inoculation following its introduction.
Williams said the following in opposition to smallpox inoculation. While he doesn’t specifically reference the biblical text in opposition to doing evil that good may come (Romans 3:8), he nevertheless implicitly condemns this immoral philosophy that inoculation assumes:
Now we fear there are many in the Grave the More for it [smallpox inoculation]; therefore we cannot believe that it is a successful Way of preventing Death. …
From the Means and End of effecting the Action, It is well or ill disposed. Tis a Duty to go to hear God’s Word preached, but ’tis unlawful to steal a Horse to ride to hear it. ‘Tis lawful to preserve Life, but it must be in a lawful way. All Circumstances must concur to make the Action good: The failing but in one Circumstance doth make the Action evil. See Hag. 2: 11, 12, 13, 14.
Reverend John Williams, Several arguments proving, that inoculating the small pox is not contained in the law of physick, either natural or divine, and therefore unlawful: together with a reply to two short pieces, one by the Rev. Dr. Increase Mather, and another by an anonymous author, entitled, Sentiments on the small pox inoculated ; and also, a short answer to a late letter in the New England Courant. (Boston, MA: J. Franklin, 1721), 10, 12.
Reverend Edmund Massey (1722)
While Reverend John Williams was a leading voice against inoculation in America, Reverend Edmund Massey was a leading voice against inoculation in England. In 1722, he elaborates on the sin of doing evil that good may come, and includes inoculation as one such sin:
A Natural or Physical Power does not always infer a Moral one : That is to say, a Man cannot lawfully do every Thing that is in his Power to do. Thus we abstain from acts of Injustice and Oppression, although they may be gainful to our selves, out of regard to Morals, notwithstanding they lie within the Compass of our Abilities. Thus the Apostle adviseth us, Not to let our Good be evil spoken of ; that is, not to do any unwarrantable Action, for the Sake of any subsequent Benefit : Because the End, however good intentionally, can never justify in Law, nor sanctify in Religion, the use of Means that are bad, to come at it : But on the contrary, the use of bad Means designedly, corrupts the Morality of the intended Good : For to make an Action good, ’tis necessary that all its Parts, be lawful, innocent and good also ; whereas the Depravity of any One, is sufficient to denominate that whole Action, Evil : Now the Apostle forbids us to do Evil, tho’ Good should come of it, upon Pain of Damnation, which absolutely prohibits all unjustifiable Arts and Practices, be the Event never so beneficial and desirable ; so that although we have a Power to give a Man a Disease, that is, tho’ we know the Way how it may be done ; since a bare Power or Knowledge, does not infer the Morality of so doing ; till that is ascertained, we ought to forbear all Experiments of that sort. For even Uncertainty and doubting in moral or religious Cases, lays a positive, or at least a prudent Restraint upon Practice, because, as the Apostle says, Whatsoever is not of Faith, is Sin.
Reverend Edmund Massey in Mr. Boyer, ed., The Political State of Great Britain for the Month of August, 1722. (London: T. WARNE), 116, 117.
Theodore Delafaye (1753)
Theodore Delafaye of Canterbury, an Anglican clergyman, preached a sermon against inoculation on June 3, 1753. Here he considered inoculation as doing evil that good may come.
As William White writes, he preached
from the text, ‘Let us do evil that good may come’ (Rom. iii. 8), and published it under the title of Inoculation an Indefensible Practice.
William White, The Story of a Great Delusion in a Series of Matter-of-fact Chapters (London: E.W. Allen, 1885), 42.
Clericus (1857)
We don’t know who “Clericus” is. He submitted comments to The Homeopathic Record which were published in 1857. Perhaps, given his pseudonym, he was a clergyman.
In his comments, he condemns vaccination as doing evil that good may come, and comments on another statement in Romans 3:8, “whose damnation is just.”:
It has always been a matter of amazement to me that medical men of the old school do not soon perceive the mischief they are doing. I object to their mode of proceeding, (for one cannot call it a system,) on religious grounds also. For what is bleeding, blistering, purging, and setting up one disease to cure another, but “doing evil that good may come?” And does not the inspired apostle say of them whose actions are prompted by such a principle of expediency, their “damnation is just?” But I really do not see why the practice of vaccination should be exempt from this sweeping condemnation. Are we justified in disobeying a divine command from any motives of expediency? But in this as in every other instance of doing evil that good may come, if we are to believe the facts that Mr. Gibbs has brought forward, the good done is only apparent—sickness and mortality have by no means diminished thereby, only they have assumed other forms.
Clericus, “Correspondence: To the Editor of the Homeopathic Record,” in The Homeopathic Record (no. 10, vol. 2) (August 1, 1857), 202.
Reverend William Hume-Rothery (1872)
Reverend William Hume-Rothery was an Anglican minister in the Church of England and served as president of the Anti-Compulsory Vaccination League.
In 1872, he published the book Vaccination and the Vaccination Laws: a Physical Curse and a Class-tyranny. In this book, he considers vaccination as doing evil that good may come – a practice that is completely indefensible for Christians:
The theory of this so-called Vaccination is that we must do evil that good may come : create a disease to prevent a disease; a minor, which may be followed by life-long sufferings or a speedy and untimely death, to prevent a major, which might never occur, and could not possibly occur if the laws of health were faithfully obeyed. This theory would justify every description of wickedness within certain bounds. It, and the practice alluded to, which is based upon it, must, therefore, be indefensible on any Christian or rational ground whatever.
Reverend William Hume-Rothery, Vaccination and the Vaccination Laws: a Physical Curse and a Class-tyranny (Manchester: W. Tolley, 1872), 2.
Henry Veysey (1877)
In a letter to the editor of the Taunton Courier in 1877, Henry Veysey applies biblical arguments to oppose mandatory vaccination. While Scripture generally requires submission to the ruling authorities, in the case of a law that requires one to do evil — such as vaccination — one must obey God by disobeying that law:
[V]accination is unscriptural. We profess to be subject to God’s Word, and there we are told to “submit to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake” (1 Peter ii., 13). If vaccination did all its supporters assert yet we read that the condemnation of such is just who say, “Let us do evil that good may come” (Romans iii., 8). I therefore dare not insert a filthy disease with fearful possible diseases (even to death in many cases) to escape small-pox, which may never come, and which, like scarlet fever, or measles, is an effort of nature to get rid the body of irritant matter. Sorry indeed shall I be to be obliged to appear to disregard the order of gentlemen whom privately I respect and loyally I would do my utmost to obey, but in this case I must “obey God rather than men.” Trusting that the law on this point may be soon altered, and that thus we shall be released from our present unpleasant position …
Henry Veysey, “Vaccination Prosecutions [To the Editor.],” The Taunton Courier, Wednesday, November 21, 1877. British Newspaper Archive (www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk); The British Library Board
Image © THE BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
W. Stoddart (1879)
W. Stoddart, in an 1879 letter to the Stockton Herald, argues against submitting to a law to vaccinate his child. It is immoral to harm a child in order to avoid a potential harm; and if criminal law was consistent, killing a child with vaccination would be punished by the state:
I refuse to have my child vaccinated because vaccination, by which a disease called cow-pox is given to a child, is a direct violation of the laws of Nature. The human body is protected in various ways against the attack of disease, and to cut open the veins and inject the virus of a disease into the blood is clearly unnatural; moreover, there is a danger of other diseases being communicated along with the vaccine. Hundreds of cases could be adduced of children being murdered by law by vaccination. …
These murders are justified on the plea that vaccination is a preventive against small-pox, but can it be right to give a child one disease to guard against the possibility of catching another? ‘To do evil that good may come’ is acknowledged to be a vicious maxim, and can it be right to do a less evil to prevent the possibility of a greater evil happening? Even if vaccination were a sure preventive to small-pox, which it is not, it is unnatural and immoral to give a disease to a child. If I were to give any other disease to a child, and the child died, I should be charged with murder, and the law of the State cannot make that right which is wrong and immoral in itself.
W. Stoddart, Stockton Herald, September 27, 1879, quoted in The Daily Gazette, September 27, 1879, 4.
British Newspaper Archive (www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk); The British Library Board
Image © THE BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Albert Carter (1892)
In Vaccination Tracts, published in 1892, Albert Carter, Surgeon Dentist, notes the ongoing oppression of humanity via the philosophy “Let us do evil that good may come” — with vaccination being one of the newer manifestations of this oppression:
“Let us do evil that good may come” is a falsehood as old as the human race. In one age it shows itself in one enormity ; in another period of history, the sacerdotalists through several centuries murder, torture, rob, lie, or cheat, the better to enable them to teach other people not to murder, torture, rob, lie, or cheat. And just when the last cries of their victims are dying away, the medical world busy themselves in diseasing every child born, with the pious intention of making the population healthy. And this idea having once taken possession of their mind, they are becoming daily more anxious to spread and develop it.
“Our Fathers’ Teeth were Sound: Why do our Children’s Teeth Decay?,” in Vaccination Tracts, “Vaccination Subverts Dentition, and is a Cause of the Prevalent Deformity and Decay of the Teeth” (Providence: Snow & Farnham, 1892), 14.
John Brown (1897)
John Brown, vestryman and Poor Law Guardian, resided in London. In the Wiltshire Times in 1897, he applies Scripture to the matter of fighting disease. There are biblical ways to combat disease, but this does not entail vaccination – evil that good may come; a mockery of God:
The word of God gives no countenance to the doing of evil that good may come. You can only sow disease and reap immunity from disease when you successfully mock God; there is absolutely no warrant for the use of disease in fighting disease; and the very thought of using disease as an ally, and making war upon health is utterly repugnant to Bible sanitation. Bible sanitation gives warrant for notification of diseases, for isolation and disinfection, but neither in Old or New Testament are we enjoined to send the physician to the healthy and only the healthy, as is done by vaccination.
Ella Stewart-Peters, From ‘Ignorant Mothers’ to ‘Conscientious Fathers’: Cornwall and the Vaccination Act, 1840-1907 (Thesis Submitted to Flinders University for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, July 2018), 20. Quote from Wiltshire Times, 31 July 1897.
Reverend Isaac Lockhart Peebles (1902)
Isaac Lockhart Peebles was a Methodist Reverend who wrote a thorough critique of vaccination in the book Unanwerable Objections to Vaccination, published in 1902.
In this book Peebles takes aim at the twisted, evil philosophy that justifies killing a few with vaccines in order to save many. Such a philosophy obviously justifies doing evil that good may come, which Peebles implicitly opposes in the following strong words:
The plea of the advocates of these [vaccination] abominations when cornered is, it is right to kill a few in order to save many. What a plea! Kill a few to save many! In reality it is killing many to save none. The commandment of the God of the universe is ignored, whose commandment is: “Thou shalt not kill.” (Ex. xx. 13; Rom. xiii. 9.) O killers of the people, an awful day awaits you! And may you realize this awful truth before it is forever too late! ]ust simply open your eyes and behold your diseasing, tormenting, unmerciful, and deadly work, and repent most sincerely of it, and cease it at once and forever before our God shall call you before him to account for it!
Reverend Isaac Lockhart Peebles, Unanwerable Objections to Vaccination (Nashville, TN: South Bigham & Smith, 1902), 50.
John W. Hodge (1908)
John W. Hodge was a medical doctor and author of the book The Vaccination Superstition (1902). In 1908, he wrote a piece titled “Practice of Medicine: State-Inflicted Disease in our Public Schools.”
Regarding mandatory vaccination, he here connects doing evil that good may come with the evil philosophy “the end justifies the means.”
It is contended … by those who favor compulsion that this is a matter in which “the end justifies the means.” The answer is that no possible end can justify a means which makes the possession of a sound and healthful body a misdemeanor, and violates the conscience of law-abiding citizens. To do evil that supposed good may come is wholly indefensible in both law and morals. I am aware that the doctrine that “the end justifies the means” has been frequently used in the past for the defense and justification of all sorts of cruelties and crimes, and it will probably be so employed in the future. Since, in the very nature of things, it can never be right to do evil that possible good may come, the end does not justify the means in this case.
J. W. Hodge, M.D., Niagra Falls, N. Y., “Practice of Medicine.: State-Inflicted Disease in our Public Schools,” in Medical Century, vol. XVI, no. 10 (October 1, 1908), in Willis A. Dewey, M.D., and J. Richey Horner, M.D., eds., Medical Century: An International Journal of Homoeopathic Medicine and Surgery, vol. XVI, January to December, 1908. (New York and Chicago, 1908), 310.
If you find this site helpful, please consider supporting our work.
