AN EXAMINATION OF THE AGE OF REASON, OR AN INVESTIGATION OF TRUE AND FABULOUS THEOLOGY.
BY THOMAS PAINE:
BY GILBERT WAKEFIELD, B. A.
Late Fellow of Jesus-College, Cambridge.
Nullius addictus jurare in verba magistri,
Quo me cunque rapit tempestas, deferor hospes.
HOR.
A little Learning is a dangerous Thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian Spring.
There shallow Draughts intoxicate the Brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again.
POPE.
LONDON:
SOLD BY KEARSLEY, NO. 46, FLEET-STREET.
1794.
TO THE FRIENDS OF RELIGION. REFORMATION, AND UNIVERSAL PEACE, OF EVERY DENOMINATION; AND PARTICULARLY TO THE SOCIETIES OF GREAT-BRITAIN AND IRELAND, ASSOCIATED FOR THESE GOD-LIKE PURPOSES; THIS DEFENCE OF THE RELIGION OF JESUS IS AFFECTIONATELY DEVOTED
BY THE AUTHOR.
ERRATA.
Page 27, line 11th, for
one
right
angle,
read
two
right
angles.
— 28, line 9th, for
son
of righteousness, read
sun
of righteousness.
N. B. The references are made to the first edition of Mr. Paine's book.
AN EXAMINATION OF THE AGE OF REASON, &c.
THAT the former writings of
Thomas Paine
abound with indications of original conception and profound thought, of comprehension and sagacity, far beyond the vigour of vulgar minds, no man, I presume, of character for intelligence and integrity will venture to deny. To the authority of venal sycophants, and all the retainers of corrupt and wicked systems, whether in
politics
or
religion,
no competency can be allowed in a decision upon this subject: but, on the contrary, the virulence of their abuse is in itself no unequivocal symptom of extraordinary merit: just as the screams and tumult of the feathered tribe prove some bird of nobler presence and more ample pinion to be approaching. The work, which I have undertaken to examine, is entitled to particular respect from the circumstances of it's composition. It is the effusion of a pregnant intellect, sobered by the meditations of a solitary prison, not unattended probably by some apprehensions of such a catastrophe, as a crisis of things so novel and eventful, may daily and hourly be expected to produce. The reflections therefore of such a season, from so popular a name, on a subject of such universal interest, is secure, we may presume, of considerable attention in this country, from those who are occupied in the discussion of their
civil
and
religious creed:
a number, which has certainly increased of late with surprising rapidity, and will, I hope and believe, go on encreasing with an accelerated progress. On this account, I conceived myself not unlikely to serve the cause of revealed truth by an examination of a deistical pamphlet, which seemed so fair a candidate for extensive circulation: and I felt the more inclination to this talk, not from an arrogant persuasion of superior knowledge and abilities, but from a clear conviction, that
Christianity
CANNOT be vindicated adequately and consistently against
Deism
by any slave of
systems
and
establishments;
well aware in the mean time, that all my zeal for
Christianity
will not screen me from the malice of those, who love
church-emoluments
better than
scripture-truth;
because an opportunity will arise of exposing the trumpery and nonsense of
ecclesiastics.
The time is come, when all our opinions must be tried at the touchstone of severe enquiry: and, if the
Jewish
and
Christian
Revelations cannot support themselves against the batteries of their assailants, in the estimation of capable and disinterested judges, the out-posts must be abandoned; and a retreat secured to the fortresses of
deism,
already occupied by the patriarchs of old, and the illustrious philosophers of later times. The sway of
creeds
and
councils,
of
hierarchies
and
churches,
whether
Protestant
or
Popish,
over the bodies and consciences of men, is diminishing apace: and the temple of revelation, deprived of the mouldering props, which priestcraft, and tyranny, and superstition had framed for it's support, must repose solely on it's proper basis, the adamant of TRUTH.
After premising a short introduction, explanatory of his motives to this work, our ingenuous author delivers his creed:
I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life.
I join the writer in assent to these articles of faith. That
Creed
of
Christian Churches,
which acknowledges
Jesus Christ
also to be
God,
and the
Holy Spirit
to be God, is a fundamental violation of all theology; a doctrine, alike unknown to the
Heathens
and the
Jews,
and contemplated with abhorrence by the followers of
Moses
from it's first propagation to this very day: a doctrine, inconsistent with the plainest declarations of
Christ
himself and his apostles; a doctrine, which no human testimony whatever could render credible; a doctrine, which will happily prove a mill-stone of destruction to all
political
establishments of
christianity.
Our author thus proceeds in his confession:
I believe the equality of man, and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavouring to make our fellow-creatures happy.
All diversity of
civil privileges
and
titular distinctions;
all inequality, but the transient and casual inequality produced by personal exertion, public benefit, or private worth, is destitute of even the shadow of support from nature or revelation. We are all children of one common father: and
Jesus
of
Nazareth
allowed no pre-eminence among his disciples, but that of mutual subjection, condescending service, profound humility, and self-abasement
Matthew, xx. 25—29. Romans, xii. 2. Ephesians, v. 21. 2 Peter, v. 5.
; of which lowly virtues he proposed himself as a complete example. It requires but a trivial portion of sagacity to discover, that certain orders and descriptions of frail creatures, encompassed with every inducement to be corrupt
themselves,
and plentifully furnished with every means of corrupting
others,
cannot be peculiarly calculated to promote the general happiness of mankind; and this happiness we are compelled to regard as the prime object of the divine administration. It was a beautiful sentiment of Plato
Dial. v. de Republicâ.—
, that
the affairs of states would never be well conducted, 'till philosophers were kings, or kings philosophers.
He, who vindicates corruption in society, and discountenances a progress to all perfection, of which humanity is capable, from the stale topic of the inevitable depravity of human beings, discourages every effort for virtuous pre-eminence, degrades the dignity of our nature, libels his species, and thwarts the measures of divine government.
Christians
at least might be expected to bestow some readiness in their attempts of conforming to the injunctions of their divine teachers, by striving to be
perfect
Philippians, iii. 12. 2 Tim. iii. 17.
,
and thoroughly furnished unto all good works
by
leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, and going on unto
perfection
Hebrews, vi. 1.
.
In our present state of embarrassment and degradation from a thousand causes, it were presumptuous ignorance, bordering on profaneness, to prescribe a limit to the capacities of mortality, either in moral or intellectual exertion. He at least cannot be deemed
unfriendly
to his species, or contemptuous to the divinity, who thinks respectably of the workmanship of God, of the rational image of his Creator.
Again:
I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.
This too may be conceded, if by
the creed of the Protestant church,
be meant that monstrous farrago of absurdities and contradictions, concentrated with most ingenious and comprehensive brevity, in the
creeds
denominated the
Athanasian
and
Nicene;
which, without the expedient of repeating backwards, would
— "with a vengeance send,
"From Media post to Egypt
Paradise Lost, iv. 170.
"
a much more untractable daemon than Asmodeus
The creed of the holy
Bishop Athanasius,
till I am better informed, is of too hard a digestion for my charity.
Dryden
's preface to his
Religio Laici.
: or, if some clauses even of the
Apostle's creed
were intended by our author; clauses, which may be found indeed in the
liturgies
of
established churches,
but are certainly not "written in the book of life."
All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.
A just remark, concisely and pregnantly expressed.
National churches
are that
hay and stubble
1 Corinthians, iii. 12.
which might be removed without difficulty or confusion, from the fabric of religion, by the gentle hand of reformation, but which the infatuation of
ecclesiastics
will leave to be destroyed
by fire
verse, 13.
.
National churches
are that incrustation, which has enveloped, by gradual concretion, the diamond of
christianity;
nor can, I fear, the genuine lustre be restored, but by such violent efforts as the separation of substances so long and closely connected must inevitably require.
Nor can I forbear the quotation of another paragraph, replete with manly sense and dignified morality, conveyed in simple but energetic language; though not immediately pertinent to the discussion, which I have in view; especially as fewer occasions of approbation and coincidence will be presented in our progress through the pamphlet.
It is impossible to calculate the moral mischief, if I may so express it, that mental lying has produced in society. When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind, as to subscribe his professional belief to things he does not believe, he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime. He takes up the trade of a priest for the sake of gain, and in order to
qualify
himself for that trade, he begins with a perjury. Can we conceive any thing more destructive to morality than this?
These very rational and important observations are applicable in the fullest latitude to the
subscriptions
exacted from young men at our
Universities
for
degrees,
and for the candidates for the ministry in the
Church
of
England.
It is a most shocking reflection to every lover of truth and honesty, that a requisition to acknowledge a multitudinous mass of
theological
and
political
propositions, denominated
articles of religion,
which many have never read, and which they, who read, cannot understand; that an assent, I say, to such a monstrous and unintelligible hodge podge of scholastic reveries should be made an indispensable condition to the privilege of preaching the
truths
of
Christianity.
The simplicity and sincerity of the gospel cannot fail of furtherance and support, beyond all controversy, from those, who begin their godly functions in such trifling with veracity and the solemnity of oaths! who thus bind themselves to the belief of certain tenets manufactured and imposed by others; and thereby preclude themselves (in addition to the indirect impediment in the way of acquiring truth, interposed by this unequivocal declaration of indifference to her interests) from pursuing their theological enquiries beyond the limits assigned by
councils
and
parliaments
in former days, by an express obligation not to exceed the knowledge of their forefathers, nor to dispute their opinions, whether true or false. I cannot myself conceive a case more palpably immoral and indefensible: nor can we be surprised at a plenteous harvest of
unbelievers
in a vineyard cultivated by labourers of this complexion.
Every national church or religion has established itself by pretending some special mission from God communicated to certain individuals. The Jews have their Moses; the Christians their Jesus Christ, their apostles and saints; and the Turks their Mahomet; as if the way to God was not open to every man alike.
This statement is frivolous and erroneous in the extreme. The system of
Jesus Christ
proceeds upon the very supposition here instituted, that "the way to God
is
open to every man alike;" as might be proved by many passages in the
Christian
Scriptures. What the
Jews
and
Christians
maintain in behalf of their respective systems, is: that their founders delivered to mankind rational sentiments of the Divine nature, of his existence, and his providential government of the world, at a time, when ignorance and depravation, with respect to these fundamental canons of religious rectitude, were almost universally predominant. With relation to the writings of the
Jews,
it is altogether undeniable, and is a truth of the utmost weight and magnitude, that our accumulated discoveries in science and philosophy, and all our progress in other parts of knowledge, has not enabled the wisest of the moderns to excel the noble sentiments conveyed in the didactics and devotional compositions of the
Old Testament;
compositions, many of which existed, without dispute, before the earliest writings of heathen antiquity, and at a period, when even those illustrious instructors of mankind, the
Greeks
and
Romans,
were barbarous and unknown. It would gratify me much, I confess, to be informed in what manner the contemners of the
Jews
and of the
Mosaic
system account for this singular
phoenomenon:
which indeed might be stated with abundantly more fullness and cogency, if it were necessary on this occasion. Will
Thomas Paine
the
deist,
or any of our modern
atheists,
undertake the solution of this difficulty?—Besides, let any man compare the simple morality and the noble precepts of the Gospel, as they relate to the attributes of God and the duties of humanity, with the monstrous theology, with the subtleties and the contradictory schemes of contemporary moralists, among the
Greeks
and
Romans;
(who nevertheless had, in all probability, profited mediately or immediately by the
Jewish
system, which could not exist without diffusing some influence through the neighbourhood) and reflect at the same time, that a perfect manual of morality may be collected from a few pages in the gospel, but must be picked in
Pagan
writers from a multitude of discordant volumes, and a mass of incoherency and absurdity: and then condescend to furnish us with an explanation of what must be allowed on all hands a surprising fact; namely, the existence of such superior intelligence in a
Jewish
carpenter at
Nazareth.
So then, though we concede to
Mr Paine,
that "the way to God was open to every man alike," we affirm of the
Jewish
and
Christian
dispensations, that
they
only were
this way
to any man desirous of entertaining rational notions of God and human duty. Without the illumination, which has been distributed through the world from these dispensations,
Thomas Paine,
and other
deists
of our own and succeeding ages, who fancy themselves so very philosophical and intelligent in their theology, would have known full as little of the matter, to speak with moderation, as much wiser heads than their's, among the illustrious nations of antiquity, deprived of these advantages, so much contemned and so ungratefully enjoyed. The natural inference from these indubitable positions is clearly,
some
degree of supernatural communication, which we stile
Revelation,
to the founders of
Judaism
and
Christianity, Moses
and
Jesus;
and the denial of such communication leaves a problem, I apprehend, of much more arduous solution; but which we may now expect the wonderful disciples of modern reason to explain in a way, that will leave no further difficulties on the subject.
As it is necessary to affix right ideas to words, I will, before I proceed further into the subject, offer some observations on the word
revelation.
Revelation, when applied to religion, means something communicated
immediately
from God to man.
No one will deny or dispute the power of the Almighty to make such a communication if he pleases. But admitting for the sake of a case, that something has been revealed to a certain person, and not revealed to any other person, it is revelation to that person only. When he tells it to a second person, a second to a third, a third to a fourth, and so on, it ceases to be a revelation to all those persons. It is revelation to the first person only, and
hearsay
to every other; and consequently, they are not obliged to believe it.
This statement also is inaccurate, fallacious, and inconclusive. Let us see, if we can exhibit a rational and unexceptionable representation of the point in question. A revelation is made to one person in the first instance;
Moses,
for example. He communicates this revelation to a
second
party, his countrymen, the children of
Israel.
But does he expect them to believe this message on a mere assertion, so that their assent may be stiled a
hearsay
revelation? No such thing. He delivers his credentials with the message, and sanctions his pretensions by some display of supernatural agency. Whether such display were in reality made in the case before us, is not now the question: I am only exhibiting the proposition in it's proper form, and stating the fact, as it exists, whether authentically or otherwise, in the
Mosaic
history: and hence, I think, it is abundantly manifest, that
Mr Paine's
notions of the character and condition of the
Jewish
and
Christian
revelations are so confused, as to render his account altogether unsuitable to the purpose in view, and most effectually impertinent. And this answer, I apprehend, will serve for all contained in the succeeding paragraphs, which are also wholly foreign to the subject; a mere inapplicable figment of our author's bewildered imagination.
It is a contradiction in terms and ideas to call any thing a revelation that comes to us at second hand, either verbally or in writing. Revelation is necessarily limited to the first communication. After this it is only an account of something which that person says was a revelation made to him; and though he may find himself obliged to believe it, it cannot be incumbent on me to believe it in the same manner; for it was not a revelation made to
me,
and I have only his word for it that it was made to
him.
When Moses told the children of Israel that he received the two tables of the commandments from the hand of God, they were not obliged to believe him, because they had no other authority for it than his telling them so; and I have no other authority for it than some historian telling me so: the commandments carrying no internal evidence of divinity with them. They contain some good moral precepts, such as any man qualified to be a law-giver or a legislator could produce himself, without having recourse to supernatural intervention.
In a note our author subjoins a sarcastical reflection, with which his fancy seems not a little tickled; and he proposes it accordingly with an air of self-complacency and exultation.
It is, however, necessary to except the declaration, which says, that God
visits the sins of the fathers upon the children.
It is contrary to every principle of moral justice.
But nothing in reality can possibly be more feeble and inefficient than this objection. The belief and worship of one true God, in opposition to a plurality of divinities and the vanities of idolatry, is the root of all genuine religion; and springs up into that stem, upon which every moral and social duty must be engrafted. Now, it is most notorious, mankind are so entirely the creatures of imitation, association, and habit, that a general prevalence of a false principle in one age has an obvious and unavoidable tendency to transmit this principle, with accumulated error and aggravation, to the age immediately succeeding
So
Horace,
Ode iii. 6.4.6.
Aetas parentum, pejor avis, tulit
Nos nequiores; mox daturos
Progeniem vitiosiorem.
. But history and experience uniformly ascertain, that, while individuals go unpunished, large societies and communities of men at least (and to the
Jews
in their national capacity were these commandments given) are, in the regular course of divine administration, chastised for their crimes, in consequence of the eternal alliance and inseparable connection between vice and suffering: yet these crimes are not their own crimes merely, but the aggregate wickedness of
themselves
and their
progenitors.
And with unfeigned sorrow do I regret, that
Thomas Paine
should himself be a standing evidence of this immutable dispensation; whilst he lies languishing in prison for an accidental attachment to the
Brissotine
faction, without one personal or political immorality to justify so harsh a treatment
This doctrine "of visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children" was seen and acknowledged by the
heathen
moralists So
Horace,
Od. iii. 8.1.
Delicta majorum immeritus lues,
Romane donec templa refeceris
Aedesque labentes deorum et
Foeda nigro simulachra fumo.
.
Our author proceeds:
When also I am told that a woman, called the Virgin Mary, said, or gave out, that she was with child without any cohabitation with a man, and that her betrothed husband, Joseph, said, that an angel told him so, I have a right to believe them or not: such a circumstance required a much stronger evidence than their bare word for it: but we have not even this; for neither Joseph nor Mary wrote any such matter themselves. It is only reported by others that
they said so.
It is hearsay upon hearsay, and I do not chuse to rest my belief upon such evidence.
These difficulties I concede to the
deist,
for my own part, in all their force; they are pertinent in themselves, and of serious significancy to those whom they may concern: but as the immaculate conception of
Jesus
by the
Holy Spirit
constitutes no
essential
article of
my
creed, and certainly rests on much weaker evidence, than any other important fact of all the gospels, I leave the vindication of it to the orthodox sons of the establishment. In the mean time, as one defect of demonstration
Mathemat. Princip. Philos. Nat. lib. ii. prop. 47.
has not impaired the general truth of the
Newtonian philosophy,
not even in the case of that particular doctrine, the propagation of
sounds,
so an occasional interpolation of one or two groundless circumstances will not invalidate the evidences of
Christianity:
they repose on a much broader and firmer basis than that of detached facts, knavish impositions on the superstitious, and unnecessary miracles. For the same reason, I shall not scruple to pass unnoticed the subsequent paragraphs of our antagonist, which direct their attacks on the wretched materials heaped up, for the security of usurped dominion and secular interest, by the hands of
priests
and
devotees:
a tribe of
Christians,
holden by
Mr Paine
and myself in equal veneration.
Nothing that is here said can apply, even with the most distant disrespect, to the
real
character of Jesus Christ. He was a virtuous and an amiable man. The morality that he preached and practised was of the most benevolent kind; and though similar systems of morality had been preached by Confucius, and by some of the Greek philosophers, many years before; by the Quakers since, and by many good men in all ages; it has not been exceeded by any.
Of these remarks the former part is excellent: the latter was never surpassed in ignorance and absurdity. The
Quakers
undoubtedly, take them all in all, are as a PRACTICAL society, the most respectable of all the religious sects that have come to my knowledge: but what can be more supremely ridiculous, than to exemplify their morality in contradistinction to that of the
gospel;
when they are one and the same? To say, moreover, of the
Christian
system merely, that "it has not been exceeded by any" systems ancient or modern, is such a misconception, as candour will choose to impute, not to malignant disparagement, but to an ignorance rather of the philosophical systems of antiquity, and the comparative merits of evangelical morality; which, I fear,
Mr Paine
has not examined with a minuteness and scrupulosity, that will authorise to a conscientious reasoner such peremptory decision on the case.
I wish those heavenly maxims of
Solon
and the son of
Sirach, Know thyself:
—and,
Understand first and then rebuke;
were more deeply impressed on the hearts and memories of us all: that we might not impose upon ourselves
conceit
for
knowledge;
upon our readers,
sophistry
for
argument,
and
dogmatism
for
intelligent conviction.
We are now arrived at the most important parts, in my judgement, of our author's production; to which I shall endeavour to reply directly, intelligibly, and without evasion: and, if I should prove unable to vindicate my faith in
Christianity
upon principles truly rational and unambiguously explicit, I will relinquish it altogether, and look for an asylum in the
deism
of
Thomas Paine,
and the
calm philosophy
of
Hume.
Jesus Christ wrote no account of himself, of his birth, parentage, or any thing else. Not a line of what is called the New Testament is of his writing. The history of him is altogether the work of other people; and as to the account given of his resurrection and ascension, it was the necessary counterpart to the story of his birth. His historians having brought him into the world in a supernatural manner, were obliged to take him out again in the same manner, or the first part of the story must have fallen to the ground.
To this argument against the resurrection of
Jesus,
various answers might be instituted: but I shall confine myself to one only, which appears to my mind incapable of confutation upon any principles of philosophy or experience; and will indeed admit of no dispute, but upon positions, subversive of all historical testimony whatsoever, and introductory of universal scepticism.
The numerous circumstances interspersed through the
Gospel narratives
and in the
Acts
of the
Apostles,
appertaining to the geography of countries, the positions of rivers, towns, and cities, public transactions of much notoriety in those days; the dress, customs, manners, and languages of nations and individuals; political characters of eminence and their conduct, with a vast multiplicity of detached occurrences and facts, not necessary to be specified at large, challenge (to speak with moderation) as large a portion of credibility to these books, considered in the light of
historical
testimonials, as can be claimed for any writings whatever, received as genuine, and equally ancient and multifarious. Now no mean presumption arises in favour of the most
extraordinary
transactions also, blended in the same texture of narrative by historians of so credible a character with respect to the rest of their relations; but, when these
extraordinary facts
are found to have so intimate an incorporation with the
common
and unsuspicious occurrences of these histories so as to admit of no detachment, but to stand or fall with the main body of the compositions; I cannot see how any historical probability of the authenticity of these
extraordinary
events can rise higher than in such an instance. But it will be proper to unfold the purport of this reasoning, which admits abundant illustration, more explicitly, by a particular example.
The apostles,
Peter
and
John,
after the death of their Master, being summoned before the priests and elders of the
Jews
Acts iv. 7.—v. 27.
, boldly assert in their presence, that
God had raised Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom the
Jews
had crucified, from the dead.
After some examination and debate, the two
apostles
are commanded by those magistrates and rulers of the
Jewish
nation to teach no more in the name of
Jesus.
But these intrepid followers of
Jesus
replied in precisely the words of
Socrates
to the
Athenians
In Apol. Platonis, p. 364. ed. Ludg. Acts v. 29.—iv. 20.
:
We ought to obey God rather than men: for we cannot but speak the things, which we have SEEN and HEARD.
And what was their prospect and expectation from this determination to perseverance? Nothing less than ridicule, contempt, persecution, poverty, bodily chastisements, imprisonment and death:—
"Starving their gains, and martyrdom their price."
Now, if we recollect in union with all this, what indeed should never be forgotten, that these apostles, the first teachers of
christianity,
the
companions
and
friends
of
Jesus,
did not endure these accumulated inconveniencies from a mere obstinate attachment to
speculative
opinions, in which, in my opinion, they were fallible as other men; but for asserting the palpable unquestionable evidence of their
external senses,
what "they had
heard,
and
seen,
and
handled
John, i. 1. See also Remark xli. in my Evidences of Christianity.
: no alternative of delusion or fallacy can be supposed; but their case stands clearly distinguished from that of every
future
victim to religious persuasions: liable, as they were, to no misconstruction, no precipitate and prejudiced judgements, no conceivable imposture. The falshoods therefore of
Christ's
resurrection in connection with this single fact, and all the train of collateral circumstances dependant from it, would, I am persuaded, upon any mathematical calculation of the sum of moral and historical presumption, amount to an improbability of the greatest magnitude, indefinitely approximating to a
miraculous event.
The resurrection and ascension, supposing them to have taken place, admitted of public and ocular demonstration, like that of the ascension of a balloon, or the sun at noon day, to all Jerusalem at least. A thing which every body is required to believe, requires that the proof and evidence of it should be equal to all, and universal; and as the public visibility of this last related act was the only evidence that could give sanction to the former part, the whole of it falls to the ground, because that evidence never was given. Instead of this, a small number of persons, not more than eight or nine, are introduced as proxies for the whole world, to say, they
saw it,
and all the rest of the world are called upon to believe it. But it appears that Thomas did not believe the resurrection; and, as they say, would not believe, without having ocular and manual demonstration himself.
So neither will I;
and the reason is equally as good for me and for every other person, as for Thomas.
Farther, The demonstration of the
resurrection
may have been sufficiently public to demand our assent, in conjunction with such a variety of corroborating coincidencies, though it were not attested by the ocular observation of all Jerusalem, which
Mr. Paine
supposes to be absolutely necessary to the establishment of this fact. The actual degree of publicity, however, attendant on this * transaction, according to the histories, may be learned from the texts referred to below
Matthew, xxviii. 9. Luke, xxiv. 13. John, xx. 19, 26.1 Corinthians, xv. 5—9.
. Not a thousandth part of the people in
Great Britain
saw
Lunardi
go up from the
Artillery Ground
in a
baloon;
but the superior impulse to any possible action upon my mind, who saw him, in consequence of that event, does not exceed the impulse to a similar action on the mind of another, who did
not
see him, by an
evanescent infinitesimal
of efficacy. The man, therefore, who is resolved to believe no transaction, but upon "ocular and manual demonstration," belies his own theory in every movement of his life. I might advance also, in aid of these remarks, that mankind are most evidently placed here in a state of
probationary imperfection;
that, instead of
certainty
for our guide, we are compelled to trust, on most occasions, to degrees of
probability
infinitely diversified; and that some of our noblest and most refined excellencies, moral and intellectual, spring from a diffidence and docility and lowliness of understanding, which
disputable evidence
is best calculated to produce. Besides, that exercise and agitation of our mental powers, which is inevitably generated by the delays and difficulties, intervening propositions of this nature and the attainment of moral certainty, in a painful disquisition of them, contribute essentially to the clearness, and vigour, and general salubrity of the understanding: just as rivers are meliorated and refined by a winding passage over sand and gravel
— fontes
liquidi, atque exercita cursu
Flumina. Virg. Geo. iii. 529.
. It might as well be pretended, that the faculties of man would be enlarged, and his condition improved, without the necessity of labour and ingenuity for the subsistence and well-being of common life: if the trees dropt honey into our mouths; if the land flowed with milk and nectar, as is fabled of the golden age
Ovid, metam. i. iii.
Flumina jam lactis, jam flumina nectaris, ibant;
Flavaque de viridi stillabant ilice mella.
There is not more delightful poetry, than true philosophy in those lines of
Virgil,
Geo. i. 121.
— pater ipse colendi
Haud facilem esse viam voluit; primusque per artem
Movit agros, curis acuens mortalia corda,
Nec torpere gravi passus sua regna veterne,
The sire of Gods and men, with hard decrees,
Forbids our plenty to be bought with ease;
And wills that mortal men inur'd to toil,
Should exercise, with pains, the grudging soil.
Himself invented first the shining share,
And whetted human industry by care:
Himself did handy-craft and arts ordain:
Nor suffered sloth to rust his active reign.
DRYDEN.
. The declaration, therefore, of
Christ,
is no fanatical ejaculation, but a position strictly philosophical and intrinsically wise:
Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they, that have
not seen,
and yet have believed
John, xx. 29.
.
No considerate and inquisitive christian will pretend, that he sees the truth of his master's resurrection and the system supported by it, with the same intuition, which perceives the equality of the
three angles
of a
triangle
to one
right angle.
He is satisfied with thinking an acquiescence in this grand doctrine strictly rational and philosophical, if he descries it's indissoluble connection with other numerous occurrences of the highest probability; if it forms a most important link in one concatenated series of divine communications, dignified and important in themselves, corroborated by contemporary histories, and ascertained almost to demonstration by the preceding and present existing circumstances of mankind at large: if, in short, nothing can be discovered in such a system, unfit for man to receive, or the Creator to bestow; but, on the contrary, innumerable indicacations present themselves of that benevolence to the human race, which is to us the most convincing characteristic of the divinity.
It is vain to attempt to palliate or disguise this matter. The story, so far as relates to the supernatural part, has every mark of fraud and imposition stamped upon the face of it. Who were the authors of it is as impossible for us to know, as it is for us to be assured, that the books in which the account is related, were written by the persons whose names they bear. The best surviving evidence we now have respecting this affair is the Jews. They are regularly descended from the people who lived in the times this resurrection and ascension is said to have happened, and they say,
it is not true.
It has long appeared to me a strange inconsistency to cite the Jews as a proof of the truth of the story. It is just the same as if a man were to say, I will prove the truth of what I have told you, by producing the people who say it is false.
That the story of the resurrection
has every mark of fraud and imposition stamped upon the of it,
is the hardy assertion of one, who must be deemed to have nothing better to offer than
hardy assertion,
'till he present us with a deduction of particulars in vindication of his confidence: and, if the books should
not
be written in reality by those identical persons, whose names are affixed, the truth of the facts themselves is deducible from a mass of collateral and independent evidence. And with respect to the incredulity of the
Jews,
many satisfactory reasons may be alledged. I have been assured indeed, and upon authority exceedingly respectable, that in the written annals of the
Israelitish
nation, reposited at
Venice
and
Amsterdam, two
miracles of
Jesus
stand recorded; one of which is the resuscitation of the widow's son at
Nain
Luke, vii. ii.
: but I would not wish this argument to pass for more than it's proper value. It is, however, acknowledged by the
Jews,
that such a person as
Jesus
of
Nazareth
existed
See Bishop Lowth's note on Isaiah, liii. 8.
, and at the time assigned by the
Evangelists:
but motives numerous and highly probable may be suggested for their rejection of him. The
Jewish
nation were expecting a magnificent leader and glorious conqueror, not an obscure
Nazarene
and humble teacher of religion: they were at that time, as appears from their countryman
Josephus,
and from the
Roman
and
Evangelical
historians, a people exceedingly vicious and depraved: their leading men, with their chief priest and scribes, whose opinions and authority swayed the whole nation, according to the custom of corrupt communities, hated and reviled
Jesus,
not only for that simplicity and purity of life, which read a lecture of tacit reprobation to their ostentatious and immoral characters, but much more from his public and unreserved reproof of their ignorance, their tyranny, their selfishness, their extortion, and hypocrisy. Now, if it should be rejoined to these allegations, (and nothing else discoverable by me can be rejoined) that
miracles,
if
Jesus
really performed them, would not have failed to overpower their prejudices and animosity; I reply
first;
that the
Jews,
who admitted the possibility of working miracles by a confederacy with evil spirits, and a skill in magical operations
This is manifest from
Josephus,
as well as various passages of the
New-Testament.
, would much more easily take refuge in that popular solution, than surrender their emoluments, their vices, and their religious professions, entwined as these were with great intellectual depravity; than offer up such costly sacrifices to the name and authority of a detested Censor. And,
secondly,
daily experience presents us with innumerable instances of a perseverance in vice and folly, which, the unhappy victims of this tyranny are in their own minds fully assured, will as inevitably terminate in wretchedness and destruction, as if the evidence of such an issue were ascertained by a
miracle.
But the subject before us admits of further illustration from the example of
Mr. Paine
himself. In this country, where his opposition to the corruptions of government has raised him so many adversaries, and such a swarm of unprincipled hirelings have exerted themselves in blackening his character and in misrepresenting all the transactions and incidents of his life; will it not be a most difficult, nay, an impossible task, for posterity, after a lapse of 1700 years, if such a wreck of modern literature, as that of the ancient, should intervene, to identify the real circumstances, moral and civil, of the man? And would a true historian, such as the
evangelists,
be credited at that future period against such a predominant incredulity, without large and weighty accessions of collateral attestation? And how transcendently extraordinary, I had almost said
miraculous,
will it be esteemed, by candid and reasonable minds, that a writer, whose object was, a melioration of condition to the common people, and their deliverance from oppression, poverty, and wretchedness, to the numberless blessings of upright and equal government, should be reviled, persecuted, and burned in essigy, with every circumstance of insult and execration, by these very objects of his benevolent intentions, in every corner of the kingdom?
Upon the whole, we find no difficulty in declaring, that what has astonished
Mr. Paine
so long, should astonish him no longer: as no species of reasoning is more common and more legitimate, than that which proves the truth of a circumstance from the evidence of corrupt and interested witnesses, who assert it to be false. The very denial of such a people as the
Jews
is no mean presumption in favour of the character of
Jesus.
Indeed,
Mr. Paine
pleads this cause with so much ability in our favour and against himself, that I should be unpardonable in with-holding the next paragraph, replete with cogency and good sense, from the notice of the reader.
That such a person as Jesus Christ existed, and that he was crucified, which was the mode of execution at that day, are historical relations strictly within the limits of probability. He preached most excellent morality, and the equality of man; but he preached also against the corruptions and avarice of the Jewish priests; and this brought upon him the hatred and vengeance of the whole order of the priest-hood.
In the following pages, from p. 13 to p. 21,
Mr. Paine
enters into what he calls
a bold investigation, and which, he apprehends, will alarm many.
Upon this topic of discussion our author fancies himself, no doubt, extremely eloquent; and, instead of plain sensible
Thomas Paine,
he commences a tumid and hypertragical declaimer. A most formidable and pompous representation is exhibited of the
devil;
with a detail of the battles, the transformations, the imprisonment, and other strange adventures of his
Satanic
majesty. All this, I grant, may swell into a serious difficulty with good
churchmen
and puritanical fanatics, but to myself, and others of the same orthodox standard, occasion no embarrassment at all, being received with exactly the degree of credit vouchsafed them by
Thomas Paine
himself. The whole fable of the
Devil
and his angels, with all it's terrific appendages, has been gratuitously fabricated by the sons of superstition from one or two emblematical passages in the
Revelations,
where the author has delineated future characters and events under the guise of these fictitious personages. No legitimate rules of interpretation, and no circumstances of the
Jewish
or
Christian
systems, make it necessary for us to regard the
Devil,
or
Satan,
in any other light than that of an
allegorical character.
This mode of
personification
was perfectly suited to the taste of the
orientals;
who delighted in speaking, not only in striking metaphors, but by
actions;
and whose compositions are a tissue of figurative and emblematical expression. The origin of evil, moral and natural, is a problem, which has exercised the ingenuity of man, since the creation of the world; and the
Hebrews
relieved the distress of mind, resulting from these disquisitions, by personifying the
evil principle
under the denomination of
Satan,
or the
enemy.
The
Greeks
also had recourse to a similar contrivance for their satisfaction on this point; and employed
Ate,
the
Furies,
and other malignant deities, as convenient substitutes for
the origin of evil
See Homer's Iliad, xix. 87, 91.
. Nor were similar fictions, with a view to the same embarrassment, unknown to the followers of
Confucius
and
Zoroaster,
to the natives of
Peru
and
Mexico.
But
Mr. Paine's
information upon the subject of modern theology must be very slender indeed, or he would have known, that those, who have distinguished themselves of late years by the freedom of scriptural research, unfettered by the chicanery and bribery of
establishments,
have exploded these monstrous doctrines, which receive no real countenance from the genius of the
Christian
covenant, or the sense of scripture; and will soon have no existence but in the creeds of
Dames
and
Nurses.
Alass! our
Deist
fancied himself in stout combat with genuine
Christianity,
whilst he was buffeting a mere phantom of ignorance and superstition! So easy is declamation against folly!
These books, beginning with Genesis and ending with Revelations (which by the bye is a book of riddles that requires a Revelation to explain it) are, we are told, the word of God.
The vindicator, who occupies himself in the confutation of such unsupported and dogmatical assertions, is not much more excusable, than the
ignoramus,
who has the audacity to produce them. I thus express myself with unreserved censure, upon a probability of the highest kind, that
Mr. Paine
never studied the
apocalypse
with an express view of deciding upon the authenticity of that singular composition. When he has done this, and is able to invalidate merely those incontrovertible
internal
symptoms of genuineness, which the synchronisms, the curious coincidences and arrangement of the parts, detected and elucidated with such incomparable skill and clearness by
Joseph Mede,
carry with them to every dispassionate examiner, it will then be proper and seasonable to discuss the allegations of our deist. But that the random fiction of a distempered brain should be marked with such characters of truth, as are found on the face of the
apocalypse,
is to me perfectly inconceivable.
When the church mythologists established their system, they collected all the writings they could find, and managed them as they pleased. It is a matter altogether of uncertainty to us whether such of the writings as now appear, under the name of the Old and the New Testament, are in the same state in which those collectors say they found them; or whether they added, altered, abridged, or dressed them up.
Be this as it may, they decided by
vote
which of the books out of the collection they had made, should be the WORD OF GOD, and which should not. They rejected several; they voted others to be doubtful, such as the books called the Apocrypha; and those books which had a majority of votes, were voted to be the word of God. Had they voted otherwise, all the people, since calling themselves Christians, had believed otherwise; for the belief of the one comes from the vote of the other. Who the people were that did all this, we know nothing of; they called themselves by the general name of the church; and this is all we know of the matter.
In answer to this undigested and inaccurate statement of the case, I observe, as follows: It is most certain, and ought not to be dissembled, that
all
the books of the
Old
and
New Testaments
have not come confirmed to us by the same degree of evidence. They may be properly distributed into two classes, Books of
Fact,
and Books of
Opinion.
Under the former class I would comprise from
Genesis
to the book of
Job,
with the
Gospels
and
Acts
of the
Apostles;
and under the latter, to make the largest concession to this argument, the
Hagiographa
and
Prophets,
i. e. all the remainder of the
Old Testament,
with the
Epistles
and
Apocalypse
of the
New.
Now, that we may wave all discussion of the evidences and importance of the latter collection, the
Christian
and
Jewish
systems need no support beyond the authenticity of the
historic
class: and I assert in the fullest confidence, and appeal to a multitude of publications in behalf of this assertion, that no history whatever, taking it's antiquity into consideration, has more claims to be received as genuine, than the histories in question. And what need of circumstantial detail in repelling the objections of men, who really know just nothing of the subject, and satisfy their
reason
and
philosophy
by peremptory asseveration only, unilluminated by one single ray of information on the topic in dispute
I have long had in contemplation a work relative to the authenticity of the
Old Testament,
similar to my
Evidences of Christianity;
which I hope some day to execute.
? To contravene positions, that have been discussed again and again by writers of the first genius and erudition, and to disparage the genuineness of the
bible histories
wholly and indiscriminately, without some precision of investigation, some specific allegations, founded on the report of authentic documents, is intolerable arrogance, and the consummation of literary profligacy. With respect to the
internal
evidences of these
histories,
I am persuaded, and would engage to prove in detail, that they are exceedingly superior to those of any ancient records whatever, whose authenticity is admitted; evidences, of which no man will doubt, who does not insist, on
mathematical demonstration
in cases only susceptible of varying
probabilities.
However this be, it is my settled persuasion, deduced from experience and the manners of mankind, that, if no
written memorials
of the
Jewish
and
Christian
dispensations were at this moment in existence, the present condition of the professors of these systems, as a traduction of believers in a certain system, composing vast aggregates of men through a succession of ages, in a variety of instances persecuted, distressed, and destroyed for their belief, cannot be accounted for, but on a supposition of the original reasonableness of these dispensations, in the apprehensions of the
first
professors; and consequently of their probable authenticity: unless indeed we are resolved to exempt the men of those aeras from the common benefits of rationality. It were most easy to enlarge on this subject; but more has been said already, than such desultory and unsubstantiated allegations have any reason to expect: and I shall only add, from a multiplicity of cogent instances, with reference to
one
branch of evidence of the first moment, that a comparison of the xxviii. chapter of
Deuteronomy
only, with the subsequent and present state of the
Israelitish
nation, must slash conviction, I should think, upon any mind, not totally prejudiced and perverted, in favour of the
prophetical
pretensions of the
Scriptures:
for that the book of
Deuteronomy
was composed
posterior
to these events, what effrontery even of unlearned
deism,
if it hazard the assertion, will undertake to prove?
Revelation is a communication of something, which the person, to whom that thing is revealed, did not know before. For if I have done a thing, or seen it done, it needs no revelation to tell me I have done it, or seen it, nor to enable me to tell it, or to write it.
This is not only the
essence,
but the
quintessence,
of all weakness and absurdity: and affords a melancholy instance, how men of real genius and abilities must expose themselves, when they venture to discuss subjects of the highest moment, for which they are qualified neither by reading nor reflexion. Such presumption is no other than the case, simply but pointedly described by the apostle:
Professing themselves to be wise, they become fools
Romans, i. 22.
.
Mr. Paine
has given us a notable definition truly; in which the term to be explained constitutes a part! But, to pass by this stupidity; how sayest thou, child of reason?
Revelation is a communication of something unknown before.
So then, not only the professors of philosophy at the higher places of education, but every dame, that teaches the
horn-book
in a country village, communicates, it seems, a
revelation!
And the man, who so defines and so conceives, and, upon the strength of such definition and conception, talks
about it and about it
with all the fullness of self-sufficiency, is able, it should seem, to demolish
Judaism
and
Christianity
with a few dashes of
his
pen, and to establish mere deism on their ruins!
"How would our fathers rise up in a rage,
"And swear all shame is lost in
George's
age!"
What our redoubtable antagonist immediately subjoins, savours of equal imbecillity, and total misapprehension of the subject under contemplation. The greater part of the
bible-history
contains simply a narrative of the
political
occurrences of the
Jews;
and the transactions recorded are, therefore, in a variety of instances to be considered in the same light with those of all other histories; namely, as aggravated and disguised in a thousand instances by passing through the medium of national partiality. The history of
Sampson
is, on this account, to be credited in proportion only to that degree of probability, measured by the common experience of mankind and the state of the world in those days, which the history itself shall claim in the estimation of reasonable judges, under such qualifications and deductions, as will by no means invalidate the main body and the leading facts of the narrative in the light of a national register of persons and events.
I agree with
Thomas Paine,
that
the account of the creation, with which the book of Genesis opens, has all the appearance of being a tradition, which the Israelites had among them before they came into Egypt; and after their departure from that country, they put it at the head of their history, without telling, as it is most probable that they did not know, how they came by it.
But what majesty of sentiment, what a dignified simplicity of expression, characterises the
Mosaic
account of the creation of the world! Compare only this elegant and compendious relation with the strange, confused, and despicable
cosmogonies
of the
Greeks:
for it is manifest from internal evidence, that
Ovid's
beautiful description was constructed upon the
Mosaic
narrative: nor, otherwise, is it probable, that the literary
Romans
of the
Augustan
age should be strangers to the
Greek
translation of the
Old Testament
Fuscus Aristius,
to whom
Horace
addresses the 22d Ode of the
first
Book, and his
tenth
Epistle, one of the most intimate and beloved friends of the Poet, was either a native
Jew,
or a
proselyte:
compare Sat. i. 9.60,—72.
.
To all that occurs between pages 23 and 31, as far as they comprehend any objections to the
Jewish
institution, a very satisfactory answer has, if I mistake not, been already given. One predominant error in page 24, it may not be unseason, able to detect.
Mr. Paine
there asserts:
Why it has been called the Mosaic account of the creation, I am at a loss to conceive. Moses, I believe, was too good a judge of such subjects to put his name to that account. He had been educated among the Egyptians, who were a people as well skilled in science, and particularly in astronomy, as any people of their day.
All this may be literally true; but a palpable
untruth
is implied in it; that the
Aegyptians
were really a learned and scientific people: whereas their science and their astronomy was just nothing at all. If not, produce me your vouchers to this fact, from existing monuments or ancient testimony
See a posthumous dissertation by
Dr. Woodward
in the
Archaeologia
of the Society of Antiquaries, vol. iv. dissert. 19.
. Political society was undoubtedly existing in much stability and regularity at a very early period in
AEgypt;
but probably not earlier than in
China
and
Indostan,
or, perhaps, other pleasant and fertile countries of the
East;
but where shall we find the scientific discoveries of all, or any of these people, at the
Mosaic
aera? The only circumstance, which has fallen to my knowledge, that is favourable to the science of the
Aegyptians,
but in much later ages, is that eagerness, with which the
Grecian
sages travelled for information to this country. But the
Aegyptian
priests, like priests of other ages, cajoled mankind with juggling tricks, mysterious mythologies, lying legends of gods and heroes, and an imaginary chronology dependant on pretended observations of
eclipses;
and, I apprehend, the acquisitions of the Greeks from this peregrination, were no more than the general acquisitions of modern travellers, and those of
Ulysses
in ancient times; who, as we learn from
Pope's
translation of the
Odossey,
"Wandering from clime to clime, observant stray'd,
"Their manners noted, and their states survey'd."
The few elementary propositions in
geometry,
which are ascribed to
Pythagoras
and
Plato,
ought not to be imputed, in all probability, to any communications from the
Aegyptians;
but were the pure inventions of those most acute and god-like philosophers. Yes; such men, as
Plato
and
Pythagoras,
would either have learned more, or have learned nothing, from the
Aegyptians.
Not a day passes however, but authors are trumpeting the
science
of the
Aegyptians
upon all occasions; a science, which has no existence but in the misconceptions of their own brain, and the creeds of their teachers. And these
deists
after all laugh at
Christians,
forfooth! for their credulity.
If we permit ourselves to conceive right ideas of things, we must necessarily affix the idea, not only of unchangeableness, but of the utter impossibility of any change taking place, by any means or accident whatever, in that which we would honour with the name of the word of God; and therefore the word of God cannot exist in any written or human language.
What can be more frivolous, and more unworthy of a man of sense? A revelation, we suppose, is first conveyed to a particular person; he proposes it with the proofs of his mission to others; they transmit the same by tradition and written records to their posterity. It is acknowledged, that no succeeding evidence to future generations can strictly authorize that most indubitable conviction of the first immediate professor; but even
their
evidence may approximate to certainty beyond any assignable limits, so as to amount to a species of persuasion, from a concurrence of corroborating particulars, which is morally irresistible. Who, even at this day, can be assured, that
Michael Angelo
planned the fabric of
St. Peter's
at
Rome,
or
Sir Christopher Wren, St. Paul's
in
London,
with a satisfaction equal to that of the contemporaries of these transactions? And yet, what man in his senses entertains the least doubt of these respective facts? And so it
may be
with respect to the
Jewish
and
Christian
revelations; and so it
is,
notwithstanding any arguments of
Mr. Paine.
A few mistakes of copyists and printers make no more alteration in the
general
effect of this argument, than a new stone, or pinnacle repaired, will be deemed to abolish the pretensions of the primary architect to his structure.
I now go on to the book called the New Testament. The
new
Testament! that is, the
new
Will, as if there could be two wills of the Creator.
Scarcely a single
Christian
can be found, I believe, so totally ignorant and untutored, as not to know, that the
New Covenant
is the proper title of this book. Most completely ridiculous then does
Mr. Paine
make himself by his serious contest with vulgar and exploded errors. A plain demonstration this, how little of what is new and important
he
has to bring forward on these long agitated disquisitions.
From p. 33 to 36, not an
iota
of remark is to be discovered, that does not disgrace the meanest understanding: and no objection, that a school-boy could not confute. My countrymen must be degenerated into a
swinish multitude
indeed, to find any nutriment in such a mess of pigs-meat, as these wretched caterers
David Andrews
and
Thomas Paine
have provided for them. But what better can be expected from
zeal
without
knowledge?
Nothing indeed, but dogmatism, misrepresentation, nonsense, and obscurity. In short, to employ our author's own words in p. 38.
I become so tired with examining into the inconsistencies and absurdities of
Thomas Paine's
effusion, that I hasten to the conclusion of it, in order to proceed,
but on very unpromising speculation of success, "to something better."
It is most true, as our author asserts in p. 40,
The church has set up a system of religion very contradictory to the character of the person whose name it bears. It has set up a religion of pomp and of revenue in pretended imitation of a person whose life was humility and poverty:
yet, according to the stale but just maxim, whose dictates
Mr. Paine
has so incessantly and egregiously violated in this crude production;
ab abusu ad usum non valet consequentia:
quentia:
these
corruptions
are not chargeable on the spirit of
true christianity:
the argument will not infer from
perverted revelation
to
no revelation
at all. No: there are, we trust, such things in being, as
truth, philosophy,
and
revealed religion,
in spite of
lying Chroniclers, imaginary systemmongers,
and
meretricious theologians.
Your notion of
redemption,
upon which you so largely expatiate and so tragically declaim in the following pages, is the notion derived probably from your
quaker
father and the good fraternity, among whom you received your education: but is not the notion of the scriptures. Our doctrine is, that God created man pure and upright, with a capacity of conforming himself in all respects to the injunctions of the divine will
So
Solomon.
Lo! this only have I found; that God hath made man upright, but they have sought out many inventors.
Ecclesiastes, vii. 29.
: that life without cessation was the proposed reward of unfailing obedience; and death the punishment of transgression. Man deviated from the line of rectitude, by listening to the seductions of wayward appetite; and became justly exposed to the penalty denounced against sin. His heavenly father, who in the midst of judgement remembers mercy, and delights, through the whole conduct of his providential administrations to mankind, in educing good from evil, renews his covenant with his fallen creatures; promises to reverse this sentence of death, and to re-establish him in his claim to immortality by means of another dispensation at a future season, which appeared to divine wisdom the best calculated for it's promulgation. Accordingly, in the fulness of time, after a preparatory system, whose chief object was the establishment of a belief in one God, in opposition to the corruptions of idol-worship;
Jesus
of
Nazareth
was commissioned to preach in
Judea
the terms of acceptance with the Almighty. These were, a belief and practice of the doctrines, which this apostle preached, and confirmed by miracles: the doctrines of unbounded mercy on the part of God upon repentance and reformation, and of universal undistinguishing benevolence on the part of man to all his brethren of the human race: principles essential in themselves to the virtue and happiness of mankind; and therefore required as the conditions of divine favour, by this system of revelation. Thus was the inestimable privilege of immortality again indulged to the world; and
Jesus
himself was propounded as the
voucher
of this truth. Hence manifestly appears the reason, why, he did not
die of a fever, or of the small-pox, of old age
Page 36, of
Mr. Paine's
Pamphlet.
,
or in any private customary manner; but by a public exhibition of death upon a cross: that he, whose resurrection had been previously appointed by himself for the test and demonstration of the whole
christian system
as it related to the destruction of death and the gift of immortality, might be shown to the world unequivocally and indubitably
dead
See Remark, xliii. in my evidences of
Christianity.
Had
Jesus
died in any of the ways pointed out by the wisdom of
Mr. Paine,
we should have been called upon to clear the suspicions of collusion and imposture from the privacy of that event.
. This may be regarded as a brief abstract of the
evangelical
scheme of redemption according to my conception of it; a scheme, which admits of abundant illustration and establishment from a multiplicity of considerations, conformable alike to reason, philosophy, and experience: but neither does the present occasion permit, nor the weight of
Mr. Paine's
objections require, a more copious display or a more scrupulous corroboration of our creed.
In page 46, you say,
Jesus Christ could speak but one language, which was Hebrew,
with as much confidence, as if you had been personally acquainted with him. Now my opinion is, that the inhabitants of
Judea,
and the greater part of the
Roman
empire, understood
Greek
also as well and generally as the
Irish
understand
English:
but what claim have those, who decide without knowledge, to any satisfaction on this point? My wish is to excite in the deistical lovers of truth a desire to examine for themselves; a sober estimate of their own acquirements; and a modest persuasion, that the disciples of
Christ
may have
some
reasons, not wholly puerile and inefficient, for their attachment to their religion: and I recommend, in the mean time, to the consideration of the
atheist
(if such men really exist; which I doubt exceedingly) what
Mr. Paine
advances in the 48th and following pages, and at the conclusion of his pamphlet. I know not, whether
Mr. Paine's
remarks on the languages of the ancients
Page 65, and the following.
can be thought worthy of any animadversion as we pass. I observe, however, that as all men have not that docility and humility of mind, which is essential to an acceptance of
Christianity,
but wrap themselves up in a cloak of ignorance and self-sufficiency; so neither have all that sensibility of perception, and that elegance of taste, which is necessary to a relish of the inimitable beauties of ancient composition. I may be, for example, a delicate bird, delighting in strawberries and the choicest fruits:
Thomas Paine,
a crow; who prefers a feast on carrion and putrescence. The genius and faculties of men are diversified with in finite shades of texture: and it seems to be the duty of every individual to prosecute that branch of literature, with peculiar devotion, for which nature has peculiarly fitted him. Poetical inspiration and the powers of eloquence were not given by God without some wise intention, with respect both to the possessor and mankind at large.
Nec tua laudabis studia aut aliena reprendes:
is a sensible and valuable maxim of an
Augustan
poet. The compositions of the
Greeks
and
Romans
stand as yet unrivalled in the universe; and their admirers are much confirmed in their attachment, when they perceive their censurers to be those, who know little, or nothing, of the subject themselves, and scruple not to incur an imputation of most contemptible impertinence for so irrational an interposition of their judgement. Besides, I have not yet discovered, that the best philologists are generally inferior in any
other
branch of knowledge to the wise-acres, who undervalue these attainments, merely because they have not the means of acquisition. Have the cultivators of the languages more natural powers therefore than other men? By no means: but their youth has been happily exercised in those pursuits, in which youth can only be occupied, very generally speaking, with complete efficiency. In all that
Mr. Paine
has said on this subject, I discern little more than a collection of ignorance, misconception, effrontery, and insipidity.
The event that served more than any other, to break the first link in this long chain of despotic ignorance, is that known by the name of the reformation by Luther. From that time, though it does not appear to have made any part of the intention of Luther, or of those who are called reformers, the Sciences began to revive, and Liberality, their natural associate, began to appear.
The reformation arose from an insight into the corruptions and absurdities of Popery, in consequence of a freedom of enquiry already commencing, and a steady conviction of servility, disgraceful to a rational being, in a submission of the understanding to the arbitrary dictates of a spiritual usurper. The reformation, therefore, by
Luther
was only one circumstance in the recovery of the natural right of man, to think and determine for himself. But the benefits of the reformation were momentous and extensive; and particularly by removing those apprehensions of personal danger, which debarred all progress to true philosophy in countries, where the
Papal
domination was established. And surely it forms no mean presumption in favour of the reasonableness of revelation, that the restoration of science and the rectification of religion should be congenial and contemporary; that the beams of knowledge should dispel the damps and darkness of ignorant superstition, but contribute illumination and vigour to the sincere gospel of
Jesus Christ.
The most distinguished mathematicians and philosophers of our own country,
Bacon, Boyle, Newton, Locke, Barrow,
and
Hartley,
have been the firmest believers of the
Christian
revelation: and not passive educational believers merely, accepting with implicit acquiescence the traditionary creeds of their teachers; but strenuous assertors and most able vindicators of the authority, the importance, and the rationality of the
gospel.
I would recommend to the notice of
Thomas Paine
the following passage in the life of
Emlyn
See my Evidences, Remark xxxix.
:
Dr. Halley,
said
Sir Isaac Newton,
I am always glad to hear you, when you speak about
astronomy,
or other parts of
mathematics;
because that is a subject you have studied, and well understand: but you should not talk of
Christianity;
for you have not studied it. I have; and know you know nothing o
the matter.
Mr. Paine
descants with a tolerable share of merriment, in page 109, on the story of
Jonah
and the
Whale;
which my own stomach also feels an equal indisposition to ingurgitate. It is not unlike a tale, that I lately heard; which many will think not inferior to that before us in symptoms of credibility. A little black-boy, a favourite with the ship's company, as he was carelessly sitting with his bread and cheese, suddenly fell overboard; and was instantly swallowed by an immense shark. Some sailors, witnesses of this catastrophe, exclaimed: "Caesar is devoured by a shark." The captain immediately commanded a hook to be baited with a huge piece of beef; which the monster seized at once with the utmost rapacity. He was drawn with difficulty upon deck; his tail cut off to prevent mischief; and the most trembling precaution used in opening his stomach for fear of wounding it's inestimable contents. But how great was their admiration and delight to discover little
Caesar,
perched on a tubercle of the purtenance, dispatching his bread and cheese in perfect composure and security!
I have now finished my remarks on this pamphlet of
Thomas Paine;
which have been extended thus far, more in deference to the deserved celebrity of the name, than the powers of the disputant: nor am I conscious to myself of eluding any difficulty, or shrinking from the terrors of a single argument, in the course of this examination. To the best of my ability, a concise answer to every objection, not completely puerile, has been specifically given, or is virtually included in this series of observations. Nor, in conclusion, will I dissemble one of my most urgent inducements to this publication to have been, an ambition to declare to my fellow-citizens in the most unreserved manner, that one in the midst of a general obloquy on reformers, as infidels and atheists, is indeed a zealous advocate for
Christianity;
but, as becomes the disciple of a
lowly
and pacific master, with as warm an enthusiasm for the universal equality and the unalienable rights of man, as ever actuated the breast even of the "hallowed MILTON." The more perilous the times, with the more animation will a genuine votary of a crucified Saviour, who "looks for a better country, that is, a heavenly
Hebrews, xi. 16.
," feel himself impelled to a bold and open profession of the practical principles of his religion; the principles of LOVE and PEACE and LIBERTY, without distinction, to the whole human race. This is the profession of our faith before atheists and unbelievers; before ministers and kings: from this profession, neither shall shame seduce, nor danger terrify. It shall be our guide through life, our support in death, and, we trust, our recompense for ever!
I implore, finally, the omnipotent controller of events, who
ruleth in the kingdom of men and giveth it to whomsoever he will
Daniel, iv. 32.
,
to consider his creature man in this most momentous crisis of our affairs! to stem that torrent of human blood, which is deluging the earth, at the will of
Christian
kings, beyond all example in the most ferocious ages of heathenism and barbarity! to confound the devices of all sanguinary destroyers of mankind, combined against liberty and knowledge; the true "synagogues of Satan
Revelations, ii. 9.
" and to turn their hearts! to annihilate every sentiment of national hostility in every breast; that the horrid circumstances of war and slaughter may no where exist, but in the bloody page of history, as awful memorials of savage unregenerated man! to regard the sorrows of the distressed
African;
and to compensate with ages of consolation
the years, in which he has seen adversity
Psalm, xc. 15.
!
to confirm and comfort the glorious martyrs of truth, humanity, and freedom, whether in bonds or exile; to multiply the number of their followers, that rising generations may call them blessed! to overpower the delusive flame of infatuated superstition, engendered in the putrid sink of priestcraft, tyranny, and persecution, by the predominant radiance of the son of righteousness, the pure and undefiled religion of
Jesus Christ!
to consolidate all flesh with the cement of evangelical fraternity
Matthew, xii. 50. xxiii. 8.
and benevolence! to harmonize all hearts with the sympathetic influences of "unity, peace, and concord!"
HACKNEY,
May 8, 1794.
THE END.
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