This quotation, when applied to the case in question, the Deists maintain to be unjust, and are for making a new reading, as being rather more applicable, viz.
"Men may live wisely, but fools they often die!"
"Shame!" the Deists cry, "forbear to disturb the departing moralist with your strange dogmas! His sole trust is in his Creator, therefore let his last hours be spent in peace! Your interference is useless, and as it adds to the sufferings of expiring humanity, may well be termed impious and cruel. And further, what conviction can be gained from making public the imbecile and terror-extorted confessions made by the dying; for as Rousseau rightly observes, it is "our reason that determines our belief, and when, through sickness, that faintly becomes impaired, what dependence can be placed on any opinion we may then adopt?"" All this seems at the first glance very striking and imposing, but is easily refuted. I shall confine myself, however, to only answering the latter part of the above. I maintain, then, that even shouting our dogmas in the ears of the dying,1 and thereby disturbing their last moments, is a mere trifle, when put in compet.i.tion with the eternal advantages that may by this means accrue to their souls. It is well known, that Christians formerly, more generally than at present, did not scruple to compel men to become converts; and when the heretics, as they were termed, obstinately held out, they actually burnt them for _the love of Christ!_ This manner of proceeding Dr. Paley has, in some measure, justified, 2 by affirming, that as the salvation of the soul is a matter of infinitely more importance than the well-being of the body, so these _converters_, who actually believed salvation to exclusively depend on the reception of their dogmas, may be said to be in some sort excusable, for endeavouring by all the means within their power to save a man"s soul, though his body, in consequence, might be devoted to the flames.
1 Vide Life of M. de Voltaire.
2 Vide Haley"s Evidences of Christianity, Part III. Chap.
vii.
Some, I know, would go further, and urge, that even the burning of those who _were_ converted by the threats of the holy fathers, was not impolitic, since it may be justified as the above principle, of preferring the welfare of the soul to that of the body. For might not a new-made convert, made so against the evidence of his own reason, recant, and thus render all the pious zeal of those _soul-preservers_ quite abortive? Nothing more likely, and therefore to make sure of his eternal felicity, they were equally excusable in committing him to the flames. A similar principle influenced the pious Monk towards the unfortunate Jew, as related in a well-known but somewhat ancient story, concluding with these lines:
"Drag, drag me out--I freeze--I die."
"Your peace, my friend, is made on high; Full absolution here I give; Saint Peter will your soul receive: Wash"d clean from sin, and duly shriven, New converts always go to heaven; No hour for death so fit as this; Thus, thus I launch you into bliss!"
So said--the Father in a trice His convert launch"d beneath the ice.
But enough of this bringing forward accusations and objections of the Deists, and answering them myself. Let them be brought against us in the regular way, and we will readily refute them. In fact, there will be some novelty in such an occupation to many of our divines, who have pa.s.sed many years in the continued sameness of preaching to congregations who are much too pa.s.sive and obedient ever to dissent a single syllable from the doctrine laid down. It is now several years since our Doctors of Divinity really exerted their talents, viz.
ever since the first publicacation of the Age of Reason. I think it downright inconsistency for our authorities to prosecute those who publish works of this kind, seeing those works absolutely benefit Christianity. For did not the above production give rise to innumerable answers, each of which was sufficient in itself, to prove the divine origin and infalibillity of the sacred Scriptures! Read Bishop Watson"s Apology for the Bible, for instance, a work _replete with genius_; a work which will confer lasting honour on its reverend author; and wherein we cannot perceive the _least traces_ of what our adversaries term _priestcraft_, and not a _single sentence_ which may be called _a quibble_. Another answer to the Age of Reason, by a _wit_, named Robert Thompson, also deserves to be made honourable mention of, as being neither _scurrilous nor contemptible_; as does likewise an answer, by a layman of the name of Padman, a work of vast _profundity_, and in which there is not to be found any _perversion or pitiful misrepresentation of pa.s.sages_ in Mr. Paine"s book. Should these two last gentlemen be still in existence, and chance to peruse this, they will be extremely grateful, I am sure, for my thus noticing them; but they may reserve all thanks, for the encomiums I have pa.s.sed upon them are nothing more than their real deserts. 1 But to conclude. Seeing, I say, that deistical works are beneficial to our holy and only true religion, by making its ministers exert their talents, let them be printed and freely circulated, and in so doing we shall no longer lay under the vile odium of being oppressors and persecutors for righteousness sake.
A firm Believer in the only true G.o.d, and a future state of Retribution.
London,
Jan. 30, 1819.
1 There is also a Mr. S. Thompson, a member of the sect called "Free Thinking Christians," who in a work ent.i.tled "Evidences of Revealed Religion on a new Plan," has attempted to answer some of the objections of Mr. Paine; but as his arguments, though said to be quite inconclusive, have too much the appearance of human reason, I have not thought proper to mention him as a person who has much benefited our cause; and especially as I understand that "implicit faith"
forms no part of the creed of the above sect.
THE END.