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On a blank page opposite to the title , are the following remarks : — ** Whatever may be thought of the " Reason" of . Mr . Paine , or of the prudence of his publisher , highly we cannot deem of the Christianity of the Attorney General , quasi Attorney General . Infidelity is not more anti-christian , than is the coercion of conscience by the civil power . It would be curious to see what sort of an indictment , Sir V . G . with all bis acuteness and dexterity ^ would be
able to draw from the New Testament , against D . I . Eaton Y Paine concludes his work with
the definition of infidelity , thus- — ci He that believes in the story / of Christ is an infidel to Goc ^ i " upon which the annotator remarks
.-r-cc He that conies to Mr . Paine ' s conclusion upon his premises , must be an infidel to common sense . He attacks the corruptions of Christianity , rather than Christianity itself . Unable to distinguish between spurious and
authentic scripture , he confounds and opposes both : one mig ht give him almost * i ! l his argurnents , ( his scurrilities are out of- the question , ) and leave Christianity , as really contained in ttfc New Testament , untouched . Ci
Did Mr , Piaine know that Christians dn not all believe in the miraculous conception , or , in the infallibility of the Evangelists ? This hemust have known , [ for he was formerly usher in the school
of Mr . Noble , who was a Christian and a divine of the class of Dr . Poster ;] as also that the doctrines of election , ' &c . are as much reprobated by some believers as by any unbelievers . Where
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then the justness of * representing these as undisputed Christian doctrines ? " . In some blank leaves at the end of the work , the commentator has thus written : —
" What is the great gain of infidelity ?—It relieves the mind from superstition ! But Voltaire was eminently superstitious ; and the Parisians , in the heat of the
French Revolution , bowed down before a naked harlot , as the goddess of reason . —It explodes priestcraft ! But priests may be infidels ; there have Been infidel bishops and infidel popes ; of one of the latter it is told that he once
remarked , What a profitable fable is this of Jesus Christ !'—and if men become infidels , there is no longer any reason in morals , why they should not be priests or
bishops or popes , or impostors , usurpers and tyrants of any oth € r description : to such , there is no rule of right but their own interests ; and what a rule is that for
human conduct ! What citizen would wish his magistrate governed by it ! what master his servant what parent his child !—Infidelity was for a time , accidentally associated with free principles in government ; but nothing can be more fallacious than' the
association . Robespierre was an infidel , ancf a bold , zealous and consistent one ; so , I dare say , was H . — D . and possibly Thomas Paine and Bp . H . might , in secret , have understood each other , on the
subject of religion . Hume ( to whom every other infidel js a pjgmy , ) was the advocate of the despotic , wretched bouse of the Stuarts } and Bolingbroke ' ( next in ability perhaps to Hume , ift the ranks of infidelity , ) was on *
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Cbmments on Paine ' s Age of Reason J \ V 7
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1812, page 147, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1746/page/11/
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