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 Commercial affairs had engaged me to make a 
 sea voyage. I had got far from the shores of my 
 native country, when a dreadful tempest threw me on 
 an unknown coast ; however, I fell into the hands of 
 a very humane people, and soon found they had 
 brought the arts to great perfection, that they practised 
 many virtues, and appeared to me in a state as en- 
 lightened as humanity could attain. 
 
 My admiration of them equalled my gratitude, but, 
 alas ! it is but too true, that man always discovers by 
 some failing the weakness of his being. ^ 
 
 These people shewed as much friendship towards 
 me as 1 could possibly do to them ; their mildness and 
 civility entirely gained my affection. They said to 
 me one day, " Of what religion are you ? The ques- 
 tion surprised me ; I asked them if there were two 
 religions, at which they smiled, and I saw they were 
 astonished at my ignorance. " My friend," said one 
 of them, " give thanks to God for having conducted 
 you amongst us to be instructed in our holy religion. 
 You do not know then that God has made himself a 
 man ?" I assured them it was the first time I had 
 heard of it, and asked them why he had become a 
 man ? Know, continued they, " that the first man ate 
 an apple which God had forbidden him, inconsequence 
 of which all his posterity were condemned to eternal 
 punishment. At another time men became so crimi- 
 
 2000416
 
 4 CHRISTIAN MYSTERY. 
 
 nal that the Ahiiighty repented of having created them, 
 and drowned them all with the exception of eight per- 
 sons. The posterity of these became no better, God 
 continued to be displeased, and as it was necessary to 
 reconcile him to mankind, God the Son became a 
 man to appease God the Father.'* 
 
 This divine family astonished me a little. And the 
 daughter of God, said I, what is become of her ? 
 They answered gravely, " God has no daughter." 
 
 Oh ! he has but a Son : but how do you know the 
 sex of this Son } They answered, God is incorporeal, 
 he has no sex. I insisted how could God the Fa- 
 ther produce God the Son ? He begot liim. God 
 has a sex then, he must also have a wife. They 
 smiled at me again. But when did the father beget 
 this Son ? From all eternity. My friends, there is 
 an apparent contradiction, it is not possible for the 
 Son who was begotten to be as old as the leather. 
 Has the Father then any other children ? No ; but 
 there is a third person who proceeds from the Father 
 and the Son. 1 suppose he was begotten also? No; 
 certainly not : pray take care what you say, or you will 
 be guilty of heresy. I replied, I did not understand 
 them. 
 
 O, Sir, these are mysteries which God himself has 
 revealed to men, to the end that they might under- 
 stand nothing. Wonderful, said I. They continued : 
 God wished to humble men's reason, that is, to give 
 them a disregard for the most precious gift they hold 
 of his bounty. And you make no use of your reason 
 then } O yes ; we are allowed to use it in all other 
 actions of our lives, but in matters of religion it would 
 be impious. Better and better, said I. So then I 
 find you have three Gods ? No, no, replied they, 
 we have indeed three persons, of whom the first is the 
 Father, the second is the Son, or word, the third is 
 the Holy Spirit ; but all these three make only one 
 God. How, Gentlemen ? these three make but one, and 
 one makes three ? Yeg ; it is so, replied they, though
 
 CHRISTIAN IVIY8TEKY. o 
 
 contrary to all tlie rules of arithmetic ; you must know 
 that our theology is far superior to this petty science ; 
 however we will explain the whole to you. 
 
 What do you call the third person ? said 1. The 
 Holy Ghost. Has the Holy Ghost been a man also ? 
 No ; but he became a pigeon ; we do not know, in- 
 deed, that it was his natural form, but when he appeared 
 to the apostles he was pleased to borrow that shape. 
 
 And the Son of God has been a man from all eter- 
 nity ? O no, only seventeen hundred years. 
 
 Of whom, and how was he born ? He was born of 
 a virgin. She would certainly be much surprised know- 
 ing herself to be a virgin ? O yes ; you are right ; but 
 an angel came to prepare her, that she might not be 
 alarmed in being brought to-bed. Yet I suppose you 
 will be still more surprised when we tell you she was 
 married ? O no ; pardon me, I understand this mys- 
 tery better than all the others. Nay, do not jest. Sir, her 
 husband had not slept with her ; we have it so revealed 
 to us. And pray how did she conceive ? By the 
 operation of the Holy Ghost. But you say that the 
 Holy Ghost proceeds from the Son ; how then could 
 he produce the Son } Yes, Sir, it is so, by the infallible 
 decision of the holy church. And who was his mother? 
 The wife of a carpenter. \\ hat kind of a life did he 
 lead ? He sierved thirty years in his father's shop, and 
 was very serviceable to him. Indeed, gentlemen; very 
 well ! 1 perceive you have sublime notions of the di- 
 vinity. •- At the age of thirty he began to preach to the 
 people in the country, which lasted some time ; at 
 length the magistrates became displeased, because in 
 his sermons he said a great deal about rich men, and 
 the officers of government. He foresaw diat he 
 would be punished, and perspired both water and 
 blood. Indeed ! that is another fine trait in his cha- 
 racter. 
 
 At length hv was arrested by the magistrates, and 
 crucified betwi-en two robbers. And he died ? Yes, 
 And was buried ^ Yes. Well then 1 su|>pose that is 
 
 B
 
 CiUUSTlAN MYSTEUy. 
 
 the end ot his liistory ? Hold, Sir, you go too fast ; he 
 died, it is true, but it was in consideration that God 
 would pardon mankind. Oh, 1 understand you. GotI 
 would pardon the sins of mankind because they had 
 killed his Son. Truly, nothing could be better ima- 
 gined. But know for testimony of his divinity, he 
 rose again the third day. And what proof have yon 
 of this ? The writings of the disciples. But what 
 said the people ? They contradicted it. 
 
 (Jl), gentlemen ! I find you are as well provided 
 with proofs as with reasonings; f)utdid he perform 
 any other miracles ? Yes ; he cured those possessed 
 of evil spirits ; dried a fig tree ; sent devils into a herd 
 of swine ; filled the nets of his disciples with fishes, 
 and changed water into wine ; but he loved so to hum- 
 ble himself, that never in his life did he own that he 
 was God. And why do you l)elieve it ? His secta- 
 ries have disputed a long time on this important arti- 
 cle, as well as of the Holy Ghost, because three 
 persons were not spoken of in the Old Testament. 
 The Holy Ghost was found out to be God after twelve 
 hundred years had passed over, and as for the divinity 
 of Jesus, three hundred years of disputes, troubles, 
 and massacres sufficed to decide the matter in his 
 favour. 
 
 As you love this God so much, 1 suppose he was 
 born in your country ? No ; he was born in another 
 (juarter of the globe. Indeed ! You go very far to 
 seek your gods ! He must then have left a book of 
 doctrines of religion, which you thought proper to 
 adopt ? No ! he did not teach a new religion, neither 
 did he write any thing ; but some of his disciples 
 have written his history and discourses. And your 
 religion is there exactly prescribed ? Oh, no ! We 
 have only a few particulars of his life, accompanied 
 by some moral precepts ; he has there declared that he 
 came to fulfil the ancient law, and not to change it. 
 rhen there was a particular religion in the country 
 where he was born, before his time } Yes. And it
 
 CHRISTIAN MYSTERY. 7 
 
 is that same religion that yoii still observe ? No ; ours is 
 in direct opposition to it. But whence then is this new 
 relimon, for vou own that it was never announced by your 
 God ? We haveexplained, commented, interpreted with- 
 out ceasing these seventeen hundri'd years on the dis- 
 courses of Christ ; and have drawn from them a long 
 succession of dogmas and mysteries quite new. And 
 do you all agree in these interpretations ? No; far from 
 it. We have always been disputing, fighting, and 
 killing one another on account of then!. Weil, 1 am 
 very sorry to tell you that 1 do not think your religion 
 very attracting. What do you say ? You do not 
 agree in your explanations, and you <|uarrel and kill 
 each other about them ? Your religion does not at 
 all please me ; yet I supj)()se it had been adopted by 
 the people of the country where your God dwelt r 
 You are again deceived ; Christ had l)ut a very small 
 number of disciples, and these were from the lowest 
 class of the people. Have we not already told you 
 that he was put to death by order of the magistrates ? 
 What do you say, gentlemen ? Was not his doctrine 
 believed by the people he attempted to instruct? No, 
 His miracles, have they not persuaded those who were 
 witnesses ? No. And why should you believe them ; 
 you who came seventeen hundred years after him ? 
 O, Sir, all things require an explanation. Know then 
 that God sent his Son among this people whose 
 hearts he had hardened, purposely that they might not 
 believe in him. 
 
 Well explained ! T am quite delighted with youi 
 mode of reasoning ; but pray what name do you 
 give this people? Jews. — Jews! Jews! I never 
 heard of them. No, I believe you. They occupied 
 such a small territory, that their reputation did not ex- 
 tend lar ; nevertluless, they were formerly (iod's fa- 
 vourite people. God chose them from among all the 
 nations of the earth ; he governed them himself, and 
 often conversed with their chiefs. Sometimes through 
 tenderness for his people he ordered them to massacre
 
 6 CI?RISTiAN MYSTERY. 
 
 each other ; and at one time twenty three thousand 
 were put to death by their own citizens at the express 
 command of God. 
 
 God ordered one of the kines to murder every man 
 of a nation they had vanquished ; the king had the au- 
 dacity to spare some who were not in a state to defend 
 themselves and was punished for it. A son of this 
 king was condemned to die for eating honey on the 
 day of battle, and God, who was justly irritated at the 
 father as well as son, proscribed them both, and made 
 choice of a new king. 
 
 This king (whom God had expressly chosen) com- 
 mitted adultery with the wife of one of his generals, 
 and massacred her husband. By the adultress he 
 had a son who kept seven hundred vi^ives and three 
 hundred concubines in his seraglio ; but you must 
 know these two kings were cherished by our God ; 
 both had heavenly benedictions heaped on their heads. 
 The father was the tnan after God*s own heart, and 
 the son was the wisest of men. The Son of God, 
 who became a fnan, descended in direct line from 
 this wisest of men^ and from the adultress of whom 
 we have just spoken. 
 
 O, gentlemen, exclaimed I, you make me shudder 
 at your impious ideas. They resumed. Have we 
 not told you that the conduct of this God was always 
 mysterious, purposely to humble our weak reason ? 
 The first legislator whom God gave to his favourite 
 people was an assassin ; but he had nevertheless the gift 
 of performing a number of miracles. He composed a 
 body of civil and religious rites and laws which we 
 still revere as having been inspired by the Deity. 
 And yet, you do not observe them } No ; truly. 
 We bold those people in horror who do so. It is true, 
 that this was formerly the favourite people of God, 
 and all other nations were rejected ; afterwards the 
 other nations were chosen, and this favourite people 
 rejected. Do you not admire, Sir, the wisdom of the 
 God We adore ?
 
 CHRISTIAN MYSTERY. 9 
 
 At this discourse, I stole away from them, and 
 could scarcely persuade myself it was more than a 
 dream. Having before seen to what great perfection 
 this people had attained in every human science, I 
 began to fear the weakness of my nature, and deter- 
 mined to return to my country; lest those abominable 
 European prejudices should make me forget my duty 
 to my fellow-creatures, and reverence for the God of 
 all worlds. 
 
 THE END.
 
 THOUGHTS 
 
 ON THE 
 
 CHRISTIAN RELIGION 
 
 BY A DEIST. 
 
 TO WHICH AltE ADD to, 
 
 A FEW IDEAS ON MIRACULOUS CONVERSION, 
 
 AND 
 
 RELIGION IN GENERAL. 
 
 BY A THEO PHILANTHROPIST 
 
 iioniron: 
 
 PRlNIIiD ANJ> PUBLISHED BY R. CARLILE, 55, FLEET STREEr. 
 
 IS 19.
 
 THOUGHTS, 
 
 Sfc. 6f'c. 
 
 Religion, in some form or other, seems to have 
 been observed by mankind, in all ages and all parts of 
 the world ; and considered as the most noble employ- 
 ment, of the most divine nature, and producing the 
 most beneficial effects to society, of all the objects 
 that ever engaged their attention : although from 
 casual circumstances, and interested motives of indi- 
 viduals, there are as many modes and varieties of 
 worship, as languages or nations on the face of the 
 earth. 
 
 Europeans have in general embraced Christianity, 
 as contained in the Bible, which thei/ call the Word 
 of God, as the only true and infallible S3'stem on 
 earth, and which only can lead us to eternal happi- 
 ness. This Bible, we have been taught to believe, is 
 holy, just, perfect, and superior to the human under- 
 standing ; so sacred, that to doubt or disbelieve it, 
 would entail on us inevitable never-ending misery. This 
 doctrine, being instilled into children by their nurses, 
 and enforced by terror at a riper age, has long been as- 
 sented to by the generality of people^ who seldom 
 think or enquire for themselves, but are always more 
 or less the dupes of designing men. 
 
 But the times are now changing ; the privilege of 
 reasoning and believing for ourselves begins to be ex- 
 ercised — freedom of enquiry abounds ; and the natu- 
 ral inherent right of speaking and acting according to 
 
 B
 
 4 THOUGHTS ON THE 
 
 the dictates of our own conscience (without injuring 
 society) is happily enjo3'ecl. Consecjuently, imposi- 
 tions of every kind, superstitious prejudices, and the 
 long worshipped fabrics of civil and religious tyranny, 
 are daily growing into contempt, and in all probability 
 will soon be torn from their foundations, and con- 
 signed to that infamous oblivion which they so highly 
 merit. 
 
 To come more immediately to the point — the Chris- 
 tian religion, as generally practised, presents itself as 
 one of those monuments of ignorance and credulity, 
 which the wisdom of the present generation is proba- 
 bly destined to overthrow, and to substitute a system 
 more simple, more pure, and more agreeable to the 
 dictates of reason. The Bible, upon examination, we 
 shall find deficient in many of the virtues that have 
 been ascribed to it. As a liuman composition, its 
 merits have been greatly over-rated : it is exceeded in 
 sentiment, invention, style, and every other literary 
 qualification. The obscurity, incredibility, and obsce- 
 nity, so conspicuous in many parts of it, would justly 
 condemn the works of a modern writer. It contains 
 a mixture of inconsistency and contradiction ; to call 
 which the word of God, is the highest pitch of extra- 
 vagance : it is to attribute to the Deity that which any 
 person of common sense would blush to confess him- 
 self the author of. 
 
 How are the rights and dignity of human nature 
 insulted, degraded, and trampled upon ! how are man- 
 kind blinded, deceived, and led away by this system ! 
 how is the honour and character of the Almighty af- 
 fronted by the absurd and impious doctrines it con- 
 tains ! How is the sacred name of God abused and 
 ])rostituted to the vilest and most execrable purposes, 
 by his pretended worshippers ! And all for one sim- 
 ple, evident end, to gratify the pride and avarice of 
 unprincipled, designing men ! 
 
 But something more than declamation is necessary 
 to support these assertions. I shall therefore give the
 
 CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 5 
 
 reasons why I disbelieve the Christian system, and all 
 the arguments advanced in its favour. 
 
 As to the existing proofs of the divine authority of 
 the Bible, whether internal or external, whether the 
 evidence we feel in our own minds on examining it, or 
 the miracles which are said to have attended its })ropa- 
 gation, they are of no avail in convincing us of its 
 divine origin: and 1 do not think, that independent of 
 the prejudices of education, and the power of elo- 
 quence, there ever was a reasonable thinking man, 
 who felt a sufficient internal evidence to convince him 
 of the reality of the whole of its doctrines. 
 
 With respect to the public proofs exhibited by its 
 founders, we find them no stronger than those in 
 favour of Mahometan ism, or perhaps any other sys- 
 tem. Mahomet is said to have wrought as many mi- 
 racles, preached as good doctrine, converted ten times 
 as many followers, and was far more successful in all 
 liis enterprizes, however bold and difficult, than Jesus 
 Christ. The Christians say, the Mahometan miracles 
 were nothing but impostures ; and the Mahometans 
 say, with as much authority, that the Christian mira- 
 cles were the same. 
 
 If the gospel system was so clear, so reasonable, 
 and so powerful, as its advocates assert, what necessity 
 could there have been for miracles to support it } If 
 it had any foundation in reason and nature, there 
 would have been no occasion for mystery, miracle, or 
 revelation, to confirm it. A doctrine that is reason- 
 able and true, will appear so to every unprejudiced 
 mind, without the aid of any thing supernatural. 
 Consequently, that system which requires miraculous 
 assistance to establish it, and cannot be proved by 
 human means, is neither reasonable nor true. 
 
 Supposing the Bible to have been written by divine 
 inspiration, at the times, and by the persons mentioned 
 in it, still it is next to impossible, that it could have 
 been transmitted down to the present time pure and 
 iincontaminated, even if there had been but one
 
 THOUGHTS ON THE 
 
 nation and one language upon earth. The variety of 
 translations and editions it has passed through in the 
 course of near 1800 years, if it has existed so long, 
 (which I am inclined to disbelieve of many parts) and 
 the continual improvements and alterations in human 
 language, during that period, amount to a presumptive 
 proof that the sense has been unavoidably mistaken, or 
 wilfully perverted. A confirmation of this remark is 
 open to all : let any one take the trouble of comparing 
 different copies of the Bible, printed in the last and 
 present centuries, or even in the same year, and he 
 will often find a striking disagreement. 
 
 Admitting that the Bible contains the only doctrine 
 by which we can obtain salvation and everlasting life, 
 which of the numberless professions that have sprung 
 out of it are we to embrace? One sect tells us that 
 there is no salvation out of the pale of their church. 
 Another tells us, that unless we believe and practise 
 their doctrines, we shall surely be damned. Let us 
 believe, therefore, in whatever particular profession we 
 may, we shall be damned according to the principles of 
 the others. 
 
 How gracious and beneficent is the Christian sys- 
 tem ! so perfect and pure that it creates so many dif- 
 ferent, distinct, and opposite denominations of be- 
 lievers ; all of them right, infallibly right, in their own 
 opinions, and proving their doctrine by the clear, in- 
 contestible authority of divine revelation ! 
 
 Many, as an excuse for countenancing a doctrine 
 which taey confess may not be true, say, that if the 
 Christian religion be false, it is still very hurtful to at- 
 tempt to overturn it ; as we have no better guide, and 
 no other method to restrain the passions and regulate 
 the conduct of mankind ; as it is the most perfect and 
 beneficial system that could be devised. To deter- 
 mine this, we must look at its effects. 
 
 That doctrine which has the greatest tendency to 
 secure our preseiit and future happiness is the best ; it 
 proves itself to be so. That the Christian system does
 
 CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 7 
 
 not tend to make us happier, may easily be shewn, by 
 tracing its natural operations on the human mind. 
 By it we are led to believe, that we are all miserable 
 and ruined wretches ; corrupt and exceedingly wicked 
 from our very birth ; naturally sinful, and opposed to 
 the will of God in all our actions, words, and thoughts ; 
 and so far from deserving the common blessings of life, 
 that if justice had been done us, we should long since 
 have been cast into endless punishment. Tribulation, 
 distress, and sore trials, are the common lot of man- 
 kind, especially the good. " Whom the Lord loveth 
 he chasteneth." This world, it tells us, is a wretched, 
 tiresome, and accursed place ; a mere sink of guilt and 
 misery ; and all its enjoyments vanity and vexation of 
 spirit. Though by the bye, those who are called sincere 
 and pious Christians seem to be as desirous of continu- 
 ing in it, and tasting the good things it affords, as the 
 most sensual and worldly-minded sinner. It likewise 
 instils into its followers such a servile fear, and dread 
 of the wrath of heaven, that they can neither lie down 
 at night, nor rise in the morning, without first attempt- 
 ing, by intreaty, flattery, and fair promises, to appease 
 the Divine anger, and persuade the Almighty to per- 
 mit them to exist in peace. Every accident is a judge- 
 ment, and a prelude to further punishment. Every 
 misfortune that happens to their neighbours is a warn- 
 ins^ to them ; and they are liable every moment to be 
 cut off by an avenging God, and sent to Hell. 
 
 While on the one hand, they represent the Deity as 
 their servant, to assist them on every occasion, avert- 
 ing every ill they bring upon themselves, and extricat- 
 ing them from every difficulty and distress they plunge 
 themselves into ; on the other he is supposed to be a 
 fierce, revengeful tyrant, delighting in cruelty, punish- 
 ing his creatures for the very sins which he causes 
 them to commit ; and creating numberless millions of 
 immortal souls, that could never have offended him, 
 for the express purpose of tormenting them to all
 
 8 THOUGHTS ON THE 
 
 eternity. Thus they are generally miserable through 
 life, in meditating on death and its supposed conse- 
 quences. 
 
 The authority of the Bible appears still more doubt- 
 ful from the absurdities and contradictions it contains; 
 contradictions which all the sophistical ingenuity of 
 reverend divines, with their literal meaning of this 
 text, and spiritual interpretation of that, can never 
 explain or reconcile. 
 
 In the very first chapter of the whole volume, con- 
 taining an account of the creation, we find an inexpli- 
 cable difficulty. In Genesis i. 27, 28, we are told, 
 that " God created man, male and female, blessed 
 them^ and said unto them^^ &c. But in ii. *iO, we 
 find that " there was not an help meet for Adam :" 
 therefore, ver. 18, "God said, it is not good that 
 man should be alone." And, ver. 22, " he made a 
 woman, and brought her unto the man.^* 
 
 The Almighty, according to many parts of the 
 Bible, is a perfect, unchangeable being. In Isaiah, he 
 is said to declare, that he is " not as a man, that he 
 should repent." But in other places we read of his 
 repenting very frequently. He repented that he had 
 made man. Flaving determined to destroy the Israel- 
 ites, and having slain seventy thousand of them, " he 
 repented of the evil," and spared the rest. He told 
 Hezekiah that " he should surely die, and not live ;" 
 but immediately repented, and gave him fifteen years 
 longer. Jonah prophesied, in his name, that in forty 
 days Nineveh should be overthrown ; but the people 
 believing him (though he did not perform his promise) 
 and forsaking their sins, he " repented of the evil that 
 he said he would do unto them, and did it not." 
 
 In one place it says, " Our God is a consuming 
 fire ;" and in another, " God is love.^' He is said to be 
 jealous, revengeful, and angry with the wicked every 
 day ; and pleased again as often as they repent : pos- 
 sessing all the good and evil qualities of man, that
 
 CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 9 
 
 unstable, wicked, misorahle, and insignificant worm. 
 Notwithstanding all this, he is perfectly just, wise, im- 
 mutable, and can never repent. 
 
 The Christian system, 1 venture to affirm, has been 
 the cause of more evil in the world, than any other 
 that ever appeared in it. By inculcating a belief that 
 the Deity was a terrible God, an inexorable judge, 
 taking vengeance on all his enemies ; its professors, 
 wishing to conform as much as possible to the charac- 
 ter and disposition of their Godi have in all ages acted 
 with the same spirit, and upon the same principles : 
 
 <« O let this strong, unerring hand, 
 
 Tliy boltsybr ever throw ; 
 And deal damnation round the laud, 
 
 On each I judge thj' foe." 
 
 Inspired with the most vindictive hatred to all who, 
 do not subscribe to the principles they profess (who 
 are, according to their faith, enemies ; for they say, 
 there is no medium or neutrality, " all who are not for 
 us are against us ;)" they have never failed, in any 
 country, artd at all times, when they had the power, to 
 exercise the most cruel and detestable spirit that ever 
 disgraced human nature. Not contented with insult- 
 ing, oppressing, enslaving, and butchering the poor 
 heretics here, but most humanely and charitably con- 
 demning them to everlasting torments hereafter. 
 
 During the first 320 years of its existence, Chris- 
 tianity occasioned the destruction of many millions of 
 mankind. In the first part of this period, the Chris- 
 tians were the greatest sufferers; but in the year 312 
 Maxentius and his army of 200,000, were most of 
 them drowned in the Tiber, or (^lain by Constantine, 
 the Christian emperor, who, in three great battles, in 
 one of which 100,000 were killed, reduced and put to 
 death Licinus, the deputy emperor of the East; perse- 
 cuted the Heathens, and destroyed their idols, the 
 symbols of their divinities. 
 
 In the twelfth and subsequent centuries, millions of
 
 10 THOUGHTS ON THE 
 
 Waldenses and Protestants were murdered in the soiitli 
 of France. How many millions lost their lives in the 
 mad crusades for the recovery of the Holy Land !_ In 
 Germany and Flanders, in England, Scotland, and 
 Ireland, in South America. But I stop, or " I could 
 a tale unfold, whose lightest word would harrow up 
 the soul,'' chill the blood with horror, and draw forth 
 curses from the grave against the very name of a 
 religion which has been made the pretext for such 
 cruelties. 
 
 Indeed, it is impossible to calculate the mischief 
 that has attended the Christian system since its com- 
 mencement. But, say its advocates, all this was done 
 by Antichrist, or the false church. Which then is the 
 true church ? Not that which persecutes. And what 
 church is that } The church of Rome ? No : for 
 that, after long struggles, no sooner became established 
 in power, than it persecuted its dissenting sons with 
 all the zeal and barbarity that it had experienced from 
 its enemies. The church of England ? No : for al- 
 though that separated from the church of Rome, and 
 rejected many of the errors and corruptions which had 
 crept into it ; yet no sooner was it fully established in 
 Great Britain, than it very carefully trod over the steps 
 of the mother church, persecuted Roman Catholics, 
 and all Dissenters. The Puritans, who fled to this 
 country for the sake of freedom of conscience and 
 religious liberty, were no sooner settled, than they dis- 
 covered the same illiberal persecuting spirit which 
 drove them hither, and persecuted the Quakers in their 
 turn ; becoming as corrupt as any of the former 
 churches. Each of them, while they were weak and 
 defenceless, suffered by the murderous hand of its 
 oppressors ; and, when become strong and powerful, 
 persecuted and martyred its feebler enemies. And I 
 believe there is not a church in Christendom but 
 would, if it could not convert, most gladly destroy all 
 its opposers ; had it that one essential and only neces- 
 sary quality, power. For they affirm, that the world.
 
 CHRISTIAN RELIGION. U 
 
 with all its blessings, arc nothing but temptations to 
 draw them away from their true interest ; and that 
 unbelievers of every kind are their natural implacable 
 enemies. 
 
 The carnal mind, say they, is enmity to God and 
 liis people, (themselves) and is in continual opposition 
 to every thing good and heavenly ; they must then of 
 necessity wage an eternal war against all who do not 
 acknowledge their system, as the only sure guide to 
 heaven. 
 
 The powerful blow which has been aimed at this 
 system of faith by Pai lie's Age of Reason, has created 
 a general and well-founded alarm. That work, to 
 every bigotted or interested follower of Christianity, 
 appears in a dreadful light indeed, as it is a direct at- 
 tack upon their favourite, their dearly-beloved system 
 of gospel faith, which exalts them, in their own 
 opinions, so much above the rest of mankind. 
 
 The Christian theology is so favourable to the pride 
 and vanity of man, that the slightest attempt to over- 
 turn it occasions an universal panic in its supporters, 
 who immediately display all the ensigns of their cause, 
 the pompous, high-sounding anathemas of Scripture, 
 to frighten the bold invader of their aerial territories. 
 So far they act consistently ; for where they have no 
 weapons or defence from nature and reason, fear and 
 hope, though unfounded and delusive, are the only ex- 
 pedients left. By representing the terrors of their law 
 in the most horrid colours, the wretched victim of 
 their designs cries out in the depth of despair, " Lorcl^ 
 what shall I do to be saved V The work is then in a 
 certain way of success ; the convert gives himself up 
 to the direction of the church in all things, and is ever 
 after the passive tool of its power. These converts 
 are seldom or never made by pure reason and sound 
 argument, for these would never answer the purpose ; 
 but the passions, which may be driven by every gale 
 tliat l>Iows, the fickle and inconstant passions, are so 
 influenced by the power of false elocjuence in violent 
 
 c
 
 12 THOUGFITS ON THE 
 
 declamations and vehement harangues, that the calm, 
 even voice of reason is not heard, or is disregarded, 
 amidst the bustle of jarring emotions ; and the poor 
 frightened wretch catches hold of the first object that 
 is held out to save him from his fancied perishing and 
 undone condition. Without ever once considering 
 whether the profession they embrace is founded in 
 nature and reason, they confide wholly in the piety of 
 their spiritual teacher, leave their faith and hope alto- 
 gether in his hands, and trust entirely upon his pro- 
 mises and power. Their belief he can alter or abolish 
 at pleasure ; for what he preaches they must adhere to ; 
 what he allows they must profess ; what he approves 
 must be true. 
 
 In fact the Christian system has never yet been 
 weighed in the impartial balance of reason, or received 
 a candid trial in the thinking world. Force, fraud, and 
 other unfair means have always been necessarily em- 
 ployed for its establishment. Had it been founded on 
 truth, or consistent with common sense, its advocates 
 would never have refused to submit it to reason, and 
 the cool, dispassionate judgement of mankind. But 
 they well knew that it could never stand the test, and 
 this would be the certain means of its destruction. 
 They therefore boldly and presumptuously tell the 
 world, that it is beyond the reach of human reason, 
 which is not competent to judge rightly of it. They 
 confess that we cannot comprehend a great part of it ; 
 but at the same time command us to believe it, though 
 we cannot understand it. 
 
 It has been the peculiarly honourable lot of Thomas 
 Paine, the firm advocate of truth, the undaunted 
 champion of reason, and the resolute and unconquer- 
 able enemy of tyranny, bigotry, and prejudice, to 
 open the door to free and impartial enquiry. He has 
 boldly entered the field himself, and taught the world, 
 that no true system of principles, however sacred they 
 may be held in the public opinion, and however 
 strongly protected and enforced by the terrors of
 
 CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 13 
 
 man*s vengeance here, and eternal punishment here- 
 after, is too awful to be canvassed by reason, or too 
 subhme to be comprehended by common sense. 
 
 The Christian system, as it is not consistent whh 
 reason, is declared to be above it ; and should be re- 
 ceived even if it does not appear clear and intelligible 
 to our human capacities. 
 
 This, by prohibiting enquiry, effectually prevents 
 detection of falsehood and confirmation of truth. The 
 doctrine is received upon trust, upon the credit of our 
 forefathers ; because they taught, or rather said so, 
 we must implicitly believe so, all the remonstrances 
 of reason and experience to the contrary notwith- 
 standing. 
 
 This is certainly a very great absurdity. For there 
 once was a beginning to every system or theory in 
 being; and at that beginning it was necessary to exer- 
 cise reason as the unerrino; (ruide to direct in the 
 choice or rejection thereof. Jf mankind were not 
 only allowed, but necessitated to weigh every doctrine 
 in the infallible balance of reason, at any time, why 
 are we not entitled to the same privilege at present ? 
 Is our reason degenerated ? Are our faculties impaired ? 
 Or rather, are we not far more wise and enlightened 
 than mankind were centuries ago, and much more 
 competent to understand and judge of things than 
 they were ? By the practice before mentioned, by 
 that tyranny over the minds of men, which has ever 
 been exercised in despotic states, the grossest falsehoods 
 have been forced upon the world for realities, 
 and the most detestable impositions established and 
 maintained in all the strength and vigour of immutable 
 truth. 
 
 But these arts, how long soever they may prosper, 
 and by whatever authority they may be supported ; 
 though they may call to their aid all the powers of 
 s)i|)< rstition and prejudices of education, and be 
 assisted by the pride and deceit of hypocritical bigots 
 and mercenary tyrants ; still must they finally fall,
 
 14 THOUGHTS ON THE 
 
 and sink into contemptuous oblivion. The pre- 
 sent state of society seems peculiarly adapted to the 
 advancement of truth, and destruction of error. The 
 sun of reason has begun to appear, dispelling the 
 thick and almost impenetrable mists of ignorance and 
 superstition, illuminating the most secret recesses of 
 the mind, and will continue to increase in splendour, 
 till it shine forth in one clear, unclouded, and eternal 
 day. 
 
 The writings of modern philosophers have served 
 greatly to illuminate the minds of the present genera- 
 tion. I will here quote Pope's beautiful description of 
 that sublime and heavenly religion, which mankind in 
 a state of nature professed, contrasted with that dis- 
 torted, gloomy religion which has been imposed on 
 mankind by power and fraud. 
 
 " Man, like his Maker, saw that all was righty 
 To virtue, in the paths of pleasure, trod, 
 And own'd a father when he own'd a God. 
 Love all the faith, and all th' allegiance tiien ; 
 . For Nature knew no right divine in men, 
 Nor ill could/ear in God ; and understood 
 A sov'reign being but a sov'reign good.^' 
 
 * » * . « « * * 
 
 *' Superstition taught the tyrant awe, 
 
 Then shared the tyranny, then lent it aid, 
 
 And Gods of conq'rors, slaves of subjects made : 
 
 AV<^, 'midst the lightning's blaze and thunder's sound, 
 
 "When rock'd the mountains, and when groan'd the ground, 
 
 S/ie taught the weak to bend, the proud to pray. 
 
 To power unseen, and mightier far than they : 
 
 She, from the rending earth and bursting skies. 
 
 Saw Gods descend and fiends infernal rise : 
 
 Here fix'd the dreadful, there the blest abodes ; 
 
 J^ear made her devils, and weak hope her gods ; 
 
 Gods partial, changeful, passionate, nnjust. 
 
 Whose attributes were rage, revenge, or lust ; 
 
 Such as the souls of cowards might conceive, 
 
 And form'd like tyrants, tyrants would believe. 
 
 Zeal, then, not charity, became the guide. 
 
 And hell was built on spite, and heaven on pride. 
 
 Then sacred seem'd lli' ethereal vault no more ; 
 
 Altars grew marble then^ and rcek'd with gore:
 
 CHRISTIAN RELUaON. 15 
 
 Tlieu first the Flamen tasted living food ; 
 Next his grim idol sniear'd with human blood ; 
 "NVith heaven's own thunders shook the world below j 
 And play'd the god an engine on his foe." 
 
 From an attentive perusal of such liberal, enlightened 
 writers as Pope, Locke, Hume, &c. who were not 
 interested in forcing any unnatural systems upon man- 
 kind, whose only aim was the happiness of the human 
 race, and from my own reflections, 1 have adopted the 
 following creeds which 1 here submit to the impar- 
 tial consideration of my fellow citizens of all denomi- 
 nations. 
 
 1. I believe in one God, or first cause, wise, power- 
 ful, and good ; and too far above the influence of hu- 
 man actions to be atFected by any thing that can be 
 done on earth. 
 
 2. I believe in the equality of men by nature 
 (though so different by accident) the universal power 
 of conscience, and the unerring authority of natural 
 reason . 
 
 S. I believe the whole duty of man is comprised in 
 this one great republican principle — Do just as you 
 would be done unto. — My reasons for believing thus 
 arc, in the first place, that this first cause is wise and 
 ])Ovvcrful beyond our conception, is clearly evinced in 
 the wonderful formation and disposition of nature, 
 exhibited in every thing that we have any perception 
 of. 'I'hat he is good, the whole creation proves ; for 
 we find nothing made but what is useful, beneficial, 
 and conducive to the happiness of the whole. And 
 that he is too far above the reach of himian actions to 
 be affected by any thing that can be done on earth, is 
 inferred from nature, reason, and experience: for the 
 only idea that we can form of the Deity is, that he is 
 a perfect, unchangeable being ; and if we sn))pose 
 that he so particularly notices the conduct of mankind 
 as to be differently affected by their dill'erent actions, 
 we must allow that he is aii inij)erfect, changeable 
 being, liable to be pleased or vexed at the mere will
 
 16 THOUGHTS, &c. 
 
 and pleasure of his creatures, and dependent upon the 
 whim and caprice of 'tnan. 
 
 In the second place, it appears from the experience 
 of mankind in all ages, that Nature, in the creation 
 of man, acts impartially and equally ; but leaves his 
 talents, disposition, &c. to be regulated by mere ac- 
 cidental circumstances. That conscience has an uni- 
 versal power, is evident from the dislike and abhor- 
 rence, with which all mankind look upon actions that 
 tend to the injury of society. And not to believe in 
 the unerring authority of natural reason, would be to 
 accuse the Deity of injustice for not creating us capa- 
 ble of distinguishing good from evil, and then punish- 
 ing us for the evil we commit. 
 
 In the third place, that the whole duty of man is 
 comprised in this one great republican principle, " Do 
 as you would be done unto,*' has appeared so notori- 
 ous to the world in all ages, that it has been univer- 
 sally agreed upon, as the unerring rule of action, and 
 the basis of happiness: by the observing of which 
 there can be neither oppression, deceit, or injustice 
 of any kind. The duty of man is his interest ; his 
 interest is to make himself happy ; and the surest and 
 best way of doing this is to promote the prosperity of 
 the whole. 
 
 Finally, that system of religion which contradicts 
 itself, cannot be wholly true. — That which is not con- 
 sistent with reason, or agreeable to the order of nature, 
 must be false, as ditferent from the will of the Deity, 
 displayed in all his works : — And, that which tends to 
 promote discord, pride, and deceit, is prejudicial to 
 society, and ought to be discountenanced and opposed 
 by every good man.
 
 17 
 
 ON 
 
 MIRACULOUS CONVERSIONS. 
 
 It appears to be the general opinion among the 
 karned, that all matter is, more or less, in a continual 
 state of transmutation ; that there is a perpetual re- 
 pulsion and attraction in nature. It is also the opi- 
 nion of many philosophers, that the human mind is 
 never quite stationary. 
 
 That locality, early habits, examples, affections, and 
 associations have the greatest effect in forming the 
 characters and opinions of men, is evident to our 
 senses ; and that after the character may be considered 
 to be formed, a contrary course of habits, &c. of 
 equally long or longer continuance will generally pro- 
 duce a contrary character. 
 
 Every attentive observer must perceive, that we 
 sometimes dislike and entertain an unfavourable opi- 
 nion of what we at another time approve and cor- 
 dially agree to. To a cursory examiner these altera- 
 tions may appear to take place arbitrarily ; but to one 
 acquainted with the philosophy of the human mind, 
 accustomed minutely to trace the different links and 
 associations which bias our ideas, they will appear, so 
 far from being arbitrary or supernatural, to be perfectly 
 natural and agreeable to the wise order of things. 
 it would seem that most parties agree to the reasons 
 given by the learned for such alterations, &c., except 
 they be in matters of religion ; here each party aban- 
 dons the usual methods of philosophising, and has
 
 18 ON MIRACULOUS CONVERSIONS. 
 
 recourse to the supernatural interference of divine 
 agency. 
 
 Tiiat extraordinary instances of conversion from 
 vice to virtue, from error to truth, sometimes take 
 phice, for which the most profound and subtle rea- 
 soners fail to give satisfactory causes, is most readily 
 granted ; but still it may be said, that our not being 
 able to trace a natural cause is no proof of there being 
 none ; for past experience has abundantly proved to 
 the world the folly of such kind of inferences. Many 
 things in science and philosophy arc now even demon- 
 strable, that formerly were, with equally good reason, 
 considered to be miraculous or supernatural. 
 
 There arc many reasons for considering the religious 
 conversions not supernatural. There are no human 
 criteria to determine when they are from God and 
 when they are not. So many and so frequent imposi- 
 tions and deceptions take place, that there is no dis- 
 tinguishing the false from the ti'ue. 
 
 These enlightenments arc equally claimed by every 
 sect, however different in opinion. Now, supposing 
 them to be from God, we are under the necessity of 
 believing that there can be only one sect which can 
 really have them ; for it would be absurd to suppose 
 the Immutable Creator of all things would inspire his 
 creatures to believe, as true, opposite and different 
 doctrines ; and the confining of the divine influence 
 to one sect only, certainly appears to be partial and 
 arbitrary, and contrary to the saying, that *' God is no 
 respecter of persons." 
 
 People professing to be converted can never give a 
 satisflictory explanation of their state, either to others 
 or themselves, so as to do away all apprehension that 
 they may not be actuated by impulse, fear, affections, 
 &c., with a variety of other natural causes which 
 every day make astonishing alterations in the minds of 
 men. 
 
 We sometimes meet with individuals who at one 
 time considered themselves to be inspired, and shewed
 
 ON MlRACUi.OUS ( ONVKKSIONS. W 
 
 every outward sign, and afterwards declare they con- 
 ceive they never were. 
 
 Sudden and extraordinary changes frequently take 
 place for the worse ; but these are never accounted as 
 supernatural. It appears that conversions most fre- 
 (piently take place after some circumstances which 
 naturally have a tendency to fix the attention, soften 
 the affections, affect the passions, and subdue the 
 will ; such as attending religious discourses, the death- 
 bed of a friend, extreme pain, poverty, and distress, 
 &c. Now, may not these be said to account for the 
 first natural link } Then why should the rest of the 
 chain be miraculous? If these observations were un- 
 true, we might expect to find conversions occur as fre- 
 quently among one sort of society as among another ; 
 but that is not the case. 
 
 It is observable in religious as well as in other opera- 
 tions of the mind, that those alterations which are the 
 most sudden and vehement, are generally more tran- 
 sient than those which take place more gradually and 
 after accountable associations. 
 
 We might naturally expect that those divinely in- 
 spired would be superior to the weakness of pas- 
 sion and imperfections of nature incidental to others ; 
 but our converts appear not to be. These supernatu- 
 ral affections are unattended with any discernibly 
 supernatural effects ; the possessors of them never 
 perform miracles ! 
 
 From these observations it is presumed, that there 
 is abundant reason for apprehending that those conver- 
 sions termed supernatural are nothing more than 
 nature acting upon the mind of man, agreeably to 
 those wise and immutable laws laid down by the 
 adorable Maker of all things; and the reason of our 
 terming them miraculous is, because we are unable 
 with our weak faculties to trace the wonderful con- 
 catenations, and view the infinite variety of shades of 
 which the intellectual part of man is susceptible. At 
 the same time it is confessed, that it being a matter of 
 
 D
 
 20 A FEW IDEAS ON RELIGION. 
 
 internal feeling, and what cannot perhaps be demon- 
 strated eitlier way, no arguments on the subject can 
 be hoped of any material benefit, either to the person 
 who supposes himself to have it, but cannot explain it, 
 or to him that has it not, and cannot conceive it. 
 
 Bristol, THEOPHILANTHROPIST. 
 
 Feb. 18, 1819. 
 
 FEW IDEAS 
 
 ON THE 
 
 CHRISTIAN RELIGION, 
 
 It appears, that at least 99 persons in 100 take 
 their religious opinions from their parents, and accord- 
 ing to education, &c. without ever afterwards exa- 
 mining for themselves. Now, as this belief arises 
 from causes that are variable and quite independent of 
 the believers, it follows, that there is no security what- 
 ever for its being true, the chance being always 
 against it ; consequently such persons^ opinions are 
 of no weight in the dispute. 
 
 A due attention to this consideration will, it is pre- 
 sumed, render the number of real believers and un- 
 believers in Christian countries much less unequal 
 than at first we may be inclined to suppose. 
 
 The evidence for (Christianity is founded on proba- 
 bilities by a process of reasoning, not being intuitive 
 or self-evident. The contrary of its being true can 
 easily be conceived, and does not imply a contradiction. 
 
 Owing to the different constitutions of the human 
 mind, there always is, more or less, a certain differ-
 
 A 1 E\V SDKAs ON UEI-I(;i()N. 21 
 
 ence of oj>inioii upon all subjects in proportion to 
 their want of self-evident proof. Then, when a sub- 
 ject confessedly has it not, ought we to expect from it 
 those universal results which it could only produce by 
 having- it ? 
 
 That there should be many who are not satisfied 
 with the evidence of the Christian religion, is not to 
 be wondered at, since it is not of that nature to pro- 
 duce universal acquiescence. Where then can be the 
 propriety of inveighing so bitterly against some for 
 rejectii]g what, according to the nature of things, all 
 cannot be expected to receive ? Assuredly, the sin of 
 doubting must be proportional to the evidence ; then 
 why should we attach the same punishment for disbe- 
 lieving things that are not self-evident as we do for 
 things that are ? 
 
 With regard to the assertions, that " *tis their pride 
 prevents their belief, that they make a Deity of their 
 reason, and put themselves in opposition to Pleaven,'' 
 &c. it may be seriously asked, Are these assertors 
 sincere in what they say, or is it merely spleen ? Can 
 they, or any one, for an instant conceive it to be pos- 
 sible for a man in his senses, who has any idea of his 
 Maker, or of himself, and is so deeply interested in 
 the subject, to act in such a way } 
 
 There may be some reason for considering that doc- 
 trine to be false which might cause us to think exist- 
 ence a curse, rather than a blessing, and to entertain 
 views inconsistent with the Divine Nature. 
 
 If the orthodox opinions be correct, how few among 
 professors really jirofess! flow small a portion of 
 mankind profess at all ! It follows, according to even 
 probai)ility, that the number of the saved will be ex- 
 tremely snirdl in proportion to that which is lost. 
 Then, when a child is born, according to the laws of 
 chances, there are very great odds against its being 
 saved. Query, Wlietlu'r it be a blessing to be born, 
 to r»ni any risk at all oi endless misery, even were the
 
 22 DEISM EXAMINED. 
 
 odds the very contrary of what they appear to be, 
 greatly in favour of everlasting bliss ? 
 
 Bristol, THEOPHILANTHKOPIST. 
 
 Feb. 18, 1819. 
 
 DEISM EXAMINED. 
 
 BY A CHUISTIAN. 
 
 It has often been said, that if Christianity is not com- 
 petent to withstand the test of reason, it ought to fall. 
 To this opinion I willingly subscribe; and so confi- 
 dent am 1 of our succeeding against our adversaries, 
 the Deists, that I am for truly putting Christianity to 
 this trial. That is, I would that there should be al- 
 lowed a perfectly free discussion in all theological 
 matters, that the " Age of Reason," and other works 
 of a similar nature, should be allowed to be published. 
 Let the enemies of our religion bring forward their 
 objections as fast as they like ; have we not, on our 
 part, a ready refutation for every one of them ? 
 
 The Deists, 1 know, have strongly contended, thai 
 many actions recorded in the Bible, said to have been 
 done by the express command of God, are shocking 
 to humanity, and in contradiction to all our ideas of 
 moral justice. Such as putting whole nations to the 
 sword ; sparing neither age nor infancy ; utterly de- 
 stroying men, women, and children ; leaving not a 
 soul to breathe, &c. &c. But does not the Bishop of
 
 DEISM EXAMINED. '23 
 
 Llandaff reconcile this seeming- incongruity, and vindi- 
 cate the morality of the sacred writings by ex{)laining, 
 that, as the Almighty constantly superintends all the 
 actions of nature, and in so doing permits, or rather 
 causes smiling: infants so to be swallowed up bv earth- 
 (juakes, or destroyed by other natural means ; it is 
 evident that these shockini;- transactions (as thev are 
 called) recorded in the Bible, do not militate in the 
 least against the character of the Deity ? The unbe- 
 lievers certainly may bring a puerile argument against 
 thh profound assertion of the Bishop ; but the Chris- 
 tian who truly appreciates the real value of an unwa- 
 vering^ai/A, will have for such argument a thorough 
 contempt, even before he reads it. They may tell us, 
 if they choose, that nature being actuated by general 
 and unvarying laws, it is not to be supposed the 
 Almighty, in order to save a human creature, will per- 
 form a miracle. Or (to state the case more particu- 
 larly) if a society of human beings will be so unthink- 
 ing and imprudent, as to make their residence at the 
 bottom of Mount Vesuvius, or Etna, that the Creator 
 will partially suspend the laws of nature, in order that 
 the burning lavas may not overwhelm them in destruc- 
 tion ; or, that if mortals will be so presumptuous as to 
 build their dwellings on the scite of former desolations, 
 as Lisbon, for instance, that the Almighty will inter- 
 pose, in order to prevent the recurrence of another 
 earth(|uake ; or that (jlod will in any case partially 
 suspend the eternal laws of the universe, in order to 
 preserve a mortal that may be accidentally liable to 
 be destroyed by their elfects. They may tell us all 
 this if they choose, and likewise, that this is quite 
 another thing, to an express command from God him- 
 self to one set of human beings to annihilate another. 
 — Thus we refute it all ; such arguments are built on 
 liiunan reason, which it behoves every pious Christian 
 to distrust ! 
 
 Let them assert, that Jesus Christ himself, (if 
 (here was such a person) has proveil the delusion he
 
 24 DEiSM EXAMINED. 
 
 laboured under, since he actually and distinctly pre- 
 dicted, in more places than one, that his second 
 coming would be in the days of the last surviving 
 apostles, and that the apostles themselves sufficiently 
 shew by their writings, that such was their opinion. 
 Let them descant upon the description of his coming in 
 the clouds (as related in the gospel) with the trumpets 
 sounding before him, and call it a mere representation 
 of human pageantry, and unworthy of being imputed 
 to the Almighty Creator, who has millions of millions 
 of worlds at liis command ! We thus refute the first 
 part of this misrepresentation. Jesus, after predicting 
 the destruction of Jerusalem, as we find it now 
 related, speaks of his second coming, and gives a de- 
 scription how he will appear in the clouds, with the 
 angels sounding their trump!;ts before him, &c. &c. 
 and then continues thus : " Verily 1 say unto you, this 
 generation shall not pass away, till all these things be 
 fulfilled.'* Now it is evident, that this last verse can 
 only allude to the destruction of Jerusalem, and that 
 the passage is misplaced by many sentences, it is 
 true, we have no vouchers for this, nor can we perceive 
 what motive there could have been for anv one to 
 have made the alteration ; but as more than seventeen 
 centuries have revolved since the death of Christ, c\\n\ 
 no second coming yet taken place, we are fully justi- 
 fied in maintaining the passage to be misplaci-d. 
 
 The Deists accuse us of all along suppressing their 
 works, and certainly, in this respect, 1 must acknow- 
 ledge we have acted unfairly. I'hey say that most of 
 the ancient productions on their side the question are 
 lost ; while the answers to them are still extant. From 
 this circumstance they infer, designing and supersti- 
 tious monks and priests, in order to remove every 
 thing out of the way that might militate against their 
 doctrine, destroyed all the writings of their opponents, 
 while they carefully preserved those of their own party. 
 It is likewise affirmed, the book entitled the Age 
 of Reason, is a more formidable enemy to Chris-
 
 DEISM EXAMINED. 25 
 
 tianity than any work ever before published, and 
 threatens, should it l)eeome popular, to shake its flimsy 
 fabric (for thus they speak of our religion) to its very 
 foundation ; that the charge of blasjjhemy is brought 
 against it to su])press it, solely from fear of this con- 
 sequence, and that our oft-repeated assertion, " if 
 Christianity cannot withstand the test of reason it 
 ought to tall," is a mere mockery, for, in fact, we fully 
 prove our intention is, never to bring our doctrine 
 to such a tribunal. \ am very sorry that this last 
 charge against us is not altogether unfounded. Why 
 should not the arguments of our opponents be allowed 
 to be published ? Their authors would very soon, I am 
 fully persuaded, meet with a total discomfiture, and 
 fiud our Polemics more than competent to justify 
 their own cause. 
 
 Every one knows that Mr. Paine was illiterate, that 
 is, he only knew his own language perfectly, and had a 
 smattering- of French. Now, have we not bishops, 
 deacons, lecturers, curates, &c. who are acquainted 
 with Hebrew, (jreek, Syriac, Arabic, Latin, and seve- 
 ral other tongues, living as well as dead ; and surely, 
 it would be strange, if, with all this various learning, 
 aided by their laborious researches into the antiquated 
 writings of the primitive Christians, (those credible 
 attesters of miracles and witchciaft,) that they should 
 not be able to overturn such a paltry antagonist as 
 Thomas Paine; who, alas! made use of no other 
 weapon but human reason ; who ridiculed Faith as a 
 mere chimera ; and maintained, that a strict observance 
 o'^ moral virtue constituted the only worship that was 
 in reality pleasing to the Deity. Physiologists have 
 asserted, I know, that the human brain is only capable 
 of a certain degree of active energy, and that every 
 additional talent we may ac(]uire must be gained at 
 tin; expc nee of all the other powers ; and that, con- 
 sequently, he who is familiar with a vari< tv of Ian- 
 guages cannot possibly think very profoundly in any, 
 the whole of his intellect being absorbed, and the pure
 
 26 DEISM EXAMINED 
 
 ideal part of it absolutely extinguished, in the compli- 
 cated matter of grammatical construction, and the end- 
 less labour of committing to memory the various cha- 
 racters and innumerable quantity of words necessary 
 for obtaining such knowledge. On the other hand, it 
 is boldly averred, that he who knows his own lan- 
 guage perfectly, and no otlier, may become, as it were, 
 in his very essence, a compound of thought and re- 
 flection, capable of drawing, from the luminous stores 
 of his own understanding alone, arguments that shall 
 put to flight all the scholastic quibbling of the mere 
 Christian linguist, causing the gloom engendered by 
 his subtilties to vanish like mist before the sun. 
 
 The Deists accuse us of disturbing the last moments 
 of the virtuous, and terrifying their imaginations with 
 the prospect of eternal damnation. They say, that 
 when such unfortunate persons (whose bodily weakness 
 renders them more than childish) become overwhelmed 
 with the dreadful picture, and give way to the weak- 
 ness of humanity, that we then infer, they had a pro- 
 per sense of the enormity of their guilt before they 
 died ; and that we then exclaim, in the gloomy pom- 
 posity of the fanatic Young, 
 
 " Men may live fools, but fools they cannot die !" 
 
 This quotation, when applied to the case in ques- 
 tion, the Deists maintain to be unjust, and are for 
 making a new reading, as being rather more appli- 
 cable, 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 finther,
 
 DEISM EXAMINED. 
 
 •^/ 
 
 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 faculty becomes impaired, what depend- 
 ence 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 my- 
 self, however, to only answering the latter part of the 
 above. I maintain, then, that even shouting our dog- 
 mas in the ears of the dying,^ and thereby disturbing 
 their last moments, is a mere trifle, when put in com- 
 petition 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, obsti- 
 nately held out, they actually burnt them for the love 
 of Christ / This manner of proceeding Dr. Paley 
 has, in some measure, justified,- by affirming, that as 
 the salvation of tliesoul is a matter of infinitely more 
 importance than the well-being of the body, so these 
 converters, who actually believed salvation to exclu- 
 sively 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 de- 
 voted to the flames. Some, I know, would go further, 
 and uro^e, that even the biirnino- of those who were 
 converted by the threats of the holy fathers, was not 
 impolitic, since it may be justified as the above prin- 
 ciple, 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 
 
 ' Vi«!e life «f M. de Voltiurf, 
 
 ' Vltle rally's Mvidrnc. > ol ( 'litij,iianitv, I'iiit lil. rhii|!. vii.
 
 28 DEISM EXAMINED. 
 
 quite abortive? Nothing more likely, and therefore to 
 niake sure of his eternal felicity, they were equally 
 excusabK- in committing him to the flames. A simi- 
 lar principle influenced the pious Monk towards the 
 unfortunate Je\\\ as related in a well-known but some- 
 wlvdt ancient story, concluding with these lines : — 
 
 " Drag, drag me out— I freeze — / diey 
 
 " 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 lauiich'd beneath the ice. 
 
 Hut enough of thus bringing forward accusations 
 and objections of the Deists, and answering them my- 
 self. 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 passed many years in the 
 contiiiued sameness of preaching to congregations 
 who are much too passive and obedient ever to dis- 
 sent 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 publica- 
 tion of the Age of Reason. 1 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 ori- 
 gin and infallibility 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 i)(>rc<'ive the La^f traces of what our adversaries 
 ti'im priestcraft, and not a single sentence which may
 
 DEISM EXAMINED. 29 
 
 be called a quibble. Another answer to the Age of 
 Reason, by a wit, named ilobert Thompson, also de- 
 serves to be mad(> honourable mention ot", as biing 
 i\Q\\.\\er scurrilous nor co/itcniplible ; 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 peroersion or })iliful misrepresentation of 
 passages in Mr. Paine's book. Should these two 
 last gentlemen be still in existence, and chance to pe- 
 ruse this, they will be extremely grateful^ I am sur(% 
 for my thus noticing them ; but they may reserve all 
 thanks, for the encomiums I have passed upon them 
 are nothing more than their real deserts.^ But to con- 
 clude. Seeing, I say, that deistical works are benefi- 
 cial 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 per- 
 secutors for righteousness sake. 
 
 A Jirm Believer in the only true God^ 
 
 and a future State of Retribution. 
 Loudun, 
 Jan. 30, 1819. 
 
 ' There is also a Mr. S. Thompson, a member of the ^ect called 
 ♦' Free Thinkiuj^ Christians," who in a work entitled " Evidences of 
 Revealed Reli<^ion on a new Plan^'' has attempted to answer some 
 of the objections of Mr. Faine ; but as his arguments, though said 
 to be quite inconclusive, have too much the appearance of hmnnn 
 reason, I have not thought proper to mention Am as a person who 
 has much benefited our cause ; and especiallj' as I understand that 
 •' implicit faith" forms no part of the creed of the above sect. 
 
 THE END,
 
 LETTER 
 
 TO 
 
 SIR SAMUEL SHEPHERD, KNT. 
 
 1^10 Mm^Wn aitornep^Oeneral, 
 
 UPON THE SUBJECT OF HIS PROSECUTIONS 
 
 or 
 
 RICHARD CARLILE, 
 
 FOR PUBLISHING 
 
 PAINE'S AGE OF REASON. 
 
 .MM^lMMi^iAi^MMAAM 
 
 PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY R. CARLILE, 55, FLEET STREET. 
 
 1819.
 
 LETTER, 
 
 ^•c. ^c. 
 
 Sir, 
 
 As you have commenced the prosecution of 
 Carhle, a printer, tor pubhshing an edition of 
 Paine's Age of Reason, in conjunction with the self- 
 styled Society tor the Suppression of Vice, 1 take the 
 h}3erty to submit to your consideration a' ftew remarks, 
 upon the nature and tendency of this purposed sUit. 
 Since prosecutions of tliis kind are not 4iovel, and as 
 it u^ay be fairly conjectured that you will follow the 
 ordinary routine of men in your otfice in tliese causes, 
 and moreover as the accused will be subjected to the 
 usual disadvantage of meeting three pleadings to the 
 one vvhicli will be allowed him, besides the probable 
 interruptions I'rom the Judge on the bench, I think it 
 needful and reasonable to anticipate and meet before- 
 hand those hackmed argmiieiHs, which it seems to 
 me most probable that you will advance in the court 
 on the (lays of trial. 
 
 That the accuser should be permitted to plead three 
 times to the once with wliich the accused is but imper- 
 fectly indidged, thouiih it may be law, is most flagrant 
 injustice. But, jjeriiaps, you may not be (juite satis- 
 fied with my arithmetic, and may ask me, how I make 
 out my three pleadings to one. It were much to the 
 honour of this country, and its laws, if 1 should be 
 mistak' n in n)y ealcnhnion, but ! fear to be j)ut to the
 
 4 A LETTER TO 
 
 blush as an Englishman, (if you serjtants at law are 
 not,) by my computation, being found to be but too 
 true. 
 
 In the first place, you open the case. This you do 
 not reckon pleading : but as you are allowed to say 
 whatever you think proper, it becomes as truly a plead- 
 ing in reality as your latter speech, which alone you 
 call by that name. The second is what is styled so 
 on both sides. And this would be injustice, if 1 
 stopped here ; but having engaged to reckon up three 
 pleadings, 1 fix upon the most unfit person that could 
 be named ; that is, my Lord Judge, to plead on the 
 third occasion. 
 
 This speecii of the Judge, you crown-lawyers term 
 summing up the evidence; but I believe you can never 
 adduce one solitary instance in a crown prosecution, 
 in which the Judge has not aca-d completely the part 
 of a retained couitsel tor the crown. 
 
 That my l^ord Judge should be unable to divest 
 himself of the habit of pleading as an advocate, since 
 he has formerly followed that employment, though far 
 from equitable or decorous, is still very natural, like 
 as the mail-coach horse, which has aforetime been a 
 hunter, 
 
 " When bounds and horns tlie torest rend," 
 
 pricks u)) his i^ars, and lonys to join in the piusiiit. 
 But the Judge also discharges a still more exception- 
 able office, that of interrupter on the part of the 
 crown. 
 
 He is apt to lug in his observation, that what th(^ ac- 
 cused is savino- in his own defence is irreleuant to the 
 question ; though a man's penetration must be asto- 
 nishing who can determine beforehand that any parti- 
 cular sentence uttered shall not, by a concatenation of 
 argument, be brought to bear forcibly upon the point 
 in question. 
 
 If the accused adduces instances of opposite deci-
 
 SIR SAMUEL SHEPIIEUD, KNT. 5- 
 
 sions in similar preceeding suits, with a view to point 
 out an inconsistency, the Judge will exclaim, " That 
 is not the cause before us ;" though how in the world 
 can inconsistency be shewn without bringing forward 
 more than one particular ? 
 
 These ill-timed interruptions, by breaking the thread 
 of connection of the defence of the accused, must so 
 maul it, and put it out of shape, that the jury become 
 unable to make either head or tail of it, even though 
 it should have been previously drawn up with good 
 judgment, and contain the soundest reasonings. 
 
 In trials for the alledged blasphemy, if the accused 
 complains that a garbled extract made from his book 
 does not convey its true sense, and wishes to read it 
 at large, the court object, and cry out, that the book 
 is too bad to be read in that place, and that it will 
 poison the ears of the audience. 
 
 If the accused desires that the Bible may be referred 
 to, in proof of its contradictions or blameable pas- 
 sages, the court bawls aloud that it is loo good a book 
 to be produced before the profane. If reference be 
 thus objected to, by what means, then, shall the truth 
 be brought to light ? 
 
 And now, Mr. Attorney-General, let us proceed to 
 your own probable allegations and arguments in court 
 in this particular cause ; and I will suppose you to 
 say to the gentlemen of the jury, that you have been 
 urged by the rej)resentations of a respectable body of 
 men, the Society for the Suppression Vice, to pro- 
 secute R. Carlile, whom you have discovered and 
 proved before the court to have gone vi et armis^ by 
 violence and with weapons of war, and not having 
 the fear of God before his eyes, to have published a 
 blasphemous libel, the A^e: of Reason, by Thomas 
 Paine, which libel had been previously condemned by 
 a Jury, and burnt by the common hangman. That 
 the wicked tendency of this libel was to induce a ge- 
 neral disbelief of your and their most holy religion, 
 that pure, pacific, and benevolent system, which, 
 
 B
 
 6 A LETTER TO 
 
 having emanated from the Deity, is, to its adherents, 
 the basis of their comforts in this life, their solace in 
 the hours of affliction, sickness, and death, their 
 moral instruction in this world, and their providitor of 
 everlasting happiness in a world to come ; that libels of 
 this impious description were with a malignant zeal 
 thrown in the way of the young and inexperienced, 
 too undiscerning to detect their sophistry, or suspect 
 the poison contained in them, and too ignorant yet of 
 the world to be on their guard against the practices of 
 bad men : that irreligion and immorality are necessa- 
 rily connected ; and that the propagators of infidelity 
 are actuated by a malice too virulent to be attributed 
 to mere human passion, and for which a motive 
 and stimulus would be in vain sought for, unless it 
 be assigned to the instigators of the great enemy of 
 mankind, the Devil. The jury will be conjured, as 
 they value the preservation of good morals, the peace 
 and good order of society, both individual and public 
 welfare, the happiness of their fellow-subjects both in 
 this world and in a future life, to arrest the fatal poison 
 in its progress, and give a verdict of conviction and 
 condemnation against the accused. 
 
 But, Mr. Attorney General, you would not take 
 shining pinchbeck counters instead of sovereigns for a 
 fee, with as little close examination as you will wish 
 the jury to admit the weight and validity of your ar- 
 guments, and the accuracy of your assertions. 
 
 The imposing name assumed by the Society who 
 are the ostensible movers of the prosecution, might, 
 at the first glance, seem sufficient to carry all before it, 
 and to dispatch the business at one blow. For what 
 could such a Society direct their efforts against but 
 vice ? However, men are not to be judged of by the 
 titles they choose to give to themselves, without some 
 scrutiny being made into their conduct. This self- 
 styled Society for the Suppression of V^ice., exhibit 
 themselves to us as the foes to free inquiry, and stifling 
 the arguments on one side of a (|uestion. In vain
 
 sill SAMlIEf. SHEPiiLUD, KNT. 7 
 
 will tliey excuse themselves as preventing the poison- 
 ous effects of reasonings on the wrong side ; tor to de- 
 cide in that way which side is wrong is a j)etiho pro- 
 positi, a begging of the question. Heal truth is hest 
 established by the free production of the arguments on 
 both sides ; for thereby suspicion of unfairness is re- 
 moved. So many absurdities attend upon error and 
 flilsehood, that truth has a very preponderating advan- 
 tage against them, where enquiry is left free. The 
 arguments then adduced on the wrong side of a ques- 
 tion, are not so noxious and poisonous as disingenuous \ 
 men wish to insinuate. The truth abhors to be in- 
 debted to suppression of argument, from that it 
 never can derive advantage ; therefore it is only resorted 
 to by the party who are in the wrong. This endeavour 
 to suppress argument implies disingenuousness, and 
 this last named quality is always at variance with real 
 truth. Error may be desioned, but disingenuousness 
 never can be ; and therefore when accompanied with 
 violence, it is always criminal. Disingenuousness, as 
 far as it extends, cannot consist with the love of trudi, 
 but error may. Now as the love of truth is the basis 
 of all real morality, this disingenuous self-styled So- 
 ciety for the Sup|)ression of Vice, are, therefore, 
 detected to be a Society for the Suppression of Virtue. 
 I will still suppose you to proceed in the beaten 
 track of your predecessors in office, and omitting to 
 reply to the technicality /;« ct armis, on which, 1 ima- 
 gine, you lay no stress, I take the liberty to question 
 the propriety of the accustomed phrase, "not having 
 the fear of God before his eyes." You will admit, 
 Mr. Attorney-General, that to forge the Great Seal of 
 England would be a criminal deception, and also, that 
 to examine whether it was forged or not, or to state 
 reasons for believing it to have been forged, woukl be 
 allowable. Now, as the authority of the Creator is a 
 higher one than the British (Government, so to forge a 
 nivelation from him would be a more criminal impos- 
 ture than the former one ; and a rigid examination and
 
 8 A I.KT'IER TO 
 
 scrutiny into its truth or falsehood, raid -all doubts and 
 rational exceptions against a supposed revelation, 
 would always be innocenl, and might sometimes be 
 laudable. Therefore, as Paine's Age of Reason is an 
 objectiou against the truth of the supposed revelations 
 of Moses and Jesus, the conduct of R. Carlile in pub- 
 lishing it must be innocent, at least, if not meritorious, 
 and therefore would consist well with a pious venera- 
 tion towards the Supreme Being; and this invalidates 
 your assertion. 
 
 " Which libel had been condemned by the legisla- 
 ture.'^ But as the legislature is composed of fallible 
 men, their sanction does not prove the truth and 
 validity of Jesus's pretensions ; and as the conduct of 
 the legislature in sanctionino^ this revelation might be 
 directed and influenced by political motives, their 
 sanction is an argument rather against than in favour 
 of its truth. 
 
 " And burnt by the common hangman." Jean 
 Jaques Rousseau says, and so must every reasonable 
 man, Brider un livre n'esf pas y repondre, " Burning 
 a book is not answerinar it." 
 
 " The wicked tendency of this libel was to mduce 
 a general disbelief of your and their most holy reli- 
 gion.^' The truth can only be ascertained by leaving- 
 inquiry free, that arguments on both sides of a ques- 
 tion may be brought forward, in order that it may be 
 seen on which side the preponderance lies. There- 
 fore, the same objection would hold good against pro- 
 ducing the arguments on the wrong side of any other 
 question, as well as this before us now ; this would 
 militate against truth in general, and is, of course, ab- 
 surd. Besides, as the Deists have made the offer to 
 argue with Jesus*s followers upon the truth or false- 
 . hood of Jesus's pretensions upon fair and equal terms, 
 which offer Jesus's followers have thought proper to 
 decline, therefore, to use a figure borrowed from pugi- 
 listic combats, the Deists throw up the hat and claim 
 the victory.
 
 SIR SAMUEL SHEPHERD, KNT. 9 
 
 " That pure, pacific, and benevolent system, which 
 havino- emanated from the Deitv." But the Deists 
 ofter to bring arguments to disprove the jiurity, peace- 
 ableness, and benevolence of Jesus's system, and like- 
 wise its origin from the Supreme Being ; and your 
 laws hinder those arguments from appearing. Now, 
 this endeavour of yours to suppress is concealment. 
 And if there is nothing criminal in this system of 
 Jesus, what could vou liave to conceal ? The Deists 
 do not endeavour to conceal any thing, it is the 
 hiding, hushing, concealing party which are the guilty ; 
 where morality is concerned concealment implies guilt. 
 If the Deists venture to biing forward demonstrations 
 from the four Gospels against the personal moral cha- 
 racter of Jesus, you call that blasphemy. But recol- 
 lect, that when the Deists make you the offer to dis- 
 cuss the moral character and the pretension of Jesus 
 to a mission from the Almighty upon honourable and 
 fair terms, and you choose to decline this equitable 
 proposal, the charge of blasphemy falls upon your- 
 selves ; your sneaking evasion and concealment cause 
 the charge of blasphemy to be brought home against 
 you, and you stand convicted yourselves as the 
 blasphemers. 
 
 " Is to its adherents the basis of their comforts in 
 this life." Observe, that those very men who lay 
 heavy taxation upon this country, and, what was un- 
 known to Pagan times, entail those taxes upon unborn 
 children, those men are among the most zealous as- 
 serters of Jesus's pretensions, and employ Jesus's 
 priests as diligent advocates for the imposition of pub- 
 lic burdens on the land, and sundry abuses. So that 
 the bulk of the people of this country are not much 
 indebted to Jesus's system for temporal comforts. 
 Nay, it rather deprives them of many comforts, and 
 even necessaries in this life. We have such men at 
 present in office, of greatest power and trust, who are 
 of such principles that they would countenance and 
 patronize no religion but what suited their purpose, and
 
 10 A LETTEK TQ 
 
 promoted their tyranny and oppressive objects and de- 
 signs. Therefore, we may see what Jesus's rehgion 
 is by its suiting them so well. 
 
 " Their solace in the hours of affliction, sickness, 
 and death." Jesus's religion has caused the affliction 
 and death of far more people than it has solaced on 
 such occasions. 
 
 " Their moral instructor in this world." The real 
 moral tendency of Jesus's system is one of the points 
 at issue between his followers and the Deists ; there- 
 fore that position is not to be assumed as it has not 
 been fairly proved. Fhe effect of Jesus's religion 
 may have been to repress some vices in the world, but 
 it has greatly increased others. When the Pagan 
 Romans possessed Britain, there was not as much gin, 
 brandy and whiskey drank here as there is now. 
 Nay, the Pagan Romans used to mix water with their 
 wine most usually. Unpaid Bank notes were un- 
 known to them ; and thus millions of inhabitants were 
 not employed in circulating among themselves false- 
 hood and fraud, which horrid practice among us ren- 
 ders those two last crimes familiar to the view, and 
 abates the abhorrence of them. Indeed, perjury was 
 evidently not near so frequent among the Pagan 
 Romans as it is now that Jesus's system has prevailed ; 
 this fact we can clearly infer from what remains to us 
 of Greek and Roman writers. The unnatural tax on 
 unborn children was totally unknown to those ancients : 
 so that Jesus's morality has not done us much good. 
 
 " And their providitor of everlasting happiness in 
 a world to come." There are some drawbacks in this 
 world, at any rate, if we reckon the Sunday's weekly 
 gloom, and the tythes on all landed property. Whe- 
 ther this future happiness be attained to at last or not 
 by Jesus's followers, it is a long, a very melancholy 
 road, however, that they go it. And as a tenth 
 levied on all landed produce and other church dues 
 are pretty large payment in advance for an inheritance 
 in an unseen country, which no man living has visited,
 
 SIR SAMUEL SHEPHERD, KNT. 11 
 
 it seems unreasonable for the law to hinder a scrutiny 
 and examination into the validity of the title-deeds. 
 Besides, as the land is rated heavier than other pro- 
 perty, the payment falls very unequally on the holders 
 of shares in this Terra Incoonita. 
 
 " Libels of this impious description are zealously 
 thrown in the way of the young and inexperienced.'^ 
 This practising upon the minds of the young and in- 
 experienced, if it be culpable, is not so chargeable 
 upon the Deists as upon Jesus's priests. The deisti- 
 cal writings are argumentative, and therefore cannot 
 be read by the young till they are almost grown up, 
 and the judgment is always appealed to by the Deists ; 
 neither do they discourage the examination of the 
 other side of the question, as Jesus's followers usually 
 do. On the other hand, Jesus's priests burden the 
 memory of children, not sev^en years old, with creeds 
 and catechisms; besides, they labour to prejudice the 
 young in favour of Jesus's system, and to discourage 
 all fair inquiry into what concerns its truth; aeon- 
 duct which the Deists would abhor to pursue in favour 
 of deism. Moreover, the catechisms and other ma- 
 chinations of Jesus's priests are calculated to impair 
 the discerning faculty of the young, and to blunt its 
 acumen. 
 
 Let us examine the beginning of the church of Eng- 
 land catechism as an example. " Q. Who gave you 
 that name.''" — "A. My godfathers and godmothers 
 in my baptism, wherein 1 was made a member of Christ,'' 
 &c. How should a child at seven years comprehend 
 the meaning of a membership with an unseen meta- 
 physical being ? 'I his beginning with children on sub- 
 jects beyond their comprehension is playing tricks 
 with their understanding. 
 
 '• Q. What did your godfathers, &c. then for you .^" 
 — " A. They did i)romise and vow three things in 
 my name : first, that I should renounce the devil and 
 all his works.'' it is a monstrous proposition to 
 in.stil into a child's mind that one person could swear
 
 12 A LETTER 10 
 
 to the certainty of another's conduct. Surely these 
 priestly tricks must be meant to incapacitate these 
 young children throughout life from ever thinking 
 acutely on religious subjects. And what idea could a 
 child have of the devil's works ? Of the devil himself 
 they might form some notion from the picture of him, 
 and might 
 
 " Dream of the devil, and wake in a fright." 
 
 The processions \_i. e. pomps] and empty things of this 
 wicked world. Would any pious man swear that a 
 child should not be fond of processions, pomps, and 
 splendid sliows ? Neither could a child distinguish 
 empty things or vanities of the world. It is unavail- 
 ing for Jesus's priests to say that at any age of matu- 
 rity these distinctions will be comprehended, for they 
 have taken care before hand, as far as they could, to 
 injure and debilitate the discerning facidty : and if 
 they should afterwards distinguish vanities, they would 
 still be less able to examine religious truths ; and to 
 place impediments in the way of this last, is the 
 priest's object. " Secondly, that I should believe all 
 the articles of tlie Christian faith." How can one 
 person swear, to what another shall believe ? and 
 what a notion this swearing must give to young rninds 
 of the reverence due to an oath ! Descant, Mr. 
 Attorney-General, as you think proper upon, the good 
 moral tendency of the rehgion as by law established, 
 but you will find it very difficult to prove your asser- 
 tions in its favour, whenever you may please to advance 
 them. The oath extends so far as that the child shall 
 believe not one article only, but all the articles of 
 Jesus's religion, and that without even comprehend- 
 ing them all, for some, as that of the Trinity, are quite 
 unintelligible ; and some of these articles contain 
 other articles, so as to embrace the whole volume of 
 the Bible, all and singular every passage of it, 
 
 " And thirdly, that I should keep God's holy will
 
 SIR SilMUEL SHEPHERD, KNT. 13 
 
 and commandments.'' Then they must swear that the 
 boy shall never be a godfiither. 
 
 All this is done to impair the intellect, and accounts, 
 in part, for the extreme obstinacy and prejudice of 
 Jesus's followers. Somebody must have sworn, IMr. 
 Attorney-General, that you should never be an Attor- 
 ney-General ; for this exercise of your office herein 
 described, is not compatible with much scrupulosity. 
 As for its beinj said that the child afterwards takes the 
 oath upon itself, oaths cannot be so transferred ; there- 
 fore that plea is futile. No description of people, 
 besides Jesus's followers, ever admitted the execrable 
 principle of the transfer of an oath. In fact, if the 
 godfathers had sworn that the boy should turn out a 
 pickle, after all the rest of priestly management, 
 they would have stood a pretty good chance of 
 having nothing fall upon their conscience from that 
 quarter. 
 
 Jesus's priests are apt to injure the intellect of 
 young people by telling them, that if they do not 
 believe Jesus's religion they will be damned to eternal 
 punishments. Now as in all natural belief, when the 
 intellect is sound and healthy, the mind is always 
 passive in the act of giving its assent to any proposi- 
 tion, this trick of Jesus's priests disturbs, impairs, and 
 disorders the understanding ; and by this means also 
 people are rendered incapable, throughout life, to 
 reason and inquire with penetration, discernment, and 
 impartiality on religious subjects. The natural belief 
 of a sound mind is not determined by the will. If 
 men could, in all cases, believe whatever they pleased, 
 their minds would be a complete chaos ; yet have 
 Jesus's priests, in all ages since the days of the founder 
 of their religion, offered this violence to the human 
 intellect. Thus, I think, that I have shewn you, 
 Mr. Attorney-General, that the young and inexpe- 
 rienced are not more in danG:er of imbibino- absurd 
 notions and depraved principles from the Deists than 
 from Jesus's priests. 
 
 c
 
 14 A LETTER TO 
 
 I now proceed to examine a supposed assertion, rife 
 enough among those of your side of the question, 
 that " infidehty and immorahty are necessarily con- 
 nected.'' That the Deists and other unbehvers are 
 more immoral than Jesus's followers, is more than can 
 be proved. And when we consider that Jesus's reli- 
 gion is always taken up as a prejudice, and is main- 
 tained in the world by violence, and by a pertina- 
 cious determination of Jesus's adherents to hear the 
 reason only on one side of the question, that side 
 which is favourable to his pretensions, a procedure 
 which is utterly repugnant to the love of truth, the 
 most probable conjecture is, that the unbelivers 
 should be, upon the whole, the more moral party. 
 But it must be allowed to be a difficult matter to deter- 
 mine such a question as that to anything like certainty. 
 Until it, be determined, however, you have no right 
 to make the assertion alluded to. 
 
 When you declaim upon the too great prevalence of 
 infidelity, you speak a language which implies the in- 
 sane and monstrous notion that natural belief is depen- 
 dent upon the will ; whereas it is the known and sug- 
 gested reasons which always naturally determine the 
 assent. A man is no more culpable merely for what 
 he believes, than he is for discovering by the taste 
 that sugar is sweet and aloes bitter. Your slang 
 when you speak of infidelity and belief, as virtues or 
 vices, reprehensible or laudable, would be quite unin- 
 telligible to us, if we were not already acquainted with 
 the tricks and machinations of priests to create preju- 
 dice, or frighten people into an assent to points, 
 which they dare not trust and submit to the test of 
 fair inquiry. 
 
 If the Creator were to require an assent without a 
 sufficient reason to determine it, he would demand 
 what is contrary to the structure of the human mind, 
 which was formed by himself: thus he would disorder 
 his own work, which is a thing incredible. If he 
 has suggested reasons which would not have been
 
 SIR SAMUEL SHEPHERD, KNT. 15 
 
 Otherwise thought of, let Jesns's priests produce them, 
 and let them be examined. Then the prosecutions of 
 Deists would be superfluous, for they would be forced 
 to beheve when the reasons were found co2:entenou2:ii. 
 But no such reasons have been hitherto produced : 
 reason or no reason, the assent is still required. And 
 how shall such an assent without reasons sufficient be 
 chstinguished from what is universally allowed, by 
 physicians and all others, to be insanity and mental 
 derangement ? 
 
 " That the propagators of infidelity are instigated 
 by the Devil." This assertion, very usual from men 
 in your office, Mr. Attorney-General, you are unable 
 to prove. And hereby you remind us, that Jesus's 
 followers universally admit the very absurd notion of 
 two principles in the universe, a good and a bad one. 
 I know that the moderns beinsr ashamed of it, wish to 
 abrogate it, and throw it off from themselves upon 
 the early heretics. But we shall not allow you to 
 escape that way. If you advance any principle, you 
 must admit all the consequences which necessarily 
 flow from it ; and we will not suffer your evasions in 
 this particular. When pressed hard, you followers of 
 Jesus want to pass off the Devil upon us for a mere 
 angel, and tell us of his war in Heaven, and that he 
 was cast out upon the earth. This will not do, we 
 shall not allow you this subterfuge, for in other places 
 your received canon of Scripture maintains the ubi- 
 quity of the Devil ; this extravagant notion with 
 which we charge you, we shall bring home to you. 
 In 2 Cor. chap. iv. ver. 4, you have, " In whom the 
 God of this M'orld hath blinded the eyes of them that 
 believe not ;" implying, that the Devil, i.e. the (iod 
 of this world, is ])resent in all unbelievers. This is 
 still further confirmed by 1 John, chap, v, ver. 19: 
 " The whole world lieth in the wicked one," i. e. the 
 Devil. 1 know that it is translated, "lieth in wicked- 
 ness ;'' but this a sn(niking evasion of Jesus's fol- 
 lowers, who are ashamed of the notion of the two
 
 16 A LETTER TO 
 
 principles. That is an extraordinary vicious transla- 
 tion of the passage. A man who knows the least of 
 Greek at all must be sensible that the passage will 
 only admit of the rendering which I have here, and 
 others have before me, given to it. The Devil is said 
 by Jesus's followers to pervade the whole unbelieving 
 •world. If you complain, Mr. Attorney-General, that 
 this is pressing a lawyer too far on a theological ques- 
 tion, I shall lay the blame on you, and those who 
 have held your office, for starting this particular sub- 
 ject ; and whenever an Attorney-General advances a 
 position, he takes the risks attending it. The story of 
 the Devil's fall from Heaven in Revelations, chap. xii. 
 may establish and shew an inconsistency in Jesus's 
 religion, but it does not get you nor his followers clear 
 of the silly notion of the two principles, when your 
 canon of Scripture has once advanced what clearly im- 
 plies that groundless notion. 
 
 " The jury are conjured.'' Since the detection 
 and exposition of that infamous list of jurors, out of 
 which a jury used to be packed for the Crown when- 
 ever it was prosecutor, some sort of reformation has 
 taken place in the manner of appointing a jury, so as 
 to leave a better chance of having disinterested men 
 on the jury. Before Hone's trial, the scene which 
 used to take place in prosecutions for alledged blas- 
 phemy was scandalous and detestable. The legisla- 
 ture take upon themselves to assign a revelation to the 
 Almighty, but as a revelation is a delineation of his 
 character, they assign to him a character of their own 
 choosing; and as they labour to suppress and hide the 
 objections started against it, that character which they 
 have given to the Supreme Being must of course be a 
 bad one, because concealment in this case implies 
 guilt in the concealing party : so that the charge of 
 blasphemy is justly retorted upon the legislature and 
 upon the prosecuting party in this case of R. Carlile, 
 and also in the preceding cases of Houston, the re- 
 puted author of Kcce Homo, of Williams, who was
 
 SIR SAMUEL SHEPHERD, KNT. 17 
 
 Paine's printer of the Age of Reason, of Daniel Isaac 
 Eaton, too, and others. The legislative bodies, I re- 
 peat, and their accompHces, are the real blaspheming 
 party, who have given, as they testify by their con- 
 cealing practices, a bad and slanderous character to 
 the Almighty, and whose guilt is aggravated by their 
 endeavours to hinder other men from vindicating him 
 from their foul aspersions. 
 
 The jury on ail those above mentioned occasions in- 
 variably gave up the character of the Maker of the 
 universe to be traduced and calumniated by the legis- 
 lative bodies and their accomplices ; and this abandon- 
 ment of all rectitude and decency was by bad men 
 termed a verdict, i.e. a vere dictum^ whereby infallibi- 
 lity was attributed to twelve mortal men at the same time 
 that it was denied to the Ancient of Days, the real pro- 
 prietor of all worlds. If persons sitting judiciously upon 
 the character of this exalted 13eing, gave it up thus to 
 be reviled, they ought, at least, to have been Gods 
 whose judgment was to have been thus appealed to: 
 in fact, this sort of appeal of the prosecuting party to 
 twelve mortals, was erectino^ them to sometliing: far 
 above the human nature ; and these twelve mortals 
 were induced by a gratuity of one or more guineas a 
 piece, a good dinner, with plenty of jovial nectar, 
 at the expence of the country, to consign over the cha- 
 racter of the Almighty to reviling and insult, thereby 
 opening a door for a supposititious system of morality, 
 
 " And raised to gods confess even virtue vain." 
 
 Pope. 
 
 " As they value the preservation of good morals." 
 This, as 1 have shewn, must be merely ironical, these 
 prosecutions having the opposite tendency. 
 
 " The peace and good order of society.^' This is 
 to obtain a submission to tyranny; which submission 
 Jesus in his religion inculciites by his Ai)Ostle Peter, 
 1 K])h. chiip. ii. ver. l;j: " Submit yourselves to every
 
 18 A LETTER TO 
 
 ordinance of man.'* And this will account for zeal 
 of the ruling authorities to support Jesus's pretensions. 
 
 " Individual and public welfare." This, after what 
 has been shewn, must be all rant. 
 
 " The happiness of their fellow-subjects here and 
 hereafter.'* This can never be promoted by suppress- 
 ing- argument and stifling inquiry. 
 
 " Arrest the fatal poison.'* Here the fair and free 
 investigation and examination of propositions is called 
 poison. Yet, who but the wicked can have any thing 
 to dread from inquiry ? 
 
 I apprehend, Mr. Shepherd, that you and the self- 
 styled Society for the Suppression of Vice carry on 
 separate prosecutions, but I have classed you both to- 
 gether, because you are both of you aiding, abetting, 
 and assisting in the same design. Of what individu- 
 als that Society is composed is not known to me, but 
 as the Bishops of Durham and Rochester are the pre- 
 sidents, I conclude, that many priests of Jesus are 
 among the number, and that, at any rate, the parsons 
 are the chief instructors in this business. That free 
 inquiry should not generally take place is much their in- 
 terest, for thereby their " gains would be gone.*' They 
 would much wish that the ignorance of ancient days, so 
 profitable to parsons, could be brought back ; and I 
 send you a verse or two upon a desire expressed in the 
 Gentleman's, or as it ought to be called, from its treat- 
 ing so much of ecclesiastical matters, and expressing 
 the wish of the parsons, the Parson's Magazine, that 
 the level near St. Andrew's church should be filled up. 
 
 *' Priests, who tlirou^h flats their trade sustain. 
 
 Wish level Holborn Hill ; 
 And wish the world were flat ygain. 
 
 As erst when it stood still.'" 
 
 The self-styled Society for the Suppression of Vice, 
 are zealous to substitute useless or absurd observances 
 
 ' Jobhu;!, chap. x.
 
 SIR SAMUEL SHEPHERD, KNT. 19 
 
 as parts of religion, instead of real true morality; and 
 iiave taken great j)ains to prevent amusements, and 
 produce a gloom throughout Sunday", the only holiday 
 for many people. There are not less spirits drank on 
 account of a sabbatical gloom ; for harmless cheer- 
 fulness is rather a preservative of innocence. I have 
 therefore sent you, Mr. Attorney-General, a song, 
 which I beg you to deliver to the parsons of that 
 Society, and to any other parsons, to help them to 
 keep up their spirits. 
 
 SONG, 
 
 To the tune of " Come, bustle, bustle, drink aboulf and let us 
 merry be,'''' of George Alexander Stevens, 
 
 Since Paul affirms that Heaven has chose 
 
 The thouj^htless, foolish things,' 
 And bless'd with Paradise all those 
 For paying: priests and kings :* 
 
 Then a preaching we will go, will go, will go. 
 Then a preaching we will go. 
 
 Fanatic herds, as if with strings 
 
 At their nose, by priests are led ; 
 And know not that the knavish things 
 
 Made that choice in God's stead. 
 
 Then a preaching, &c. 
 
 As crowds believe the heavens reject 
 
 The prying, shrewd, and wise, 
 No fear lest he our fraud detect, 
 
 Wliose faith has closed his eyes. 
 
 Then a preaching, &c. 
 
 Now Sion is rubied, gilt, and pearl'd. 
 
 As the seat of blockheads' bliss ; 
 Our flocks may take that future world, 
 
 Give us the joys of this. 
 
 Then a preaching, &c. 
 
 1 Cor. i. ver, '27. * Rum. chap. xiii. vcr. 4.
 
 20 A LETTER TO MR. CARLILE. 
 
 Our muttons, gulled and ignorant. 
 
 Dare never close inquire, 
 Lest if they disbelieve our cant. 
 
 They fall to Hell's hot fire. 
 
 Then a preaching, &c. 
 
 Thus dolts suck in, through panit dread, 
 
 The Gospel's niilk^ and crumbs, 
 And with all nonsense till their heads. 
 
 Lest Hell should scorch their bums. 
 
 Then a preaching, &c. 
 
 March 2, 1819. PHILALETHES. 
 
 A 
 
 LETTER TO MR. CARLILE. 
 
 London, 28th February, 1819. 
 
 Sir, 
 You are about to be placed in a situation, and to 
 perform a part, which will interweave your name in 
 the page of history: — not, however, in that species of 
 history which records the wars, bloodshed, or misery 
 of nations, as opposed to one another ; but in that 
 which exhibits the cruelties of governments towards 
 individuals among their own subjects, who seeing, or 
 thinking they see, their fellow men suffering afflictions 
 through the ignorance, prejudice, and misrule of their 
 governments, endeavour to remove the causes of such 
 oppressions and misery, by disclosing them, and 
 setting their fellow-men to think for themselves. You 
 have had the virtue and intrepidity to engage in this 
 honourable career, and are, consequently, a promi- 
 
 * 1 Cor. chap. iii. ver. 2, and Heb. chap. v. ver. 13. 
 
 /
 
 A LETTER TO MR. CARLILE. 21 
 
 nent object in the public eye. Every friend to the 
 progress of knowledge, reason, and truth, as well as 
 of sincere humanity, is warmly interested in the 
 nature and result of those severe proceedings instituted 
 against you. They devoutly hope that your character 
 as a man and a neighbour will afford no handle for 
 disparagement of you and your conduct ; that your 
 moral principles are good, and your integrity un- 
 questioned ; that your deportment in the relations of 
 private and domestic life is amiable : and that con- 
 scious of the purity of your motives, you will not 
 shrink before the threats of your adversaries ; but, on 
 the contrary, display that manly firmness of courage 
 which will enable you to encounter and defeat the 
 numerical, though not formidable, superiority of force 
 to be arrayed against you. If, however, contrary to 
 our hopes and expectations, the abettors of persecu- 
 tion in church and state should, by their arts and 
 machinations, succeed in obtaining a verdict for the 
 prosecutor, be you assured that the respect, sympa- 
 thy, and support of every enlightened, liberal, and 
 benevolent mind, will follow you, wherever your 
 oppressors may convey your person. Yet I cannot 
 but cherish anticipations of a very different termination 
 of these proceedings, engendered as they are between 
 religious bigotry and political folly, when submitted 
 by both sides to a jury of our countrymen. I trust 
 that impartial justice will guide their decision. 
 
 As a friend to the universal freedom of mankind, 
 civil and religious, I take leave to addr( ss you, for the 
 purpose of contributing my sincere congratulations on 
 the honours that await you, and the fine opportunity 
 presented to you of benefiting mankind. 1 regret 
 that the nature of my situation constrains me to con- 
 ceal my name. To disclose it would, in all probabi- 
 lity, prove my ruin in worldly circumstances, and thus 
 both my present and future usi^fuJncss in this very 
 cause be destroyed, I know many iiitlividuals, emi- 
 nent for public and private virtue, who entertain the 
 
 P
 
 22 A LETTER TQ MR. CARLILE. 
 
 same sentiments as myself, who, by the prejudices so 
 assiduously kept up, are equally obliged to be silent. 
 1 have felt desirous, too, of sending you a few uncon- 
 nected thoughts which have occurred to me on your 
 case. It is very likely that they are quite common, and 
 may have been much better expressed by others ; yet, 
 nevertheless, 1 shall state them. 
 
 I can easily suppose, that, even if you had an inten- 
 tion to employ counsel in your defence, you would 
 find some difficulty, in the present servility of the bar 
 to the powers that be, to obtain any assistance. But 
 you require none, and you will be your own best 
 advocate. 1 am not a lawyer, and therefore am 1 
 neither deeply read in musty statutes, nor skilled in 
 legal subtilities. I apprehend, however, that there is 
 not a law in the statute book forbidding theological 
 controversy. The crime with which you are charged 
 is called a libel. Now, what a libel is 1 do not know, 
 nor can any body tell me ; yet you are doubtless 
 pretty well aware, that 3'our prosecutors will, in a 
 strain of inflated declamation and bombast, describe 
 this libel as a thing of the most atrocious and diaboli- 
 cal nature and tendency. Your mode of defence 
 against this attack is obvious. Since the question at 
 issue between you and your accusers is not one of law, 
 but of fact, your object is to get behind their ambus- 
 cade of words, and beat down their phillippics by 
 that irresistible weapon, common sense, wielded by 
 an honest man. 
 
 It has always appeared to my understanding that 
 the most powerful argument that can be used with 
 well-meaning people who assist in, or approve of 
 prosecutions to support the ascendancy of their reli- 
 gion, is, that which shews such prosecutions to have 
 a directly opposite tendency. Persecution is the very 
 scandal of religion ; it confesses weakness at once, 
 and is a complete admission that the origin, doctrines, 
 and progress of that religion cannot bear investigation. 
 It proves that the professors of, and believers in it,
 
 A LETTER TO i>rR. CARLILE. 23 
 
 ane not themselves convinced ot" its truth aiul divine 
 nature. But a svstem of thius's beino- cstabHshed, of 
 which those persons form a part, in which they Hve, 
 move, and have their being, thei/ icis/t it io be true. 
 They themselves take it for granted, and live very com- 
 fortably under that system of machinery of which it is 
 a wheel, and so their interest and indolence combine 
 in prompting them to wish every one else to have the 
 same belief. There are people, however, who cannot 
 and will not, believe what appears to their judgments 
 to be false ; but, should they go farther than this, and 
 conscientiously wishing their fellow-creatures to perceive 
 the truth, endeavour to shew by writings on what 
 grounds they cannot, and others ought not, to believe 
 in falsehood and impositions, then, in default of coun- 
 ter argument, or refutation by the same instrument of 
 reason, courts of law and armed authority are called 
 on , io compel ihosit unbelievers either to believe, (and of 
 course such belief would be against their consciences,) 
 or to hold their tongues. In former ages, shooting, 
 stabbing, burning, and flaying ahve, were the means 
 used for propagating religion for the good of men^s 
 souls : now they are imprisoimient, fine, pillory : but 
 these remnants of barbarity are also fast sinking into 
 disgrace and disuse, and I cannot help thinking that you 
 are destined to give the finishing blow, in this coun- 
 try at least, to the cruelties of bigotry. 
 
 Now, as inspiration or direct revelation from 
 Heaven is not believed even by Christians (at least the 
 more rational) of this day, though in the early and 
 middle ages of Christianity priests ami monks would 
 have sworn that God communicated with thcni every 
 day, let me suggest that, in the course of your defence, 
 vou ask the Jurv trvino: your iruilt or innocence as a 
 libeller of that religion, whether thei/ believe it to be 
 founded on truth ? And since it would be to insult 
 them, you can add, to suppose they should i)rofess 
 belief on a subject doubtless considered by them of the 
 highest importance to their present and future welfare.
 
 24 A LETTER TO MR. CARLILE. 
 
 without having thoroughly examined it, again ask 
 — whether in their hearts and consciences they think 
 that any sophistical reasoning, which every thing con- 
 trary to it they must deem so, could shake their prin- 
 ciples thus established on the basis of demonstration ? 
 If so established, what can hurt it — What can be a 
 libel on it ? Unless their religion he capable o( demon- 
 stration, it is at best but doubtful, and may, therefore, 
 be at least susceptible of confutation. If, in spite of 
 the objections and attacks to which it has been 
 exposed, it can be shewn to be the true religion after 
 all, such discussion, instead of doing harm, must do 
 good, inasmuch as it fixes the religion on a firmer 
 basis. On a subject where so many men of the most 
 acute intellect and most respectable character diflfer 
 in opinion, you, as a humble inquirer after truth, may 
 be allowed to have yours. Speculative opinions on 
 religion, you can tell the jury, are nothing : whether 
 you be a Roman Catholic, a Protestant, a Moham- 
 medan, a worshipper of Vishnu, a Free Thinker, or 
 none of all these, is of no consequence to mankind 
 either governing or governed — It is a matter between 
 you and your Maker only. All that governments can 
 have to do with individuals, is their conduct as mem- 
 bers of the state towards their neighbours. Had you 
 been charged with any acts of disturbance, with the 
 violation of any of the laws for the protection of per- 
 sons and property, then it would have been intelligi- 
 ble ; you might have been a fit object for trial, and, if 
 found guilty, of punishment. Not one of the books 
 which you have published have the slightest tendency 
 to promote disorder ; but, on the contrary, do they 
 protiess, and are calculated by a diflfusion of their prin- 
 ciples, to extend and consolidate universal peace, virtue, 
 hapiness, and prosperity. 
 
 {^, then, the gentlemen of the Jury^s religion be 
 founded on what they have satisfied their understandings 
 to be irut/i, nothing can injure it; since, if it really 
 come from God, to imagine that any writings, whether
 
 A LETTER TO MR. CARLILE. 25 
 
 argumentative or satirical, could maintain a doubtful 
 contest with books said to contain a revelation of the 
 divine will, is actually to raise the author of such 
 writings, and you their publisher, to a level with God 
 himself! or, rather, to degrade that almighty, wise, 
 and good Being, your Creator, to a level with you, 
 the creature. Hence it follows, that persecution may 
 destroy, but never can support any religion. 
 
 You cannot have a better ground-work for your 
 defence than the theological works of Paine, which, 
 indeed, settle the question about the inspiration of the 
 scriptures and the divinity of Christ. On the subject 
 of religion generally, there is a book which every lover 
 of truth must regret is not so well known as it will 
 infallibly be in no long time — I allude to a work en- 
 titled " Principles of Morality," by George Ensor, 
 Esq. It displays the most extensive research and 
 erudition, combined with good sense and an amiable 
 disposition ; the subject is pursued with much per- 
 spicuity of order, and expressed in an easy, neat, 
 appropriate style. The book forms a very useful com- 
 panion to Hume's ingenious and philosophical Essays 
 on the Natural History of Religion. 
 
 I have now to advert to what you will doubtless 
 consider the most valuable part of this communication. 
 At the period of the late Mr. Eaton's cruel and 
 abominable treatment under the chief persecutorship of 
 Lord Ellenborough and his high priest, vSir Vicary 
 Gibbs, a letter appeared in the Morning Chronicle on 
 the subject of that unfortunate gentleman's unmerited 
 punishment. It purported to be written by one who 
 believed in the Christian religion ; but it evinced sen- 
 timents so liberal, reasoning so just and forcible ; it 
 placed the right of conscience, even as good policy, 
 in so striking a point of view ; arguing the subject in 
 such good temper, and with such conciseness, as to 
 appear to me a masterpiece of its kind, and a standard to 
 which every member of the Christian church ought to 
 be referred. 1 preserved a copy of it at the time, and
 
 26 EXTRACT FROM THE MORNING CHRONICLE, 
 
 now send you one transcribed, believing that it may 
 be useful to you, or that it may at least be interesting 
 to you in the perusal. 
 
 The public mind has, of late years, been making 
 rapid progress towards a true knowledge of its rights. 
 Priestcraft and bigotry must and will be destroyed. 
 Once trampled upon by man in the energy of his 
 wrath, these monsters can never again rear their Gorgon 
 heads. Like the Apollo represented by the Grecian 
 sculptor, in the act of destroying the Pythian serpent, 
 man will then stand as God created him, the impress 
 of his own image, erect, free, noble, and grand. We 
 have seen the glorious result of the attempt to crush, 
 not Hone, but in him the spirit of a free press, and it 
 is not permitted us to doubt that a similar triumph and 
 reward await you. 
 
 I am, 
 Your sincere (though anonymous) friend, 
 
 A FELLOW-INQUIRER AFTER TRUTH. 
 
 (Copy.) 
 To the Editor of the Morning Chronicle. 
 
 Sir, 
 I WAS one of those who saw Mr. Eaton stand in 
 the pillory for what has been called an attempt to 
 overturn the religion of his country. The manner in 
 which the spectators behaved during the execution of 
 this severe punishment, was, in my opinion, highly 
 creditable to the liberality of the age. 1 think 1 may 
 venture to say, there was hardly an individual present 
 who did not sympathise with the unfortunate man ; 
 he was cheered by numbers during the whole time of 
 the punishment ; and many efforts were made to 
 convey various kinds of refreshments to him.
 
 EXTRACT FROM THE MORNING CHRONICLE. 27 
 
 As one of those who wish well to the interests of 
 the Christian religion, I own I was shocked upon this 
 occasion. 1 have always conceived this relio-ion to he 
 perfectly inde])endent of the arm of authority for its 
 support, and to require only to be heard and examined 
 to bear down every species of opposition. I cannot 
 but consider that it has made its way against power, 
 learning, and philosophy, united to destroy it ; nor 
 can I refuse to draw from this the deduction, that it 
 M'ill equally withstand all the efforts of abuse, so- 
 phistry, and calumny. When I see any set of men 
 resort to punishment, instead of argument, in its de- 
 fence, I can with difficulty conceive they are serious 
 in the belief of its doctrines, for the smallest reflection 
 might convince them, that such a course is the most 
 effectual method they could take to lower its estima- 
 tion, and to cover it with discredit. It betrays that 
 diffidence and fear for the result which a man tho- 
 roughly impressed with the truth of the Christian 
 doctrines would surely not be the most likely to enter- 
 tain. I cannot bring myself, therefore, to believe, 
 that those who manifest a zeal to crush the enemies of 
 Christianity by the arm of the law, are themselves ac- 
 quainted with that religion. I imagine them, on the 
 contrary, to be men whose time and attention have 
 been completely ingrossed by secular affairs, and who 
 believe the Christian religion as they would believe 
 the Mohammedan, merely because their fathers be- 
 lieved it before them. 
 
 Let those cruel persecutors reflect for a moment on 
 the injury they are thus doing to the very cause they 
 are pretending to support. Let them consider that 
 religion can be defended only by argument, or by 
 force, and that it cannot be defended by the union of 
 both ; for it is in vain to say, it may be defended by 
 argument, when the reasonings on one side only can 
 be heard aloud, while those on the other draw down 
 on the head of the user of them pillory and imprison- 
 ment. It is certainly a very unequal conflict when
 
 28 EXTRACT FROM THE MORNING CHRONICLE. 
 
 one of the combatants may make use of an argument 
 or a halter at his discretion. It is hke a battle be- 
 tween a pugilist and one armed with a stiletto, which, 
 though he may not use at first, he knows he can use if 
 hard pushed. Such defenders of Christianity would 
 do well to remember, that the means they are resort- 
 ing to are those which so successfully promoted the 
 cause of infidelity in Prance. Had the same pains 
 been bestowed in refuting the productions of Rousseau, 
 Diderot, and Voltaire, which were employed in burn- 
 ing their books and punishing the authors, France and 
 the whole of Europe might, at this day, have exhibited 
 a very different spectacle. 
 
 The progress of liberal opinion has been very rapid, 
 indeed, of late years ; and though Judges and Attor- 
 ney-Generals, whose daily pursuits, certainly so un- 
 favourable to liberal and comprehensive reasonings, 
 are generally among the last persons to shake off anti- 
 quated prejudices, yet they too, however slowly, will, 
 unquestionably, at last, be borne down by the tide of 
 public opinion. 
 
 THE END.
 
 ADDRESS 
 
 TO 
 
 THE SPANIARDS 
 
 NOW IN 
 
 (*?xilr in <Brrat Britain* 
 
 BEING THE 
 
 DEDICATION 
 
 TO THE 
 
 EIGHTH VOLUME OF " THE REPUBLICAN." 
 
 To restrain the freedom of writing and speaking, is to make those who 
 are subject to such restraint, less than men, less than any kind of 
 animals; for all other animals have the liberty of speech. 
 
 Uonlion: 
 
 PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY R. CARLILE, 84, FLEET 
 
 STREET. 
 
 1824. 
 Price One Perini/.
 
 DEDICATION. 
 
 TO SPANIARDS IN EXILE. 
 
 — ►>►•©•<♦<— 
 
 To you, this eighth volume of " The Republican'' is dedi- 
 cated, as a specimen of that free DISCUSSION, the absence 
 of which, in Spain, more than any thing else, has caused 
 your late defeat. Every one of you must be ready to ac- 
 knowledge, that the religious orders in your country were 
 the most bitter enemies to your constitutional government, 
 and that before you can hope to recover your lost posi- 
 tion, and to retain it in tranquillity, you must so instruct 
 the mass of the Spanish people, as to divest them of all that 
 influence which the Priest, the Friar, and the Monk exercise 
 over them. 
 
 In your late struggle with iyrannij on the one hand and 
 ignorance on the other, you found that, tyranny rather than 
 liberty can best influence ignorance, and use it for any and 
 for all its purposes. A little gold and a few high somiding 
 words rouse the passions of the ignorant, and they may be 
 led on to their own and to the destruction of others, like a 
 dog or any other beast of prey. There is no remedy for 
 this, but in equalizing the knowledge of mankind: there is 
 no means to that end, but the most^ree discussion. 
 
 It behoves you then, whilst in exile, to examine the 
 foundation of the Christian, and of every other religion, that 
 you may be prepared with the means to shake the power of 
 the Spanish Priesthood, and to rescue the ignorant of your 
 country from its direful influence. Know from this volume 
 that the Christian Religion has no good foundation — that it 
 is not useful, but that it is mischievous, of which Spain is a 
 melancholy instance. 
 
 Who were they to raise a shout, when Riego ceased to 
 live? — The Priests. 
 
 Who were they to foment the insurrection against the 
 Constitution, and to call in the aid of the French slaves? 
 The Priests, with your hateful Ferdinand at their head. 
 
 Have you not found many of these pretended preachers 
 of peace in arms against you? And those, who have not re- 
 sorted to arms, have they not abetted the ignorant and 
 weak minded peasantry to that object? Depend on it, that 
 such a code as your Constitution can never exist, long at a 
 time, with an established priesthood.
 
 DEDICATION. 
 
 In vain, did you make it death by your code to introduce 
 any but the Roman Catholic Religion into Spain! Your 
 Priests did not want the religion, but the influence and pro- 
 fit arising therefrom. You were heretics, the moment you 
 began to apply the church-property to the national wants. 
 All your professions of respect for the Roman Catholic Re- 
 ligion availed you nothing: you were denounced as Atheists, 
 and justly so deuouncd; for you ought to have known, that 
 the Priest knows no God but his profit and power, of which 
 you sought to deprive him. His private gospel is his rent 
 and tithe roll, which you did not respect; and be properly 
 proclaimed you to be heretics. 
 
 If you can again set your feet on the Spanish soil, you 
 are intreated to think of nothing before the annihilation of 
 priestcraft. The lands and dwellings of the Priests you 
 should share among those who are likely to be made instru- 
 ments for your overthrow ; by so doing, you will secure 
 their support, whilst the bumbled priest will crouch to your 
 influence. 
 
 Your next revolution in Spain must end in an avowed 
 Republic; for you have had experience, that Monarchy 
 and Freedom are words and principles not to be associated. 
 A constitutional monarchy is a system that is at war with 
 itself: it contains the germ of civil war, which will inces- 
 santly be bursting forth, until monarchy ox freedom triumphs. 
 
 Adversity is the best school in which to acquire know- 
 ledge; in that school you are now placed ; and it is hoped, 
 that the discussions carrying on by the Press of this Island 
 will not be lost upon you. Your attention is particularly 
 called to the first number of this volume, in which you may 
 learn, that you erred in making your constitution, verbose 
 as it was, a fixture for a period of years. You will there 
 see that all a people can possibly want in the way of Go- 
 vernment is, wholesome laws and wholesome magistrates; 
 and that, it is the height of absurdity to say, that the one or the 
 other shall be placed above a periodical election and not be 
 changed for a number of years. Such an error in your con- 
 stitution appears to me, to have been a main cause of its 
 speedy overthrow. 
 
 The fate of Riego may teach you the impropriety of having 
 made a truce with monarchy, and widi such a monarch as Ferdi- 
 nand. It may show you the hollowness of such expedients as 
 force from llie mouth of such a man sentiments at variance with 
 those which all tlie ]>eople of Europe and America knew him to 
 entertain. It may show you that nothing which has its basis in 
 deception can work for the benefit of a people, and that morality
 
 4 DEDICATION. 
 
 is as essential to the well working of a Government, as to the 
 happiness of an individual. The monarchical part of your con- 
 stitution was deception throughout, and a baser mind than Ferdi- 
 nand's, if such could have been found, might have spurned the 
 idea of being its instrument. 
 
 The political part of this volume clearly shews you, that mo- 
 narchy, upon its past and present construction, cannot be mixed 
 up wiih popular liberty: it clearly shews you, that it is not neces- 
 sary to Government; but that it is an obstruction to good Go- 
 vernment; it clearly shews you that a people, insurgent against bad 
 Government, should never respect it in any part of its existence ; 
 but that they should look upon themselves, as a society about 
 to begin a new association, and calculate on what is best for the 
 future, instead of adhering to the form of what is past. Laws 
 and ministers of law are all that is wanted to perfect the happi- 
 ness of an intelligent people, provided that those laws and their 
 ministers are the offspring of popular representation. 
 
 The theological part of this volume exhibits, in my opinion, 
 most clearly, that there is no supernatural power, no designing, 
 power beyond the animal world, and that the almighty power, or 
 the combined powers of the universe, are not intellectual. An un 
 derstanding of this matter strikes at the root of all religion, by 
 shewing you, that all is idolatry: that there can be no such thing 
 as religion separable from idolatry: that religion and idolatry 
 are synonymous terms: that he who worships, under whatever 
 sect or denomination, is an idolater: and that this conclusion is 
 not so much a-theism as a-idolism. 
 
 But the most important feature in this volume I take to be, 
 that which shews morality uncontaminated with religion to be the 
 great essential in all human affairs to generate human happiness. 
 This you will find to be a leading feature in all the volumes of 
 " The Republican," but more particularly in this eighth volume. 
 Though they exhibit great literary defects, jointly ov/ing to my 
 inability and situation, as soon as you can read the English Lan- 
 guage, I feel convinced, that you can read nothing more useful 
 to you as individuals, or as exiled patriots, than the eight volumes 
 of " The Republican," paying more attention to the matter than 
 to the stile or correctness of printing. 
 
 With these recommendations, I take my leave, assuring you, 
 that my freedom springs from a desire to see you well employed 
 during the time of your exile, and that you may obtain a clear 
 understanding of the best political principles for the future bene- 
 fit of yourselves and your countrymen in general. I certainly do 
 consider, that you have exhibited some defects, while the helm of 
 affairs in Spain was in your hands; though I am not bhnd to the 
 power of the priests, to the character and state of ignorance of 
 the people among whom you dwelt, and to the many and great 
 excuses to which you are entitled on that account. 
 
 RICHARD CARLILE.
 
 A RESPECTFUL 
 
 ADDRESS 
 
 TO THE INHABITANTS OF 
 
 NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE 
 
 AND ITS VICINITY. 
 
 BY RICHARD CARLILE. 
 
 PRINTED BY WILLIAM KENT, 99, SIDE. 
 
 1834.
 
 0titirr00, ^c. 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen, 
 
 I have sojourned a mouth with 
 you and must take my leave, to which, with some I am 
 aware that I shall be very welcome, more welcome to leave 
 than to stay; but such are not friends to man or to themselves. 
 M}'^ purpose is accomplished. I came a stranger, other than 
 by tlie publicity of my name, to make myself kno^rn to you. 
 I have succeeded in so doing among at least five thousand 
 persons. That is sufficient for my future purpose. I have 
 planted the gospel by revelation in this town and its vicinity 
 where before nothing but the mystery unrevealed had ex- 
 isted. I have sown the spirit upon the soil of the letter, and 
 I fear not the increase becoming a goodly harvest of reason 
 evident in righteousness. You have hitherto been deceived 
 in the name of Christianity. It has not belonged to you. 
 It belongs not to unrevealed mystery. It is not to be asso- 
 ciated with vices or bad habits of any kind. It is not even 
 to be mixed up with the toleration or endurance of an 
 association of vices and bad habits. It is not made up of 
 dissenting opinions. There cannot be an ignorant christian. 
 You may as well talk of christian cattle as of an unlettered 
 man being a christian. The fault is not in the man who is 
 left unlettered ; a christian church would not leave a man 
 in that condition ; but the fault is in those who pretend to 
 build a christian church, and who build on the foundation 
 of perj)etuated ignorance instead of increasing knowledge. 
 The fault is in the ministry, in the magistrate, in the law. 
 A church is a congregation of the peoi)le. They may be 
 congregated in the name of the church and may be any thing 
 but christian. They may be doers and followers of evil. 
 They may \vaste tlieir time and assemble without plan or 
 purpose of imiu'oveiiient. They may hear nothing but the
 
 4 
 
 dead language of mystery, an unknown tongue to them ; 
 but never the tongue of the Holy Spirit. They may be ex- 
 cited with vocal and instrumental music ; with the pythonic 
 fervour of mysterious prayer and preaching ; but they must 
 leave such a scene uninstructed. In the name of Christ, de- 
 mand for the people a church in which there shall be some- 
 thing useful constantly taught, which shall be truly the 
 fountain of human knowledge, which shall lay its foundation 
 in the catholicity of the human race, in which the baptism 
 of infants shall not be a fallacious mockery, nor that of adults 
 a mere ludicrous figure, in which the sacraments shall not 
 be mysteries but sciences ; the second birth, or birth imto 
 righteousness, a reality ; and the resurrection and ascension 
 made practical in visible effects on human life. Christ is the 
 light of human life, of which every soul may be trained to 
 partake, may be improved by partaking, and cannot be truly 
 said to be an existence without Christ. He that believeth 
 on the Son hath everlasting life : he that believeth not the 
 Son shall not see life. — John chap. 3, ver. 36. Believing 
 here means possession and not a mere expression of appro- 
 bation. Christ is the perfection of light, an inexhaustible 
 fountain from which man may freely draw without dimin- 
 ishing, and may fill himself without depriving his neighbour; 
 in partaking of which there can be no excess, no surfeit, but 
 an increased thirst that is not painful ; a desire that may 
 grow and be gratified : and the state of humanity that is 
 brought to this fountain is the only state that can form and 
 realize a church of Christ. The subject is beautifully illus- 
 trated by the prophet Isaiah at the 55th chapter and 1st 
 verse : — " Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the 
 waters, and he that hath no money, come ye buy and eat ; 
 yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without 
 price. Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not 
 bread? and your labour for that which satisfieth not? 
 hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good." 
 In these words you have the contrast drawn of your church 
 as it is and the church as it should be. It is meant to be a 
 labouring, a digging, a planting, a weeding, and all the ne- 
 cessary preparatory labour for a harvest or birth of mind. 
 This is the garden of Eden, and here only can grow the 
 trees of knowledge and of life. There is allegory in the 
 sacred scriptures ; and all the more so as the mystery is laid
 
 before ignorance ; but the spirit of h'ght removetli the evil 
 dispersetii the allegory, and assimilates the language to tfae 
 criticisms of human reason. 
 
 Thej^^r^o?/^/ advent of Christ was not necessary to the for- 
 mation of a true christian church ; the s])irit of Christ alone 
 was necessary. The doctrine of the jjersonal advent was not 
 taught in the first hundred years of tliat which is now mis- 
 called the christian era. It was a corruption of the doctrine 
 of Christ begun in the second century ; and in tlie third cen- 
 tury the corruption grew so deep as to assert nothing but 
 Immanity and to deny the spirit or divinity of Christ. This 
 is the course dissent is now taking. This will entirely fritter 
 away the whole spirit, plan, and purpose of the christian 
 religion ; and, if it succeed, draw mankind back to a paganism 
 stripped of its philosophy and its ethics ; to all its ceremonies 
 and superstitions without its science ; to its uncivilized bar- 
 barisms ; and to its spirit of war. And all this arises from 
 the error of }>ersonifying Christ as God, and corrupting the 
 jmrity and perfection of divinity by an ideal mixtuie of hu- 
 manity. It is putting the piu'e spirituality of the original 
 christian doctrine upon a level with the humanized gods of the 
 pagan world : and thus it is, that we have had the dark ages 
 instead of the ages of light in the last eighteen hundred yeare ; 
 and thus it is, that we have retrograded from the high state 
 of civilization to which the pagan world had attained in the 
 Augustan era, a bright period in the annals of the human 
 race for literature, philosophy, and human accomplishments ; 
 so bright, that it was named the birth time of Christ, or in- 
 tellectual life and light dawning upon the world's peace ; so 
 bright, that the present state of the human race sinks below 
 the horizon by the reflection and comparison, sinks even into 
 the shades below. 
 
 I have appeared and laboured among you to stem tliis tor- 
 rent downwards ; this torrent that carries with it the vitality 
 of whatever is humanly useful. I have not been here unre- 
 viled ; but I read that as the condition predicted of ail who 
 should first preach the true doctrine of Christ as God. I 
 rejoice that this reproach is confined to a few and that the 
 many have dealt with me justly. I rejoice to find that these 
 few are not of good repute ; but I would that they were aw<s 
 I am. I'he whole extent of my calculation and reasonable 
 hope has been realized l»y my visit among you. 1 came n-
 
 spectfully, and I shall quit your town and neighbourhood 
 with respectful remembrance, and not without a hope of re- 
 turning to you on some future day. I am so well pleased 
 with my reception, as to be thinking of planting one of my 
 sons in business here. Our warfare is with sujierstition and 
 human error, the printing press is an instrument to be used 
 to that end, it wants talent and honesty united for its direc- 
 tion, and I see room for imj^rovement and advancement to 
 be made in this town and neighbourhood. 
 
 It is a request made upon my duty to leave a printed 
 epitome or guide to my mode of reading the sacred scriptures. 
 This is now my purpose and remaining task in Newcastle. 
 I shall leave this behind me as an operating spirit. 
 
 My first position is, that God, under any name whatever, 
 is not to be considered a personal existence ; but a spiritual 
 existence pervading the universe and acting alike upon all 
 persons ; and is to be so read throughout the bible, whether 
 under the name of Jehovah, Jah, or Christ, as leading names, 
 or under any of the apparently subordinate names, as Abra- 
 ham, Moses, or David. The common teaching, the mistake 
 and prevailing error of the day, aod of the christian era, has 
 been to suppose, that Abraham, Moses, and David, the one 
 the supposed father, the other the supposed saviour, and the 
 third the supposed king of Israel have been three persons 
 begetting, saving and reigning over a nation called Israel. 
 To this I answer, that there is no history, no time, no place 
 for the existing of any such a nation ; but the meaning of 
 the word Israel is the intelligent and philosophical portion 
 of the human race, pervading all nations, and belonging to 
 no one more than to any other one. Of the historical evi- 
 dence of this ground, I gave proof in the discussion with the 
 Rev. Mr Rendell, to whose good manners, fairness in dis- 
 cussion, and honest liberality of spirit, I pay the just tribute 
 of due acknowledgment. I should have been happy to in- 
 clude the " Reverends" Banbury, Gillon, and Tapscott, of 
 South Shields, but I did not find in them the same spirit, nor 
 any thing deserving to be called christian or to be compli- 
 mented, but much that merits every good and wise man's 
 reprobation. 
 
 In the sense in which Israel is to be considered a state of 
 mind scattered among mankind in all countries and all ages, 
 and not yet formed into a people as of one nation we see the
 
 7 
 
 error both of Jews and Christians, the one, as Saint Paul 
 says, still reading the Old Testament with a vail on their 
 minds, 2 Cor., chap. 3, ver. 14, and the other committing 
 the mistake of verse 6 in reading the New Testament with 
 a similar vail of mystery, in taking up the letter and not un- 
 derstanding the spirit. 
 
 In the same sense, Jehovah, Christ, Abraham, Moses, and 
 David are but names of God, expressing Father, Saviour, 
 God, and King of Israel, the offspring and subject being 
 nothing more nor less, morally speaking, than a state of mind 
 and character among a portion of mankind, which it is de- 
 sirable should embrace the whole, for the realizing of the 
 promise of a land flowing with milk and honey, or an abun- 
 dance of the necessaries and comforts of life ; and peace and 
 good will, as the effect of a reasonable, satisfied, and con- 
 tented state of the human mind. 
 
 The physical interpretation to be put upon the same names 
 is the povv^er of God exhibited in the supposed uni^'ersal 
 planetary system. Throughout the volume, there is a ne- 
 cessary union of physical and moral apj>earances, under a 
 variety of names of attributes and powers. The Loixl of 
 Hosts and God of Israel is the ruling power of the planetary 
 hosts, as of the human mind ; and hence arose the necessity 
 of the writer's personification to represent the varied power 
 of God under the attribute of Unity. The bible then is re- 
 plete, wonderfully replete, with science as to physics ; and it 
 is in the representation of every variety of the human char- 
 acter, in the direction of that which is prone to good, and in 
 the prescribed means of correcting that which is prone to 
 evil. Few, very few indeed, have they been who have un- 
 derstood it, so as to make it useful to mankind. Great, very 
 great has been the mischief, which mistakes of its character 
 mixing with bad passions have produced. 
 
 Let us try Abraham as one of the names of Deity. At 
 Galatians, ch;ip. 4, verse 24, we are told, that the story of 
 Abraham and his wives is an allegory — that the two wives 
 are the two places producing the two covenants — and that 
 Abraham, of course, is God the Father, and author of the 
 two covenants. That is one i>roof. 
 
 Christ represented as saying, " your father Abraham saw 
 my day and rejoiced ;" and " before Abraham was I am," is 
 another.
 
 8 
 
 Abraham described as the father of the faithful is a third 
 proof. 
 
 The name itself, first, as A-bram, is the same as the 
 Bram-a of the Hindoos. Second, as Ab-ram, is Ab, the fa- 
 ther. Ram, or chief god of the Hindoos, that same Ram being 
 the Aries or Lamb of God in the Zodiac, slain on a cross 
 from the foundation of the world. The Rama, again, who 
 was the brother of Christna in the Hindoo mythology. I 
 should mention that the sacred scriptures of the Hindoos are 
 very like the old and new testament. 
 
 The letter H added to the names of Abram and Sara, 
 making Abraham and Sarah, is the symbolical letter in the 
 Hebrew language of the name Jehovah ; two H's being sub- 
 stantially that name, making Abraham a triune name of God. 
 
 The Asiatic meaning of the word Sara, was star or bright- 
 ness ; and hence the additional letter H made it the star or 
 brightness of Jehovah or Christ, the covenant of the Mes- 
 siah, as Hagar's offspring was the covenant of the law. The 
 whole bible is made up of symbolical language of that kind, 
 truly wonderful in its construction, and admitting of trial 
 and proof by numbers for letters, as the science of Algebra, 
 setting forth every science, and making the sum of science to 
 be God, and the revelation of that God, or science, to be the 
 salvation of man from evil. And they who read that bible, 
 according to the letter, or history, or personal appearance of 
 God, do mistake it, and have the deeply-woven vail of mys- 
 tery on their minds. The revelation, the unveiling, is to 
 read it as of the spirit of God, acting by and through all ex- 
 istence, not incomprehensible where perceived, incomprehen- 
 sible only where not perceived in its whole. 
 
 Abraham, again, among the ancients, and according to 
 Sanconiathon, a Phenician, was the planet, Saturn, the fa- 
 ther of the gods, Father Time, or Chronus, devouring or 
 sacrificing his children ; hence the offering of Isaac as a sa- 
 crifice, that Isaac being the Messiah or second covenant, was 
 the same type, not a type of personal reality, but a type of 
 eternal principle, bodied forth from time to time by the hu- 
 man mind in a variety of names, as language has gone 
 through changes ; the lamb slain from the foundation of the 
 world, annually crucified in the Zodiac, and periodically or 
 perpetually, as reason, or the logos incarnate in man, working 
 against the evils of human society, making Christianity to be
 
 as old as the creation, or Christ coeternal and coeqnal with 
 God oi- Jehovah. 
 
 Ten thousand irresistible elucidations of this kind may l)e 
 worked out illustrative of the deeply-woven mystery of the 
 bible, all reducible to science, and all, when understood, in- 
 structive, useful, and encouraging to the human mind ; 
 when misvuiderstood, the letter makes up a catalogue of hor- 
 rors and terrors. It is the letter that has been the ground 
 of all infidel objections, which no minister of the letter could 
 answer, because all have been alike infidels, unbeliever^, 
 misbelievers ; truly proving that nothing but ignorance is 
 atheism, and atheism nothing but ignorance ; for no man 
 denies what he knows of God, or of the science of exist- 
 ence ; and every wise and good man denies and rejects 
 the abuses of the personification of God, and seeks the abo- 
 lition of what idolatry and superstition have set up for reli- 
 gious worship. So that, in reality, the infidel objectors, 
 mistaking the letter for the reality or the spirit, have been 
 nearer the spirit of Christianity than those who have pro- 
 fessed to swallow it all, mistaken and misunderstood, or who 
 read mechanically, without searching, without criticism, 
 without reason or the spirit of Christ, without understand- 
 ing ; and who have made as much use of it, or have gained 
 as much benefit from it, and no more, than as if they had roiled 
 every leaf into a pill, and had swallowed it with a hoi)e that 
 the letter or paper would have digested into spirit. I con- 
 fess that I have reached the knowledge of the spirit of the 
 book by a studious perseverance in a scientific objection to 
 the letter, which I still reject, as earnestly, as openly, and as 
 perseveringly as ever. I embrace the spirit, I discard the 
 person or personality of God ; that is, I worship God, but I 
 reject man's superstition ; and the true worship of God is in 
 spirit and in truth, which is synonymous with seeking trutli 
 wlierewith to root out error — planting good and rooting 
 out the weeds of evil — throwing light upon tlie mind and 
 removing the darkness of ignorance. 
 
 Let us try Moses, whether it be the name of God or man. 
 All the divme names, in their personal characters, are repre- 
 sented as going down into Kgypt and suffering some perse- 
 cution from a tyrant. It is a grand j)olilical point in the 
 instruction of the whole book, that it sets forth the tyranny 
 of king-craft, and exhorts man to save himself from it. The
 
 10 
 
 condition of that salvation, in the old testament, is a code of 
 republican laws, suited to a commonwealth, which was ob- 
 tained on the escape from and overthrow of Pharaoh, is 
 set forth as valid until Saul was chosen king, and then 
 lost sight of until the time of Josiah, or near the end of the 
 kingdom ; so that law prevailed only when there was no 
 king to rule — the one being the state of liberty, the other of 
 slavery. Such is the moral of the story ; and I present it, 
 as I believe it was intended to be presented, as a matter; x)f 
 spiritual instruction to all people, and not as the literaj|^MSf^ 
 tory of one peopie, a state of pure and self-governing li^'ty 
 being essential to human welfare, as well as to the dignity of 
 man, and the undivided and uninterrupted worship of God. 
 
 Moses is represented as the Saviour of the children of Is- 
 rael from the tyranny of Pharaoh, and their lawgiver, pre- 
 paratory to their inheritance of the land of promise that 
 should flow with milk and honey. That land, we know, 
 has not been realized, though the law is written. We have 
 not the spirit of it engraved on our hearts, and we, Jews and 
 all, are waiting for another Moses, or for the Moses or Mes- 
 siah to come and deliver us from our present evil. That fu- 
 ture Moses must be our possession of the spirit of the law 
 and the gospel, and our corresponding practice. There was 
 no personal Moses to introduce the law ; there will be none 
 to realize its promise or practice. 
 
 One of the names of the pagan Bacchus was Myses, pre- 
 cisely of the same significancy as Moses. Another of his 
 names was Yes, which is, in Greek, our I H S, or Saviour, 
 Jesus. This same Bacchus, who was also considered the 
 sun, the son of Jupiter, miraculously born, was made the 
 hero of a precisely similar story with Moses, in leading an 
 army by a miracle through the Red Sea from Africa, and 
 conquering India. The orphic hymn to Bacchus, as Myses, 
 is beautifully descriptive of the similar power of God. This 
 Bacchus is not to be mixed up with the god of the barrel, 
 and the orgies of drunkenness, of which there is everywhere 
 too much, outraging and disgracing the name and principle 
 of Christianity as well as of paganism. I fear we are not im- 
 proved as a people on that ground. The I H S was emblaz- 
 oned on all the pagan altar pieces of Bacchus, as now on those 
 in our churches, and the same inscription may be traced to 
 the altars of the universal god Buddha.
 
 11 
 
 As 1 do not admit the personal existence of Bacchus, as a 
 pagan god, or of Buddha as a Hindoo or general ancient de- 
 ity, and seeing the synonyme both in name and principle so 
 complete between Moses and Myses or Bacchus, taking Mo- 
 ses to mean Saviour, and the salvation a political one from 
 the tyranny of the king of Egypt, or any tyrannical king ; 
 finding the children of Israel in other respects to be ideal, and 
 indicative at all times of a state of mind as to be distinguished 
 from another or lower state of mind ; weighing the case 
 against the absence of all corroborating history ; seeing the 
 narrated appearance of Moses as one of the triune saviours of 
 the transfiguration of the gosjjel, I conclude that Moses was 
 no more than one of the names of God, manifested in the 
 power of an oppressed people rising up against their oppres- 
 sor, and working out their salvation by resistance to tyranny, 
 and by the final establishment of laws for their governance 
 founded on righteousness. 
 
 If, as Paul says, Hagar, or Agar, meant Mount Sinai, and 
 her offspring the first covenant or law, Abraham and Moses 
 come into the same identity with Jehovah ; and so we get 
 over the difficulty, of John 1, verse 18, "no man hath seen 
 God at any time," as standing up against the idea of Moses 
 having been a man looking upon and talking with God, as a 
 man talks to a man face to face. 
 
 In the 10th chapter and first verses of the second epistle 
 to the Corinthians, the spiritual identity of Moses and Christ 
 is laid down in plain language as one and the same spirit, 
 just as when Isaiah, chap. 43, verses 3 11, declared Jehovah 
 to be the only Saviour ; the identity of Jehovah and Christ 
 in spirit must be admitted, or a triumph be given to the 
 misreading and vailed Jews. 
 
 It is only by this spiritual reading and a sinking of the 
 letter, personal history and personifications, that the bible 
 proves a beautiful, scientific, and instructive whole, free from 
 contradictions, grounds of objection, and much that is pain- 
 ful and difficult to a moral and conscientious mind. There is 
 no honest reading and approbation on any other ground, 
 beyond the plain moral precepts, which are every where 
 alike, and every where good. This was called the gnomo- 
 logical part of sacred scripture ; but the theological part is 
 that which requires the spiritual reading that shall sink the 
 letter, and bring God and man nearer together, in ojjening
 
 12 
 
 file fountain of divine nature to become a law guiding liuma- 
 iiity through the labyrinth of life. 
 
 Let us try T>avid as name of God or man. The word 
 signifies ivell-heloved. Isaiah says, chap. 5, " Noiv ivill I 
 sing to my well-beloved a song of my beloved, touching his 
 vineyard^ That well-beloved is David, King, or God of 
 IsraeL It is the same David addressed in Solomon's Song, 
 as; beloved and well-beloved. God is Love, John\'i first 
 Epistle. David, well-beloved, is the Father of Solomon, 
 the Prince of Peace ; another of his sons is Adonijah, which 
 U literally the God Adonis. Christ is also the Prince of 
 Peace and Son of David. CHRIST IS ALL, which means 
 that all power centres in the unity of Christ. The adver- 
 sary of David was SauL The adversary of Christ was Said. 
 The Psalms of David are not psalms written by David as a 
 man ; but the psalms of inspired poets, written of and con- 
 cerning David as God. So, the Word of God is not, as a 
 writing, a word written by God, other than in the spiritual 
 sense, in which the writer is inspired by God ; but it is the 
 word of the inspired penman of and concerning God ; than 
 which, inspiration could write nothing else. The idea of a 
 personal God corruj)ts every thing, and more particularly the 
 beauties of language. *'No man hath seen God at any 
 time," John. Christ is God, ergo, no man hath seen Christ 
 at any time ; but God or Christ dwelleth in us, as we possess 
 the spirit, the knowledge of God or Christ ; and hence God 
 or Christ is in us incarnate or in our flesh, God or Christ of 
 all ; an€l not God or Christ in the form and substance of an 
 individual human being, more than of others. "And we 
 know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an 
 understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we 
 are in him that is true, even in his son Jesus Christ. This 
 is the true God and eternal life. Little children, keep your- 
 selves from idols." Conclusion of John's first Epistle. In 
 the third epistle, verse 11, we read : — "He that doeth 
 good is of God : but he that doeth evil hath not seen God." 
 So that, a life of strict righteousness is all that is required 
 of man, is God in man, and man as son of God. Can it be sup- 
 posed that an ignorant or wicked man is to be counted a son 
 of God ? Righteous doing is practical knowledge and the 
 manifestation of God in man. If the unitarians step in with 
 their qualms and quibbles, I tell them, they have no true
 
 13 
 
 history of their Man-Christ, without which they have noth- 
 ing of Christ more than was known to the pagans, nor so 
 much. The first preaching of Christ was as God. The 
 mixture of humanity was a corruption. 
 
 In the 22nd Chapter of the Book of Revelations, and at 
 the l6tii verse, we read, that Jesus is the root and oflspring 
 of David, the bright and morning star. Tlie interpolatioa 
 of the conjunction, and the bright and morning star, injures 
 the sense. The original states the unity of Jesus and David 
 as God or King of Israel, one of the symbols of which is the 
 sun, in relation to the planetary system. This book was 
 written in the Greek langiiage. David, in the Greek lan- 
 guage, would be written aabia, the root and otispring of 
 which are the two Deltas or triangles. These conjoined, 
 by an inversion, make a star and a masonic figure of the unit- 
 ed power of God, the ascending and descending apex being 
 symbolical of fire and water. The eight triangles produced 
 by the united figure are symbolical of the name Jeliovah, 
 the number of which is eight. The triangle being a symbol 
 also of trinity in unity, was both root and offspring of the 
 name of Christ. The remaining letters, a b i, signify fa- 
 ther, or my father. It is thus that all the names of God in 
 the bible are scientifically and wonderfully constructed, de- 
 veloping power in every way, and bringing all power under 
 the description of unity or one God. The whole language of 
 the book is so scientifically constructed, admitting of a spi- 
 ritual reading by the science of Algebra, as well as by and 
 through the letter; therefore to suppose that a child oi- an un- 
 lettered man is to understand the theologue or discourse about 
 God in this book, is to be ignorant of its great pur])ort. — 
 There is not a priest or minister in England, of any church, 
 that understands it ; though, by the rational or spiritual in- 
 terpretation, or by adhering to the plain moral precept, a 
 man of plain understanding may receive the law of righteous- 
 ness, as suflnicient instruction for his welfare and salvation. 
 The book, as a whole, must have been the laboured accumu- 
 lation, preservation, and condensation of the growing science 
 of ages, perha])s of thousands of years ; the work of tire most 
 eminent of iMaidcind ; a perfect prodigy of the power of the 
 human mind ; the i)lan, purpose and labour of successively- 
 associated wisdom, to set forth the true nature of man, the 
 good and evil of which he is susceptible, as the ways of God
 
 14 
 
 to man ; the just condition of his salvation from evil ; all that 
 man can know of God ; the past and future of man ; with the 
 bright encouragement of his choice and power to make the 
 future an improvement upon the past. 
 
 The freemasons profc^ss to have the secret of the bible, or 
 the key of interjTetation. They have the mystery, the 
 symbols, the appearance or shadow of science ; but they 
 have it not substantially and in reality. Freemasonry is 
 a corrupted continuation of the ancient mysteries of the 
 pagan world, with the loss of the spirit, word, or keystone. 
 It is the vailed Judaism without Christ. In ceremony, it is 
 what the ancient mysteries were, a dramatic representation 
 of the power of God, of which the sacred scriptures were the 
 letter, plan, plot, drama, or ceremony. The acting of it 
 made up their ceremonial worship. So now of freemasonry 
 where best understood. 
 
 It has been objected to me, that, if I condemn the letter 
 of the sacred scriptures, I make it a lie. I do not condemn 
 the letter. I do not see it to be a lie in the book ; but I see 
 it to be made a lie only when professing teachers, not hav- 
 ing the spirit, misuse it, and abuse it, and their hearers with 
 it. They are they who have eyes and see not, ears and hear 
 not, understandings and understand not ; the blind leaders 
 of the blind. Read it rightly, with the sj^irit of knowledge, 
 and it becomes a body of reasonable, scientific instruction. 
 It is now perverted into a gross idolatry and superstition. 
 
 The quakers of the seventeenth century began to read it 
 rightly. Penn and Barclay, Ratlibone and Hancock, have 
 argued as strongly against the letter of the bible as Thomas 
 Paine or any deist. Emanuel Swedenborg got a spiritual 
 insight into the volume ; but he did not purify himself so as 
 to purge away the dross of the letter. I know a learned 
 gentleman in the metropolis, who has spent twenty-five years 
 in the East Indies cultivating a knowledge of Asiatic lan- 
 guages, and entering into all the depths of theological science, 
 who can reduce the whole Hebrew volume of the Old Tes- 
 tament into its scientific elements, and treat the Greek of the 
 New Testament in the same w^y, and still saperstitiously, 
 I tell him so face to face, clings to the letter as separately 
 true on its historical pretensions. Of two differing inter- 
 pretations, both cannot be true ; and I give up that, the 
 letter, which is not defensible at any point or any ground of
 
 15 
 
 evidence, and adhere to tliat spiritual, scientific, and rational 
 iriterpretation which is defensible at every point, on every 
 ground of evidence. By so doing, 1 get rid of all the dis- 
 sensions and objections of all the sects, and all the objections 
 of infidels. I restore Christianity to the ground it must, to 
 exist, occupy, the ground on which it can be defended as a 
 whole, equally with any of its parts or particles, as truth i 
 science, in logic, or in reason. 
 
 I am not insensible how great a stumbling stone and rock 
 of offence is laid in Sion by the letter of the sacred scriptures, 
 and I may say vrith Paul, Romans chap. 10, ver. 1, 
 '• Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel 
 is, that they might be saved. For I bear them record, that 
 they have a zeal for God, hut not according to knowledge" 
 Again, chap. 9. ver. 6, " They are not all Israel which are 
 of Israel ;"' and at chap. 2, verses 28 and 29, " For he is not 
 a Jew which is one outwardlv ; but he is a 5ew which is one 
 inwardly." Then, as to Israelite and Jew, the evident sig- 
 nification of the character is a state of mind. An Israelite, 
 in its purity, means a seer of God, a wrestler with God, and, 
 as the word has been used by Sanconiathon as Yesroile^ it 
 means also the followers of Jesus or Yes, which is the same 
 name, a name of record exceeding two " christian eras." 
 The name of the Son that is coeternal with the Father. The 
 Isis of Egypt was precisely the same name. Isis Omnia 
 and Christ is All, being words of the same meaning, when 
 rightly interpreted and understood. It boots nothing that 
 an abuse has been made of the name of Isis, the meaning of 
 it is Creator, Saviour, Preserver. Equal abuse has been 
 made of the name of Christ. 
 
 That an order of men named Israelites and Jews have 
 been raised uj), I question not. But that such an order was 
 a self-governing nation, independent of other nations, I ques- 
 tion. The word Jew is one of the names of God, and is a 
 degree higher than Israelite in character, meaning perject 
 knowledge of God, while Israelite expresses an approach to 
 that perfection. I am not for limiting the existence of such 
 orders to any time or nation. I can suppose them to have 
 been scattered through all times and nations of which vv^e 
 have any record : as we read at Acts chap. 2., ver. 5, " And 
 there dwelt at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every na- 
 tion under heaven." This sets forth Jerusalem as the city
 
 IG 
 
 of a people in a peculiar state of mind, which is all that is 
 ])ionused of the Jerusalem to come. It was to have been 
 and is to be the city of Christ on the throne of David ; but 
 in the time in which David is supposed to liave lived on 
 earth personally, there was no city of Jerusalem. It was then 
 ailed Kaditis and was a city of Syria in Palestine, inhabited 
 , a peo})le called Syi'ians. That which is to come is to be 
 tlie reign of reason in the human mind, after the overthrow 
 of idolatry and superstition, religious dissent, and sectarian 
 cinirches. Christ, wlien known, will bring us into one fold, 
 one church. 
 
 I'he present archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Howley, then 
 bishop of London, sojourning at Weymouth, was invited and 
 came to Dorchester with an intent to visit me in Dorchester 
 gaol, in the year 1823. He first took the precaution to call 
 upon the chaplain of the gaol, to ask what sort of evidence 
 Mr Carlile wanted for the satisfaction of his mind. The 
 chaplain answered, nothing short of demonstration, as you 
 would demonstrate a mathematical problem. Then, said the 
 bishop, we have no evidence of that kind, we cannot demon- 
 strate any thing of Christianity in that way ; and he came 
 not near me. I have this on the authority of the chaplain. 
 Now, what the bishop could not do, I have since learnt to 
 do : I can demonstrate Christianity to be true and good and 
 essential to the welfare and salvation of the human race ; 
 not such a Christianity as the archbishop superintends ; but 
 such as God or Christ superintends ; not according to the 
 letter of the sacred scriptures, without the aid of the spirit ; 
 but by and through the spirit that can trace the science and 
 meaning and apply the key to the unlocking of the mystery 
 of the letter. The mystery has made a Babylon. The key, 
 spirit, science, is to convert that Babylon into a new and true 
 Jerusalem, a world of peace as succeeding a world of war ; 
 the triumph of reason over superstition, of Christ over the 
 prince of darkness, of the worship of God as a spirit in truth, 
 and not as a person in idolatry. Then come. Lord Jesus, 
 come quickly, and reign ETERNAL LOVE ! 
 
 Newcastle, July 4, 1834. RICHARD CARLILE. 
 
 P. S. Much more illustration was prepared ; but I have limited myself to 
 one sheet. See The Isis, a London Periodical of 1832, Nos. 12 to 21, for 
 a further illustration. Read freely, think freely, and put your trust in God, 
 rather than in man.
 
 WAT TYLER, 
 
 DRAMATIC POEM, 
 
 IN 
 
 THREE ACTS, 
 
 BY 
 
 ROBERT SOUTHEY, Esq. 
 
 POET-LAUREATE. 
 
 '*"*—"' 
 
 PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY R. CARLILE, 62, FLEET STREET. 
 
 Price Threepefice.
 
 THE 
 
 HISTORY OF WAT TYLER. 
 
 The history of Wat Tyler lias always held a distinguished place in the English 
 records ; and though some men affect to disapprove of his conduct, all men have 
 concurred in admiring his courage. The nation, even at that distant period, had 
 begun to rise above the barbarous state into which the conquest, by Willi;\m the 
 Norman, had plunged it, and to shew strong signs of returning life. Such is the effect 
 which society works upon a people — such the consequence which the human mind 
 will produce upon itself, when left to pursue its natural course without interruption. 
 The wars between the English and the French governments, which took place in 
 those days, were like all others, ruinous and expensive. To defray the costs of these, 
 a tax of three groats was ordered to be paid by every man and woman above the 
 age of fifteen years: t|ns unheard of imposition had too much in it of the nature of 
 conquest, and savout;«d too strongly ©f the nature of despotism, to be willingly sub- 
 mitted to. It gave rise to a discussion, amongst the people, about the right of the 
 government to adopt such a measure, and the result of that discussion was resist- 
 ance. Their motto was : — 
 
 When Adam dclv'd, and Eve span, 
 Who was then a gentleman? 
 
 " The first disorder," says Hume, " was raised by a blacksmith, in a village of 
 Essex. The tax-gatherers came to this man's shop while he was at work; and they 
 demanded payment for his daughter, whom he asserted to be below the age assigned 
 by the statute. One of these fellows offered to produce a very indecent proof to the 
 contrary, and at the same time laid hold of the maid, which the father resenting, 
 immediately knocked out the ruffian's brains with his hammer. The by-standers 
 applauded the action, and exclaimed that it was full time for the people to take ven- 
 geance on their tyrants, and to vindicate their native liberty. They immediately 
 flew to arms ; the whole neighbourhood joined in the sedition ; the flame spread in 
 an instant over that county, and many others, before the government had the least 
 warning of the danger." 
 
 The populace, amounting to one hundred thousand men, assembled on Blackheath, 
 under their leaders, Wat I'yler and Jack Straw. They sent a message to the King, 
 (who had taken shelter in the Tower) and desired a conference with him. Richard 
 sailed down the Thames, in a barge, for that purpose ; but, on approaching the shore, 
 he was alarmed at the appearance of the people, and he returned to the fortress. 
 The people, in the meantime, had broken into the City of London ; where they cut 
 oft' the heads of those whom they disliked, and committed other acts of a similar de- 
 scription. To quiet them, the King promised that their grievances should be redressed ; 
 but, as it afterwards proved, these promises were never intended to be performed. 
 
 ' During this transaction, another body had broken into the Tower, had murdered 
 the Chancellor, and Treasurer, with others of the Nobles; and continued their 
 ravages in the city. The King passing along Smithfield, met with Wat Tyler, at the 
 head of the populace, and entered into a conference with him. Tyler ordered his 
 companions to retire; he went amongst the King's Company, and while he was con- 
 versing with Richard, Walworth the Mayor of London drew his sword, and with the 
 assistance of the other persons in the King's service, he murdered him. Richard 
 then advanced to the populac?, and promised them their freedom if they would 
 return to their homes; but as soon as he had re-obtained the upper hand, he revoked 
 their charters, and reduced them to the slavish condition in which they had been 
 before. The city of London, in commemoration of the part which their Mayor had 
 taken in the above transaction, wear a representation of Walworth's dagger upon 
 their coat of arms to this day.
 
 .^' 
 
 WAT TYLER. 
 
 ACT J. 
 
 SCENE, A BLACKSMITH S SHOP. 
 
 IVat Tyler at work within. A May-pole 
 before the Door. 
 
 ALICE, PIERS, &c. 
 
 SOXG. 
 
 Cheehful on this holida3'. 
 Welcome we the merry May. 
 
 On ev'ry sunny hillock spread. 
 The pale primrose rears her head ; 
 Rich with sweets the western gale 
 Sweeps along the cowslip'd dale. 
 Every bank with violets gaj^ 
 Smiles to welcome in the J\lay. 
 
 The linnet from the budding grove. 
 Chirps her vernal song of love. 
 The copse resounds the throstle's notes, 
 On each wild gale sweet music floats ; 
 And melody from every spray, 
 Welcomes in the merry May. 
 Cheerful on this holiday. 
 Welcome we the merry May. 
 
 [^Darjce. 
 During the Dance, Tyler lays down his Ham- 
 mer, and sits mournfully down before his 
 Door. 
 
 [To him. 
 HOB CARTER. 
 
 Why so sad, neighbour ? — do not these gay 
 
 sports, 
 This revelry of youth, recall the days 
 When we too mingled in tlie revelry : 
 And lightly tripping in the morris dance 
 Welcomed the merry month ? 
 
 TYLER. 
 
 Aye, we were young ; 
 No cares had quell'd the hey-day of the 
 
 blood : 
 Wc sported deftlj- in the April morning, 
 Nor mark'd the black clouds gathering o'er 
 
 our noon ; 
 Nor fear'd the storm of night. 
 
 HOB. 
 
 Beshfew me, Tyler, 
 But ray heartjoys to see the imps so cheerful ! 
 
 Voung, hale, and happy, wlij* should they de- 
 stroy 
 These blessings by reflection? 
 
 TYLER. ■ 
 
 Look ye neighbour — 
 You have known me long. 
 
 HOB. 
 
 Since we were boys together, 
 And play'd at barley-brake, and danc'd the 
 
 morris : — 
 Some five-and-twenty years ! 
 
 TYLER. 
 
 Was not I young, 
 And hale and happy? 
 
 HOB. 
 Cheerful as the best. 
 
 TYLER. 
 
 Have not I been a staid, hard-working man? 
 Up with the lark at labour — sober — ^honcst — 
 Of an unblemish'd character? 
 
 HOB. 
 
 Who doubts it, 
 There's never a man in Essex bears a better. 
 
 TYLER. 
 
 And shall not these, tho' young and hale and 
 
 happy, 
 Look on with sorrow to the future hour ? 
 Shall not reflection poison all tlieir pleasures? 
 When I, the honest, staid, liard-working T3'^ 
 
 ler. 
 Toil thro' the long course of the summer's day 
 Still toiling, yet still poor ! when with hard 
 
 labour 
 Scarce can I furnish out mj' dail^' food — 
 And age comes on to steal away my strength. 
 And leave me poor and wretched ! Why should 
 
 this be ? 
 My youth was regular — my labour constant — 
 I married an industrious, virtuous woman: 
 No'r while I toiled and sweated at the anvil. 
 Sat she neglectful of her spiiming w heel. — 
 Hob — I have only six groats in the world, 
 And they must soon by law be taken from me.
 
 WAT TYLER; 
 
 HOB. 
 
 Curse on these taxes — one succeeds another — 
 
 Our ministers — panders of a king's will — . 
 
 Praia all our wealth away — waste it in re- 
 vels — 
 
 And lure, or force awa_y our boys, whoshouid 
 be 
 
 The props of our old age ! — to fill their ar- 
 mies 
 
 And feed the crows of France ! year follows 
 year. 
 
 And still we madly prosecute the war ; — 
 
 Draining our wealth — distressing our poor 
 peasants — 
 
 Slaughtering our youths — and all to crown 
 our chiefs 
 
 Witli glory ! — I detest the hell-sprung name. 
 
 TYLER. 
 
 What matters me who wears the crown of 
 
 France ? 
 Whether a Richard or a Charles possess it 1 
 They reap the glory — they enjoy the spoil — 
 We pay — we bleed ! — The sun would shine 
 
 as cheerly. 
 The rains of heaven as seasonably fall, 
 Tho' neither of these Royal pests existed. 
 
 HOB. 
 
 Nay — as for that, we poor men should fare 
 
 better ! 
 No legal robbers tlien should force away 
 The hard-earn'd wages of our honest toil. 
 The Parliament for ever cries more money, 
 The service of the state demands more money. 
 Just heaven ! of what service is the state? 
 
 TYLER. 
 
 Oh ! 'tis of vast importance ! who should pay 
 for 
 
 The luxuries and riots of the court ? 
 
 AVho should support the flaunting courtier's 
 pride, 
 
 Pay for their midnight revels, their rich gar- 
 ments. 
 
 Did not the state enforce ? — Think ye, my 
 friend , 
 
 That I — a humble blacksmith, here at Dept- 
 ford. 
 
 Would part with tliese six groats — earn'd by 
 hard toil, 
 
 All that I have ! to massacre the Frenchmen, 
 
 Murder as enemies men I never saw ! 
 
 Did not the state compel me ? 
 
 (Tax gatherers pass by) There they go, 
 
 Privileg'd r s ! — 
 
 (Piers and Alice advance to ?iim.) 
 
 ALICE. 
 Did we not dance it well to-day, my father? 
 You know I always loved these village sports. 
 Even from my infancy, and yet mcthink* 
 
 I never tript along the mead so gaily. 
 
 You know they chose me queen, and your 
 
 friend Piers 
 Wreath'd me this cowslip garland for my 
 
 head — 
 Is it not simple? you are sad ray father ! 
 You should have rested from your work to-day 
 And given a few hours up to merriment — 
 But you are so serious ! 
 
 TYLER. 
 
 Serious, my good girl ! 
 I may well be so : when I look at thee. 
 It makes me sad ! thou art too fair a flower. 
 To bear the wintry wind of poverty ? 
 
 PIERS. 
 Yet I have often heard you speak of riches 
 Even with contempt : they caiHiot purchase 
 
 peace, 
 Or innocence, or virtue — sounder sleep 
 Waits on the weary plowman's lowly bed. 
 Than on the downy couch of luxury 
 Lulls the rich slave of pride and indolence. 
 I never wish for wealth I my arm is strong. 
 And I can purchase by it a coarse meal. 
 And hunger savours it. 
 
 TYLER. 
 
 \''oung man, thy mind 
 Has yet to bear the hard lesson of experience. 
 Thou art yet young, the blasting breath of 
 
 want 
 Has not yet froze the current of thy blood. 
 
 PIERS. 
 Fare not the birds well, as from spray to spray 
 BHthsome they bound — yet find their simple 
 
 food 
 Scattered abundantly ? 
 
 TYLER. 
 
 No fancied boundaries of mine and thine 
 Restrain their wanderings : Nature gives 
 
 enough 
 For all ; but Man, with arrogant selfishness. 
 Proud of his heaps, hoards up superfluous 
 
 stores 
 Robb'd from his weaker fellows, starves the ' 
 
 poor. 
 Or gives to pity what he owes to justice! 
 
 PIERS. 
 
 So I have heard our good friend John Ball 
 preach. 
 
 ALICE. 
 
 My father, wherefore was John Ball irapri- . 
 
 soned ? 
 Was he not charitable, good, and pious ! 
 I have heard him say that all mankind arc 
 
 brethren.
 
 A DRAMATIC POEM. 
 
 And that like brethren they should love each 
 
 other ; — 
 Was not thai doctrine pious 1 
 
 TYLER. 
 
 Rank sedition — 
 High treason, every syllable, my child : 
 The priests cry out on him for heresy, 
 The nobles all detest him as a rebel, 
 And this good man, the minister of Christ, 
 This man, the friend and brotiier of mankind. 
 Lingers in the dark dungeon ! — ray dear Alice, 
 Retire awhile. 
 
 (Exit Alice.) 
 Piers, I would speak to thee 
 Even with a father's love! you are much 
 
 witli me, 
 And I believe do court my conversation ; 
 Thou could'st not chuse thee forth a truer 
 
 friend ; 
 I would fain see thee happy, but I fear 
 Thy very ^drtues will destroy thy peace. 
 My daughter — she is young — not yet fifteen — • 
 Piers thou art generous, and thy youthful 
 
 heart 
 Warm with affection ; this close intimacy 
 WiJl ere long grow to love. 
 
 PIERS. 
 
 Suppose it so ; 
 Were that an evil, Walter? She is mild. 
 And cheerful, and industrious — now methinks 
 With such a partner life would be most happy ! 
 Why would you warn me then of wretchedness? 
 Is there an evil that can harm our lot ? 
 I have been told the virtuous must be happy, 
 And liave believed it true ; tell me, my frierid. 
 What shall disturb the virtuous? 
 
 TYLER. 
 
 Poverty — 
 A bitter foe ! 
 
 PIERS. 
 Nay, you have often told me 
 That happiness does not consist in riches. 
 
 TYLER. 
 It is most true : but tell me my dear boy, 
 Could'st thou be happy to behold thy wife 
 Pining with want ?— the children ofyour loves 
 Clad in the s(|Ualid rags of wretchedness ? 
 And wh(*n thy liarH and unremitting toil 
 Had earned with pain a scanty reconi])ense, 
 Could'st thou be patient when the law should 
 
 rob tliee. 
 And leave thee without bread and pennylcss? 
 
 PIERS. 
 It is a dreadful picture. 
 
 TYLER. 
 
 ''lis a true one. 
 
 PIERS. 
 But yet methinks our sober industry 
 Migfit drive away the danger, 'lis but little 
 Tliat I could wish — food for our frugal meals. 
 Raiment, however homely, and a bed 
 To sliield us from the night. 
 
 TYLER, 
 
 Thy honest reason 
 Could wish no more : but were it not most 
 
 wretched. 
 To want the coarse food for the frugal meal ? 
 And by the orders ofyour merciless lord. 
 If you by chance were guilty of being poor, 
 To be turned out adrift to the bleak world. 
 Unhoused, unfriended ? — Piers, I liave not 
 
 been idle, 
 I never ate the bread of indolence — 
 Could Alice be more thrifty than her mother? 
 Yet but with one child, and that one, how 
 
 good 
 Thou knowest, I scarcely can provide tJie 
 
 wants 
 Of nature : look at these wolves of the law. 
 They come to drain me of my hard earn'd 
 
 wages. 
 I have already paid the heavy tax 
 Laid on the wool that clothes me — on my 
 
 leather. 
 On all the needful articles of life ! 
 And now three groats [and I worked hard to 
 
 earn them] 
 The Parliament demands — and I must pay 
 
 them. 
 Forsooth, for liberty to wear my head. — 
 
 Enter Tax-gatherers, 
 
 COLLECTORS. 
 Three groats a head for all your family. 
 
 PIERS. 
 
 Why is this money gathered? — 'tis aJiard tax 
 On the poor labourer ! It can never be, 
 That government should thus distress the peo- 
 
 Go to the rich for money — honest labour 
 Ought to enjoy its fruits. 
 
 COLLECTOR. 
 
 The state wants money. 
 War is expensive — 'tis a glorious war, 
 A war of honour, and must be supported. — 
 Three groats a head. 
 
 TYLER, 
 
 There, three for my own head. 
 Three for my wife's ! — what will the state tax 
 next 1 
 
 COLLECTOR. 
 
 You have a daughter.
 
 6 
 
 WAT tvler; 
 
 TYLER. 
 
 She is below the age — not yet fifteen. 
 
 COLLECTOR. 
 You would evade the tax.— 
 
 TYLER. 
 
 Sir Officer, 
 
 I have paid you fairly what the law demands. 
 
 [^Alice and her Mother enter the Shop. 
 
 The Tax-gatherers go to her. One of 
 
 them lays hold of her. She scream<;, 
 
 Tyler goes in.'] 
 
 COLLECrOR. 
 
 You say she's under age. 
 
 Alice screaym again, Tyler knocks 
 out the Tax-gatherer's Brains. His 
 Companions Jly. 
 
 PIERS. 
 A just revenge. 
 
 TYLER. 
 
 Most just indeed : but in the eye of the law 
 'Tis murder — and the murderer's lot is mine. 
 
 [Piers goes out.] 
 
 ('Tyler sits down mournfully.) 
 
 ALICE. 
 
 Fly, my dear father ! let us leave this place 
 Before they raise pursuit. 
 
 TYLER. 
 
 Nay, nay, my child, 
 Flight would be useless — I have done my 
 
 duty : 
 I have punish'd the brute insolence of lust 
 And here will wait my doom. 
 
 WIFE. 
 
 Oh let us ay ! 
 My husband, my dear husband I 
 
 ALICE. 
 
 Quit but this place. 
 And we may yet be safe, and happy too. 
 
 TYLER. 
 
 It would be useless, Alice— 'twould but 
 
 lengthen 
 A wretched life in fear. 
 
 (Cry uithout.) 
 Liberty ! liberty ! 
 
 (Enter Mob, Hob Carter, &c J 
 (Cry) Liberty ! liberty !— No Pull tax !— 
 No War! 
 
 HOB. 
 
 We have broke our chains — we will arise in 
 anger — 
 
 Tlie mighty multitude shall trample down 
 The handful that oppress them. 
 
 TYLER. 
 
 Have ye heard 
 So soon then of my murder ? 
 
 HOB. 
 
 Of 3'our vengeance. 
 Piers ran throughput the village — told the 
 
 news — 
 Cried out to arms ! arm, arm for liberty ! 
 For Liberty and Justice ! 
 
 TYLER. 
 INIy good friends. 
 Heed well your danger, or be resolute : 
 Learn to laugh menaces and force to scorn, 
 Or leave me, I dare answer the bold deed — 
 Death must come once : return you to your 
 
 homes, 
 Protect my wife and child, and on my grave 
 Write why I died ; perhaps the time may come 
 When honest Justice shall applaud the deed. 
 
 " HOB. 
 
 Nay, nay, — -we are oppressed, and have too 
 
 long 
 Knelt at our proud lord's feet — we have too 
 
 long 
 Obeyed their orders^ — bowed to their caprices. 
 Sweated for them the wearying summer's day. 
 Wasted for them the wages of our toil ; 
 Fought for them, conquered for tliem, bled foe 
 
 them, 
 Still to be trampled on and still despis'd ; 
 But we have broke our chains. 
 
 r 
 
 TOM MILLER. 
 
 Piers is gone on 
 Thro' all the neighbouring villages to spread 
 The glorious tidings. 
 
 HOB. 
 
 He is hurried on 
 To Maidstone, to deliver good John Ball, 
 Our friend, our shepherd. 
 
 (Mob ijicreases.) 
 
 TYLER. 
 
 Friends and Countrymen, 
 Will ye then rise to save a r>i'.ionest man 
 From the fierce clutches ot the bloody law ? 
 Oh do not call to mind my private wrongs. 
 That the state drain'd my hard earned pit- 
 tance from me ; 
 That, of his olfice proud, the foul collector 
 Durst with lewd hand seize on my darling child. 
 Insult her maiden modesty, and force 
 A father's hand to vengeance : heed not this : 
 Think not, my countr3'men, on private wrongs, 
 Remember what yourselves have longendured.
 
 A DRAMATIC POEM. 
 
 7 
 
 Think of tke insults, wrongs, and contumelies, 
 Ye bear from your proud lords — that your 
 
 hard toil 
 Manures the fertile fields — you plow the earth. 
 You sow the corn, you reap the ripen'd har« 
 
 vest, — 
 They riot on the produce ! — That, like beasts. 
 They sell you w ith their land— claim all the 
 
 fruits 
 Wiich the kindly earth produces as their 
 
 own. 
 The privilege, forsooth, of noble birth ! 
 On, on to Freedom : feel but your own strength. 
 Be but resolved, and these destructive tyrants 
 Shall shrink before your vengeance. 
 
 HOB. 
 
 On to London — 
 The tidings fly before us — the court trembles. 
 Liberty ! — Vengeance ! — Justice ! 
 
 ACT IL 
 
 SCENE BLACKHEATH. ^ 
 
 TYLER, HOB, &c. 
 
 SONG. 
 
 ' When Adam delv'd, and Eve span, 
 ' 'Who was then the gentleman 1' 
 
 "Wretched is the infapt's lot, 
 Born within the straw roofd cot ! 
 Be he generous, wise, or brave. 
 He must only be a slave. 
 Long, long labour, little rest. 
 Still to toil to be oppress'd : 
 Drain'd by taxes of his store, 
 Punish'd next for being poor; 
 This is the poor wretch's lot, 
 Bom within the straw roofd cot. 
 
 While the peasant works — to sleep ; 
 What the peasant sows — to reap; 
 On the couch of ease to lie, 
 Kioting in revelry , 
 Be he villain, be he fool. 
 Still to hold despotic rule, 
 Trampling on l)is slaves with sconi ; 
 This is to be nobly born. 
 
 ' When Adam delv'd, and Eve span, 
 ' Who was then the Gentleman V 
 
 JACK STRAW. 
 
 The mob are up in London — the proud cour- 
 tiers 
 Begin to tremble. 
 
 TOM MILLER. 
 
 Aye, aye, 'tis time to tremble; 
 
 Who'll plow their fields, who'll do their drud- 
 gery now ? 
 And work like horses, to give them the harvest ! 
 
 JACK STRAW. 
 I only wonder we lay quiet so long. 
 We had always the same strength, and we de- 
 
 ' served 
 The ills we met with for not using it. 
 
 HOB. 
 Why do we fear those animals called lords 1 
 What is there in the name to frighten us 1 
 Is not my arm as mighty as a Baron's? 
 
 Enter Piers antf John Ball. 
 
 PIERS (to TYLEn> 
 
 Have I done well, my father? — I remember'd 
 This good man lay in prison. 
 
 TYLER. 
 
 My dear child. 
 Most well ; the people rise for liberty. 
 And their first deed should be to break the 
 
 ' chains 
 That bind the virtuous :^-0 thou honest 
 
 priest — 
 How much hast thou endured ? 
 
 JOHN BALL. 
 
 Why aye, my friend ! 
 These squalid rags bespeak what I have suf- 
 fered. 
 I was revil'd — insulted — left to languish 
 In a damp dungeon ; but I bore it cheerily — 
 My heart was glad — for I have done my duty. 
 I pitied my oppressors, and I sorrowed 
 For the poor men of England. 
 
 TYLER. 
 
 They have felt 
 Their strength — look round this heath ! lis 
 
 thronged with men. 
 Ardent for freedom ; mighty is the event 
 That waits their fortune. 
 
 JOHN BALL. 
 
 I would fain address them. 
 
 TYLER. 
 
 Do so, my friend, and leach to them their duty. 
 Remind them of their long withholden rights. 
 What ho there ! silence I 
 
 PIERS, 
 
 Silence there, my friends. 
 This good man would address you. 
 
 HOB. 
 Aye, aye, hear him —
 
 8 
 
 WAT TYLER; 
 
 He is no mealy mouthed court orator. 
 To flatter vice, and pamper lordly pride. 
 
 JOHN BALL. 
 
 Friends ! Brethren ! for ye are my brethren all ; 
 Englishmen, met in arms to advocate 
 The cause of freedom ! hear me ! pause 
 
 awhile 
 In the career of vengeance ; it is true 
 I am a priest ; but, as these rags may speak, 
 Not one who riots in the poor man's spoil, 
 Or trades witli his religion. I am one 
 \V1k) preach tlie law of Christ, and in my life. 
 Would practise what he taught. The son of 
 
 God 
 Came not to you in power ; humble in mien, 
 Lowly in heart, the man of Nazareth 
 Preach'd mercy, justice, love ; " Woe unto ye, 
 Ye that are rich : — if that ye would be saved, 
 Sell wliat ye have, and give unto the poor." 
 So taught the saviour : oh, my honest friends ! 
 Have ye not felt the strong indignant throb 
 Of justice in your bosoms, to behold 
 The lordly baron feasting on your spoils 1 
 Have you not in yo\jr hearts arraign'd the lot 
 That gave him on the couch of luxury 
 To pillow his head, and pass the festive day 
 In sportive feasts, and ease, and revelry ? 
 Have not you often in your conscience ask'd 
 Why is the difference, wherefore should that 
 
 man, 
 No worthier than myself, thus lord it over me, 
 j5 And bid me labour, and enjoy the fruits'? 
 ■^Tlie God within your breasts has argued thus ! 
 '^The voice of truth has murmur'd ; came ye 
 ^ not 
 
 As helpless to the world ? Shines not the sun 
 With equal ray on both ? — Do ye not feel 
 The selfsame winds of heaven as keenly parch 
 
 ye? 
 Abundant is the eajth — the Sire of all, 
 Saw and pronounced that it was very good. 
 Look round : the vernal fields smile with new 
 
 flowers, 
 Tlie budding orchard perfumes the soft breeze. 
 And the green corn waves to the passing gale. 
 There is enough for all, but 3'our proud Baron 
 Stands up, and arrogant of strength exclaims, 
 " I am a Lord — by nature I am noble ; 
 These fields are mine, for I was bom to them, 
 I was born in the castle — you, poor wretches, 
 Whelp'd in the cottage, are by birth my slaves." 
 Almighty God ! such blasphemies are utter'd I 
 Almighty God ! such blasphemies bejiev'd ! 
 
 TOM MILLER. 
 This is something like a sermon. 
 
 JACK STRAW. 
 
 Where's the bishop 
 Would tell you truths like these ? 
 
 HOB. 
 
 There was never a bishop among all the apos- 
 tles. 
 
 JOHN BALL. 
 My bretliren ? 
 
 PIERS. 
 
 Silence, the good priest speaks. 
 
 JOHN BALL. 
 
 My brethren, these are trudis, and weighty 
 
 ones ; 
 Ye are all equal : nature made ye so. 
 Equality is your birthright ; — when I gaze 
 On the proud palace, and behold one man 
 In the blood-purpled robes of ro^'alty. 
 Feasting at ease, and lording over millions. 
 Then turn me to the hut of poverty, 
 And see the wretched lab'rerworn with toil, 
 Divide his scanty morsel with his infants, 
 I sicken, and indignant at the sight, 
 " Blush for the patience of humauity." 
 
 JACK STRAW. 
 We will assert our rights. 
 
 TOM MILLER. 
 
 We'll tjtarople down 
 These insolent oppressors. 
 
 JOHN BALL. 
 
 In good truths. 
 Ye have cause for anger ; but, my honest 
 
 friends. 
 Is it revenge or justice that ye seek "? 
 
 MOB. 
 
 Justice, justice .' 
 
 JOHN BALL 
 
 Oh then remember mercy ; 
 And though your proud oppressors spar'd not 
 
 you. 
 Shew you excel them in huraanityi 
 They will use every art to disunite you. 
 To conquer separately, by stratagem. 
 Whom in a mass they fear— but be ye firm — 
 Boldly demand your long forgotten rights, 
 Your sacred, your inalienable freedom — 
 Be bold — be resolute — be merciful ! 
 And while you spurn the hated name of slaves. 
 Shew you are men ! 
 
 MOB. 
 Long live our honest priest ! 
 
 JACK STRAW. 
 He shall be made archbishop. 
 
 JOHN BALL. 
 My brethren, I am plain John Ball, your friend,
 
 A DRAMATIC POEM. 
 
 9 
 
 Your equal : by die law of Christ enjoined 
 To serve you, not command. 
 
 JACK STRAW. 
 
 March we for London. 
 
 TYLER. 
 Mark me, my friends — we rise for liberty — 
 Justice shall be our guide : let no man dare 
 To plunder in the tumult. 
 
 MOB. 
 
 Lead us on — 
 Liberty ! — Justice ! 
 
 ' (Exeunt, with cries of Liberty — no Poll 
 Tax — -110 War.) 
 
 sceke changes to the tower. 
 
 King Richahd, Archbishop of Cakteh- 
 BUKY, Sir John Tkesilian, Walworth, 
 
 PniLPOT. 
 
 KING. 
 
 What must we dol the danger grows more 
 
 imminent — 
 The mob increases — 
 
 PHILPOT. 
 
 Every njoraent brings 
 Fresh tidings of our peril. 
 
 KING. 
 
 It were well 
 To yield them what the}' ask. 
 
 ARCHBISHOP. 
 
 Aye, (hat ray liege 
 Were politic. Go boldly forth to meet them. 
 Grant all they ask — however wild and ruinous — 
 Mean iimc tiie troops you have already sum- 
 moned. 
 Will gather round them. Then my Christian' 
 
 power 
 Absolves you of your promise. 
 
 WALWORTH. 
 
 Were but their ringleaders cut ofif — the rabble 
 Would soon disperse. 
 
 PHILPOT. 
 
 United in a mass 
 There's nothing can resist theiu — once divide 
 
 them 
 And they will fall an easy sacrifice. 
 
 ARCHBISHOP. 
 
 Lull them by promises — bespeak them fair — 
 Go forth, my liege — spare not, if need requires 
 A solemn oath, to ratify the treaty. 
 
 KING. 
 
 I dread their fury. 
 
 ARCHBISHOP. 
 'Tis a needless dread, 
 There is divinity about your person ; 
 It is the sacred privilege of Kings, 
 Howe'erthey act, to render no account 
 To man. The people have been taught this 
 
 lesson. 
 Nor can they soon forget it. 
 
 KING. 
 
 I will go — 
 I will submit to every thing they ask ; 
 My daj- of triumph will arrive at last. 
 
 (Shouts mithout.) 
 
 Enter Messenger. 
 
 MESSENGER. 
 Tlie mob are at the city gates. 
 
 ARCHBISHOP. 
 
 Haste, haste. 
 Address them ere too late. I'll remain here. 
 For they detest me much. 
 
 (Shouts again) 
 
 Enter another Messenger. 
 
 MESSENGER. 
 The Londoners have opened the city gates. 
 The rebels are admitted. 
 
 KING. 
 
 Fear then must give me courage ; my Lord 
 
 Mayor, 
 Come you with me. 
 
 (Exeunt. Shouts tcilliout.) 
 
 SCENE — SSI ITH FIELD. 
 
 Wat Tyler, John Ball, Piers, kc. Mob. 
 
 PIERS. 
 
 So far triumphant are we ; how these nobles, 
 These petty 'tyrants, who so long oppressed us. 
 Shrink at tlie first resistance ! 
 
 HOB. 
 
 They were powerful. 
 Only because we fondly thought them so. 
 Where is Jack Straw 1 
 
 TYLER. 
 Jack Straw is gone to the Tower 
 To seize the king and so to eiul resistance. 
 
 JOHN BALL. 
 
 It was well judged ; fain would I spare the 
 
 shedding 
 Of human blood ; gain we that royal puppet. 
 And all will follow fairly; deprived of him, 
 
 2
 
 10 
 
 WAT tyler; 
 
 The nobles lose their pretext, nor will dare 
 Rebel against the people's majesty'. 
 
 Enter Herald. 
 
 HERALD. 
 
 Richard the Second, by the grace of God, 
 Of England, Ireland, France and Scotland, 
 
 King, 
 And of the town of Berw ick- uponTweed, 
 Would parley with AVat Tyler. 
 
 TYLER. 
 
 Let him know 
 Wat Tyler is in Sinithfield. 
 
 (Exit Herald.) 
 I will parley 
 With this young monarch ; as he comes to me 
 Trusting my honour, -on your lives I charge 
 
 you 
 Let none attempt to harm him. 
 
 JOHN BALL, 
 
 The faith of courts 
 Is hut a weak dependence ; You are honest — 
 And better is it even to die the victim 
 Of credulous honesty, than live preserved 
 By the cold policy that still sus])ects. 
 
 En^cr King, WALw(iRTn, Philpot, &c. 
 
 KING. 
 I would speak to thee, Wat Tyler, bid the 
 
 mob 
 Retire awhile. 
 
 PIERS. 
 
 Nay, do not go alone — 
 Let me attend you. 
 
 TYLER. 
 Wherefore should I fear ? 
 Am I not armed with a just cause? — retire. 
 And I will boldly plead the cause of Freedom. 
 
 (Advances.) - 
 KING. 
 Tyler, why have you killed my officer ; 
 And led my honest subjects from their homes, 
 Thus to rebel against the Lord's anointed ? 
 
 TYLER. 
 Because they were oppress'd. 
 
 KING. 
 
 Was fliis the way 
 To remedy the ill ! you should have tried 
 By milder means — petition'd at the throne — 
 The throne will always listen to petitions. 
 
 J'YLER. 
 
 King of England, 
 Petitioning for pity is most weak. 
 
 The sovereign people ought to Qemand justice. 
 I kill'd your officer, for his lewd hand 
 Insulted a maid's modesty ; your subjects 
 1 lead to rebel against the Lord's anointed. 
 Because his ministers have made him odious ; 
 His yoke is heavy, and his burden grievous. 
 Why do we carry on this fatal war, 
 To force upon the French a king they hale ; 
 Tearing our young men from their peaceful 
 
 homes ; 
 Forcing his hard earned fiiiits from the honest 
 
 peasant 
 Distressing us to desolate our neighbours ; 
 Win' is this ruinous poll-tax imposed. 
 But to support your court's extravagance. 
 And your mad title to the crown of France 1 
 Shall we sit tamely down beneath these evils 
 Petitioning for pity ? 
 
 King of England ! 
 Why are we sold like cattle in your markets — 
 Deprived of every privilege of man? 
 Must we lie tamely at our tyrants feet. 
 And like your spaniels, lick the hand that 
 
 beats us ? 
 You sit at ease in your gay palaces. 
 The costly banquet courts your appetite. 
 Sweet music soothes your slumbers; we the 
 
 while, 
 Scarce by hard toil can earn a little food. 
 And sleep scarce sheltered from the cold night 
 
 wind : 
 Whilst your wild projects wrest the little from 
 
 us 
 Which might have cheered the wintry hour of 
 
 age ; 
 1 he Parliament for ever asks more money : 
 We toil and sweat for money for your taxes; 
 Where is the benefit, what food reap we 
 From all the councils of your governn)ent ; 
 lliink you that we should quarrel with the 
 
 French ! 
 What boots to us your victories, j'our glory ? 
 We pay, we fight, you profit at your ease. 
 Do you not claim the country as your own ? 
 Do you not call the venison of the forest. 
 The birds of heaven your own? prohibiting us 
 Even tho' in want of food, to seize the prey 
 Which nature otfers ! — King ! is all this just? 
 Think you we do not feel the wrongs we suffer ? 
 The hour of retribution is at hand, 
 And tyrants tremble — mark me, king of En- 
 gland. 
 
 WALWORTH. 
 
 (Comes behind him, and stabs him.) 
 
 Insolent rebel, threatening the King! 
 
 PIERS. 
 
 Vengeance ! vengeance ! 
 
 HOB. 
 
 Seize the King.
 
 A DRAMATIC POEM. 
 
 11 
 
 KING. 
 
 I must be bold. (Advancing.) 
 
 M^- friends and loving subjects, 
 I will grant all you ask ; you shall be free — 
 The ta\ shall be repealed — ail. all vou ^vish. 
 Your leader menaced me, he deserved his fate- 
 Quiet your angers ; on my royal word 
 Your grievances shall all be done away. 
 Your vassalage abolished. — A free pardon 
 AUow'd to all ; so help me God it shall be. 
 
 JOHN BALL. ^ 
 
 Revenge, mj- brethren, beseems not Christians. 
 Send us these terujs sign'd with your seal of 
 
 state 
 We will await in peace ; deceive us not. — 
 Act justly, so to excuse your late foul deed. 
 
 The charter sha 
 
 nour, 
 All shall be justly done 
 
 KING. 
 
 be drawn out 
 
 on mine ho- 
 
 ACT in. 
 
 SCEN E SMITHFIELn. 
 
 PIERS, (meeting John Bai.l.^ 
 You look disturbed my father ? 
 
 JOHN BALL. 
 
 Piers, I am so. 
 Jack Straw has forced the Tower ; seized the 
 
 Archbishop, 
 And beheaded him. 
 
 PIERS. 
 
 The curse of insurrection ! 
 
 JOHN BALL. 
 
 Aye, Piers ! our nobles level down their vas- 
 sals — 
 
 Keep thetn at endless labourlike their brutes, 
 
 Degrading every facuhy by servitude ; 
 
 Repressing all the energy of mind. 
 
 ^Vo must not wonder'then, that like wild beasts, 
 
 When they have hurst thcirchains, with brutal 
 rage 
 
 They revenge them on their tyrants. 
 
 PIERS. 
 
 This Archbishop ! 
 He was oppressive to his humble vassals ; 
 Pr</ud, huughtv, avaricious. 
 
 JOU}^ BALL. 
 
 A true high piiest ! 
 Preaching humility with his mitre on ! 
 J'raising up alms and Christian charily 
 
 Even whilst his unforgiving hand distress'd 
 His honest tenants. 
 
 PIERS. 
 
 He deserv'd his fate then, 
 
 JOHN BALL. 
 
 Justice can never link with crucify. 
 
 Is there among the cataloRUc of crimes 
 
 A sin so black that only Death can expiate 1 
 
 \Viil Reason never rouse her from her slumbers, 
 
 And darting thro' the veil her eagle eye, 
 
 See in the sable garment of the law 
 
 Revenge conceal'd t — This high priest lias 
 
 been haughty — • 
 He has oppressed his vassals : tell me, Piers, 
 Does his Death remedy the ills he caused 1 
 Were it not better to repress his power 
 Of doing wrong — that so his future life 
 Might expiate the evils of the past, 
 And benefit mankind 1 
 
 PIERS. 
 
 But must not vice 
 Be punished I 
 
 JOHN BALL. 
 
 Is not punishment revenge ? 
 The momentary violence of anger 
 May be excus'd'; the indignant heart will throb 
 Against oppression, and the outstretch'd arm 
 Resent its injured feelings : the Collector 
 Insulted Alice, and roused the keen emotions 
 Of a fond father. Tyler murder'd him. 
 
 PIERS. 
 Murder'd ! — a most harsh word. 
 
 JOHN BALL. 
 
 Yes, murder'd him : 
 His mangled feelings prompted the bad act. 
 And Nature will almost commend the deed 
 That Justice blames ; but will the awaken'd 
 
 feelings 
 Plead with their heart-emoving eloquence 
 For the cool deliberate murder of Revenge ? 
 Would you. Piers, in your calmer hour of 
 
 reason 
 Condemn an erring brother to be slain 1 
 Cut him at once from all the joys of life. 
 All hopes of reforiiiation ! to revenge 
 The deed his punishment cannot recall ? 
 My blood boil d in nie at the fate of Tyler, 
 Yet I reveng'd not, 
 
 PIERS. 
 
 Oh my Christian falhcr ! 
 They would not argue thus humanesly on us 
 Were we within their power.
 
 12 
 
 WAT TYLER ; 
 
 JOHN BALI- 
 
 I know they would not ! 
 But we must pity them that they arc vicious, 
 Not imitate their vice. 
 
 PIERS. 
 
 Alas, poor Tyler ! 
 I do repent me much that I stood back, 
 When he advanced fearless in rectitude 
 To meet these royal assassins. 
 
 JOHN BALL. 
 
 Not for myself, 
 Tho' I have lost an honest virtuous friend, 
 IVIuurn I the death of Tyler : he w as one 
 Gifted with the strong energy of mind, 
 Quick to perceive the right, and prompt to 
 
 act 
 When Justice needed : he would listen unto me 
 With due attention, yet not yielding lightly 
 What had to him seem'd good : severe in vir- 
 tue 
 He aw'd the ruder people whom he led 
 By his steru rectitude. 
 
 PIEKS. 
 
 Witness that day 
 When they destroyed the palace of the Gaunt ; 
 And hurl'd the wealth his avarice had amass'd 
 Amid the fire : tlie people fierce in zeal. 
 Threw in the flames the wretch whose selfish 
 
 hand 
 Purloin'd amid the tumult. 
 
 JOHN BALL. 
 
 I lament 
 The death of Tyler for my country's sake. 
 I shudder lest posterity enslav'd 
 Should rue his murder ! — who shall now con- 
 
 troul 
 The giddy multitude, blind to their own good, 
 And listening with avidity to the tale 
 Of courtly falsehood ! 
 
 PIERS. 
 
 The King must perform 
 His plighted promise. 
 
 (Cry Kithout)—The Charter :— the Charter ! 
 
 (Enter Mob and Herald.) 
 
 TOM MILLER. 
 Read it out— read it out. 
 
 HOB. 
 Aye, ayp, let's hear the Charter. 
 
 HERALD. 
 Richard Plantagenet, by the grace of God, 
 
 and the town of Berwick upon Tweed, to ail 
 whom it may concern, These presents. Where- 
 as our loving subjects have complained to us 
 of the heavy burdens they endure, particularly 
 from our late enacted poll-tax : and whereas 
 they have risen in arms against our officers, 
 and demanded the aboliiion of personal slave- 
 ry, vassalage, and manorial rights ; we, ever 
 ready in our sovereign mercy to listen to the 
 petitions of our loving subjects, do annul all 
 these grievances. 
 
 MOB. 
 Huzza ! long live the king ! 
 
 HERALD. 
 
 And do of our royal mercy, grant a free par- 
 don to all who may have been anyways con- 
 cerned in the late insurrections. All this shall 
 be faithfully performed on our royal word. So 
 help us God. 
 
 God save the King. 
 
 (Loud and repeated shou:s.'\ 
 
 HERALD. 
 Now then depart in quiet to your homes. 
 
 JOHN BALL. 
 
 Nay, my good friend — the people will remain 
 Embodied peaceably, till Parliament 
 Confirm the royal charter : tell your king so ; 
 We will await the Charter's confirmation. 
 Meanwhile comporting ourselves orderly 
 As peaceful citizens, not risen in tumult. 
 But to redress their evils. 
 
 Exit Herald, &;c. Hob, Piers, and 
 John Ball rfmaiH. 
 
 HOB. 
 
 'Twas well order'd. 
 I place but little trust in courtly faith. 
 
 JOHN BALL. 
 
 We must remain embodied; else the king 
 W^ill plunge again in royal luxury ; 
 And when the storm of danger is past over. 
 Forget his promises. 
 
 HOB. 
 
 Aye, like an aguish sinner. 
 He'll promise to repent when the fit is on him, 
 W'hen well recover'd, laugh at his own ter- 
 rors. 
 
 PIERS. 
 
 Oh ! I am grieved that we must gain so lit- 
 tle ! 
 Why are not all these empty ranks abolish'd, 
 King, slave, and lord, " ennobled into MAN V 
 
 King of England, Irelakd, France, Scotland, Are we not equal all ?-have you not told me
 
 A DRAMATIC POEM. 
 
 13 
 
 Equality u the sacred right of man, 
 Inalienable, tho' by force withheld 1 
 
 JOHN BALL. 
 
 Even so; but Piers, ray frail and fallible judg- 
 ment 
 Knows hardly to decide if it be right, 
 Peaceably to return, content with little, 
 ■With this half restitution of our rights, 
 Or boldl^'to proceed tlirough blood and slaugh- 
 ter, 
 Till we should ail be equal and all happy. 
 I chose the milder way : — perliaps I erred. 
 
 PIERS. 
 
 I fear me — by the mass, the unsteady people 
 Are flocking homewards ! how the multitude 
 Diminishes ! 
 
 JOHN BALL. 
 
 Go thou, my son, and stay them. 
 Carter, do you exert your influence. 
 All depends on their stay : my mind is 
 troubl'd. 
 
 I shall soon join thee, Tyler ! — they are ranr- 
 
 dciing 
 Our unsuspecting brethren : half unarmed. 
 Trusting too fondly to the tyrant's vows. 
 They were dispersing ; — the streets swim with 
 
 blood. 
 O ! save thyself. 
 
 Enter Soldiers. 
 
 SOLDIER. 
 
 This is that old seditious heretic. 
 
 ("Seises John Ball.^ 
 
 SECOND SOLDIER. 
 
 And here the young spawn of rebellion ; 
 My orders ar'n't to spare him. 
 
 (Stabs PiEUs.J 
 
 Come, you old stirrer-up of insurrection. 
 You bell-wether of tlie mob — you ar'n't to 
 
 die 
 So easily. 
 
 (They lead off John Ball — the tumult in- 
 
 And I would fain compose my thoughts for creases— Mob fly across the Stage — the Troops 
 action. 
 
 (Exeunt Hob and Piers.^ 
 
 Father of mercies ! I do fear me much 
 
 That I have err'd : thou gav'st my ardent 
 mind 
 
 To pierce the mists of superstitious false- 
 hood ; — 
 
 Gav'st me to know the trudi. I should have 
 urg'd it 
 
 Thro' every opposition : now, perliaps. 
 
 The seemly voice of pity has deceived me. 
 
 And all this mighty movement ends in ruin ! 
 
 I fear me, I have been like the weak leech. 
 
 Who, sparing to cut deep, with cruel mercy 
 
 Mangles his patient without curing him. 
 
 (Great tumidt.) 
 
 What means this tumult ? hark ! the clang of 
 
 . I 
 
 arms! 
 God of eternal justice ! the false monarch 
 Has broke his plighted vow ! 
 
 Enter Pieus, wounded. 
 PIERS. 
 
 Fly, fly, my father— the perjur'd king— fly 
 'fly! 
 
 JOHN BALL. 
 
 Nay, nay, my child — I dare abide my fate. 
 Let me bind up tliy wounds. 
 
 PIERS. 
 
 'Tis useless succour. 
 They setk thy life ; fly, fly, my honour'd fa- 
 ther. 
 Fain would I Hie in peace to hope thee safe. 
 
 pursue them — loud cries and shouts.) 
 
 SCENE WESTMINSTER-riALt. 
 
 King, Walworth, Philpot, Sir John 
 Tresihan, &c. 
 
 WALWORTH. 
 
 My liege, 'twas wisely ordered to destroy 
 The dunghill rabble, but take prisoner 
 That old seditious priest; his strange wild no- 
 tions 
 Of this equality, when well exposed. 
 Will create ridicule, and shame the people 
 Of their late tumults. 
 
 SIR JOHN TRESILIAN. 
 
 Aye, there's nothing like 
 A fair free open trial where the king 
 Can chuse his jury and appoint his judges. 
 
 KING. 
 
 Walworth, I must thank you for uiy deliver- 
 ance ; 
 
 'Twas a bold deed to stab him in the parley ! 
 
 Kneel down and rise a knight. Sir William 
 Walworth. 
 
 Enter Messenger. 
 
 MESSENGER. 
 
 I Iclt them holly at it. SniiUiricId smoked 
 With the rebel's blood : your troops fought 
 loyally.
 
 14 
 
 WAT TYLER; 
 
 There's not a man of them will lend an car 
 To pity. 
 
 SIR WILLIAM WALWORTH. 
 Is John Ball secur'd? 
 
 MESSENGER. 
 ^ They have seiz'd him. 
 
 [^Enter Guards with John Ball. 
 
 GUARD. 
 We've brought the old villnin. 
 
 SECOND GUARD. 
 
 An old mischief-maker- 
 Why there's fifteen hundred of the mob are 
 
 kill'd, 
 All thro' his preaching ! 
 
 SIR JOHN TRESILIAN. 
 Prisoner J are you the arch-rebel, John Ball ? 
 
 JOHN BALL. 
 
 I am John Ball ; but I am not a rebel, 
 Take ye the name, who, arrogant in strength, 
 Rebel against the people's sovereignty. 
 
 SIR JOHN TRESILIAN. 
 
 John Ball, you are accus'd of stirring up 
 The poor deluded people to rebellion; 
 Not having the fear of God and of the king 
 Before your eyes ; of preaching up strange 
 
 notions 
 Heretical and treasonous ; such as saving 
 Tliat kings have not a right from heaven to 
 
 govern ; 
 That all mankind are equal ; and that ranks 
 And the distinctions of society, 
 Aye, and the sacred rights of property 
 Are evil and oppressive : — plead you guilty 
 To this most heavy charge 1 
 
 JOHN BALL. 
 
 If it be guilt — 
 To preach what you are pleased to call strange 
 
 notions, 
 That all mankind as brethren must be equal ; 
 'I'hat priviJeg'd orders of society 
 Are evil and oppressive ; that the right 
 Of property is a juggle to deceive 
 The poor whom you oppress; I plead me 
 
 guilty. 
 
 SIR JOHN TRESILIAN. 
 
 It is against the custom of this court 
 That the prisoner should plead guilty. 
 
 JOHN BALL. 
 
 Why then put you 
 
 The needless question ?— Sir Judge, let uic 
 
 save 
 The vain and empty insult of a trial. 
 What I have done, that I dare justify. 
 
 SIR JOHN TRESILIAN. 
 
 Did you not tell the mob they were oppress 'd, 
 And preach upon the equality of man ; 
 With evil intent thereby to stir them up 
 To tumult and rebellion? 
 
 JOHN BALL. 
 
 That I told them 
 That all mankind are equal, is most true : 
 Ye came as helpless infants to the world : - 
 Ye feel alike the infirmities of nature ; 
 And at last moulder into common clay. 
 Why then these vain distinctions ! — bears not 
 
 the earth 
 Food in abundance ? — must your granaries 
 O'eiflow with plenty, while the poor man 
 
 starves 1 
 Sir Judge, why sit you there clad in your 
 
 furs 1 
 Why arc your cellars stor'd with choicest 
 
 wines'! 
 ■ Your larders hung with dainties, while your 
 
 vassal. 
 As virtuous, and as able too by nature, 
 Tho' by your selfish tyranny depriv'd 
 Of mind's improvement, shivers in his rags. 
 And starves amid the plenty he creates? 
 I have said this is wrung, and I repeat il — 
 And there will be a time when this great 
 
 truth 
 Shall be confess' d — be felt by all mankind. 
 The electric truth shall run from man to man. 
 And the blood-cemented pyramid of greatness 
 Shall fall before the flash ! 
 
 SIR JOHN TRESILIAN. 
 
 Audacious rebel ! 
 How darest thou insult this sacred court. 
 Blaspheming all the dignities of rank 1 
 How could the government be carried on 
 Without the sacred orders of the king, 
 And the nobility ? 
 
 JOHN BALL. 
 
 Tell me. Sir Judge, 
 What does the government avail the peasant"? 
 Would n,:t he plow his field and sow the com. 
 Aye, and in peace enjoy the harvest too: 
 Would not the sunshine and the dews de- 
 scend, 
 Tho' neither King nor Parliament existed ? 
 Do your Court I'olilics ought matter him? 
 Would he be warring even unto the death 
 With his French neighbours? — Charles and 
 
 Richard contend ; 
 The people fight and sutier : — think ye, Sirs,
 
 A DRAMATIC POEM. 
 
 15 
 
 If neither country had been cursed nitU a 
 
 chief. 
 The peasants would have quarrell'd 1 
 
 KING. 
 
 This is treason! 
 Tlie patience of the court has been insulted— 
 Condemn the foul mouth'd, contumacious re- 
 bel. 
 
 SIR JOHN TRESTLIAN. 
 
 John Ball, whereas jou are accused before us 
 
 Of stirring up the people to rebellion. 
 
 And preaching to them strange and dangerous 
 
 doctrines ; 
 And whereas your behaviour to tlie court 
 Has been most insolent and contumacious ; 
 Insulting Majesty — and since you have plead- 
 ed 
 Guilty to all these charges; I condemn you 
 To death : you shall be hanged by the neck, 
 But not till you are dead — your bowels 
 
 opened — 
 Your heart torn out and burnt before your 
 
 face — 
 Your traitorous head be sever'd from your 
 
 body — 
 Your body quartered, and exposed upon 
 The city gates — a terrible example — ■ 
 And the Lord God have mercy on your soul i 
 
 JOHN BALL. 
 
 Why be it so. I can smile at your ven- 
 geance, 
 
 For I am arm'd with rectitude of soul. 
 
 The truth, which all my life I have divulg'd 
 
 And am now doom'd in torment to expire for. 
 
 Shall still survive — the destined hour must 
 come, 
 
 When it shall blaze witli sun-surpassing splen- 
 dour, 
 
 And the dark mists of prejudice and falsehood. 
 
 Fade in its strong etfulgence. Flattery's in- 
 cense 
 
 No more shall shadow round the gore-dyed 
 throne; 
 
 That attar of oppression, fed with rites, 
 
 More savage than the Priests of Molocli 
 taught. 
 
 Shall be consumed amid the fire of Justice ; 
 
 The ray of truth shall emanate around. 
 
 And the whole world be lighted ! 
 
 KING. 
 
 Drag him hence— 
 Away with him to death ! order the troops 
 Now to give quarter and make prisoners — 
 Let the blood reeking sword of war be sheath- 
 ed. 
 That the law may take vengeance on the re- 
 bels. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 Printed and Published by IX. Carliie, 62, Fleet Street.
 
 Works Published by R. Carlile, 62, Fleet Street. 
 Hypocrisy finds no support; tyranny no 
 
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 THE .^ 
 
 PRINCIPLES OF GOVERNMENT ; 
 
 IN 
 
 A DIALOGUE 
 
 BETWEEN 
 
 A SCHOLAR AND A PEASANT. 
 
 By Sir WILLIAM JONES. 
 
 LONDON: 
 PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY RICHARD CARLILE, 
 
 62, FLEET-STREET. 
 1831. 
 
 Price One Penny. 
 
 S»lu bj Ts. FiiiUy. 30. Haddington Plac«, 
 Ltti\h Walk, Cdinbui'gb.
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF GOVERNMENT; 
 
 A Dialogue. 
 BETWEEN A SCHOLAR AND A PEASANT. 
 
 Peasant. Why should humble men, like me, sign or set 
 marks lo petitions of this uature? It is better for us peasants 
 to mind our husbandry, and leave what we cannot comprehend 
 to the King- and Parliament. 
 
 Scholar. You can comprehend more than you imagine ; and, 
 as a free member of a free state, have higher things to mind 
 than you may conceive. 
 
 P. Mhyfree you mean out of prison, I hope to continue so, 
 as long as I can pay my rent to the 'Squire's Bailiff; but what 
 is meant by a. free state ? 
 
 S. Tell me first what is meant by a club in a village, of which 
 I know you to be a member. 
 
 P. It is an assembly of men, who meet after work every Satur- 
 day to be merry and happy for a few hours in the week. 
 
 S. Have you no other object but mirth ? 
 
 P. Yes ; we have a box, into which we contribute equally 
 from our monthly or weekly savings, and out of which any mem- 
 bers of the club are to be relieved in sickness or poverty : for the 
 parish officers are so cruel and insolent, that it were better to 
 starve than to apply to them for relief. 
 
 S. Did they, or the 'Squire, or the parson or all together, com- 
 pel you to form this society ? 
 
 P. Oh! no — we would not be compelled; we formed it by 
 our own choice. 
 
 S. You did right — But have you not some head or president 
 of your club ? 
 
 P. The master for each night is chot^en by all the company 
 present the week before. 
 
 S. Does he make laws to bind you iii case of ill temper or mis- 
 behaviour r
 
 4 
 
 P. He make laws ! — He bind us I — No ; we have all agreed to 
 a set of rules, which are signed by every new comer, and were 
 written in a strange hand, by young Spelman, the lawyer's clerk, 
 whose uncle is a member. 
 
 S. What should you do, if any one member were to insist on 
 becoming- perpetual master, and on altering- your rules at his 
 arbitrary will and pleasure ? 
 P. We should expel him. 
 
 /S. What if he were to bring- a Serjeant's g-uard, when the 
 militia are quartered in your neig-hbourhood, and insist upon your 
 obeying- him ? 
 
 P. We should resist, if we could ; if not, the society would be 
 broke up. 
 
 /S. Suppose that, with his Serjeant's g-uard, he were to take the 
 money out of the box or out of your pockets ? 
 P. Would not that be a robbery ? 
 
 S. I am seeking- information from you. How should you act 
 on such an occasion ? 
 
 P. We should submit, perhaps, at the time; but should after- 
 wards try to apprehend the robbers. 
 
 S. What if you could not apprehend them ? 
 P. We might kill them, 1 should think; and, if the King- 
 would not pardon us, our consciences would. 
 
 /S. How could you either apprehend them, or, if they resisted, 
 kill them, without a sufficient force in your own hands ! 
 
 P. Oh ! we are all g-ood players at sing-le stick, and each of 
 us has a stout cudg-el or quarter-staff in the corner of his room. 
 
 5^. Suppose, that a few of the club were to domineer over the 
 rest, and insist upon making- laws for them ? 
 
 P, We must take the same course ; except that it would be 
 easier to restrain one man than a number ; but we should be the 
 majority, with justice on our side. 
 
 S. A word or two on another head. Some of you, I presume, 
 are no accountants. 
 
 P. Few of us understand accounts ; but we trust old Lilly, 
 the schoolmaster, whom we believe to be an honest man; and 
 he keeps the key of our box. 
 
 /S. If your money should in time amount to a larg-e sum, it 
 might not perhaps be safe, to keep it at his house, or in any pri- 
 vate house ? 
 
 P. Where else should we keep it ?
 
 S. You mig-ht choose to put it into the funds, Op to lend it to 
 the 'Squire, who has lost so much money at Newmarket, taking- 
 liis bond or some of his fields as your security for the pay^ with 
 interest. 
 
 P. We must in that case confide in young- Spelman, who will 
 soon set up for himself ; and, if a lawyer can be honest, will be 
 an honest lawyer. 
 
 «S. What power do you g-ive to Lilly, or should you give to 
 Spelman, in the case supposed ? 
 
 P. No power. We should give them both a due allowance 
 for their trouble, and should expect a faithful account of all they 
 had done for us. 
 
 5. Honest men may change their nature. What, if both or 
 either of them were to deceive you ? 
 
 P. We should remove them, put our trust in better men, and 
 try to repair our loss. 
 
 S. Did it never occur to you, that every State or Nation was 
 only a great club ? 
 
 P. Nothing ever occurred to me on the subject ; for I never 
 thought about it. 
 
 S. Though you never thought before on the subject, yet you 
 may be able to tell me why you suppose men to have assembled, 
 and to have formed nations, communities, or states, which all 
 mean the same thing ? 
 
 P. In order, I should imagine, to be as happy as they can 
 while they live. 
 
 S. By happy do you mean merry only ? 
 
 P. To be as merry as they can without hurting themselves or 
 their neighbours, but chiefly to secure themselves from danger, 
 and to relieve their wants. 
 
 S. Do you believe that any King or Emperor compelled them 
 so to associate ? 
 
 P. How could one man compel a multitude ? A King or an 
 Emperor, I should presume, is not born with an hundred hands. 
 
 /S. When a Prince of the blood shall in any country be so dis- 
 tinguished by nature, 1 shall then, and then only, conceive him 
 to be ^ greater man than you. But might not an army, with a 
 King or General at their head, have compelled them to assemble? 
 
 P. Yes ; but the army must have been formed by their own 
 choice. One man, or a few, can never govern many without 
 their consent.
 
 6 
 
 S. Suppose, liovvevcr, Umt. a multitude of men, assembled in 
 a town or city, were to choose a King- or Governor, might they not 
 give him power or authority ? 
 
 P. To be sure ; but they would never be so mad. 1 hope, as to 
 g-ive him a power of making- their laws, 
 
 S. Who else should make them? 
 
 P. The ivholc Nation or People. 
 
 -S. What if they disagreed ? 
 
 P. The opinion of the greater number, as in our village clubs, 
 must be taken, and prevail. 
 
 S. What could be do.ne, if the society were so large, that all 
 could not meet in the same place? 
 
 P. A greater number must choose a less. 
 
 S. Who shall be the choosers? 
 
 P. All who are not upon the parish. In our club, if- a maa 
 asks relief of the overseer, he ceases to be one of us,- because 
 he must depend on the overseer. 
 
 S. Could not a few men, one in seven for instance, chuse the 
 assembly of law-makers as well as a larger number ? 
 
 P. As conveniently, perhaps ; but I would not suffer any man 
 to choose another, who was to make laws, by which my money 
 or my life might be taken from me. 
 
 S. Have you a. freehold in any county of forty shillings a-year ? 
 
 P. I have nothing in the world but my cattle, implements of 
 husbandry, and household goods, together with my farm, for 
 which 1 pay a fixed rent to the 'Squire. 
 
 5. Have you a vote, then, in any city or borough ? 
 P. I have no vote at all ; but am able by my honest labour to 
 support my wife and four children ; and whilst 1 act honestly, 1 
 may defy the laws. 
 
 S. Can you be ignorant, that the Parliament, to which mem- 
 bers are sent by this county^ and by the next market town, have 
 power to make new laws, by which you and your fami'y may be 
 stripped of your goods, thrown into prison, and even d prived of 
 life ? 
 
 P. A dreadful power 1 I never made inquiries, having business 
 of my own, concerning the business of Parliament; but imagined 
 that the laws had been fixed for many hundred years. 
 
 S. The common laws, to which you refer, are equal, just, and 
 humane; but the King and Parliament may alter them when 
 they please.
 
 p. The King- ought therefore to be a g-ood man, and the Par- 
 liament to consist of men equally good. 
 
 S. The King alone can do no harm ; but who must judg-e the 
 goodness of Parliament-men ? 
 
 P. All those whose property, freedom, and lives may be affected 
 by their laws. 
 
 S. Yet six men in seven, who inhabit this kingdom, have, like 
 you, no votes ; and the petition, which I desired you to sign, has 
 nothing for its object but the restoration of you all to the right 
 of choosing those law-makers, by whom your money or your lives 
 may be taken from you. Attend vvhile 1 read it distinctly. 
 
 P. Give me your pen — I never wrote my name, ill as it may- 
 be written, with greater eagerness.. 
 
 S. I applaud you, and trust that your example will be followed 
 by millions. Another word before we part. Recollect your 
 opinion about the club in the village, and tell what ought to be 
 the consequence, if the King alone were to insist on making 
 laws, or in altering them at his will and pleasure. 
 
 P. He, too, must be expelled. 
 
 S. Oh ! but think of his standing army, and of the militia, 
 which now are his in substance, though ours in form. 
 
 P. If he were to employ that force against the Nation, they 
 would and ought to resist him, or the State would cease to be a 
 State. 
 
 S. What if the great accountants and great lawyers, the Liliys 
 and Spelmans of the Nation, were to abuse their trust, and cruelly 
 injure, instead of faithfully serving, the public ? 
 
 P. We must request the King to remove them, and make triai 
 of others ; but none should implicitly be trusted. 
 
 S. But what, if a few great Lords, or wealthy men, were to keep 
 the men in subjection, yet exert his force, lavish his treasure, and 
 misuse his name, so as to domineer over the People, and manage 
 the Parliament ? 
 
 P. We must fight for the King and for ourselves. 
 
 S. You talk of fighting, as if you were speaking of some 
 rustic engagement at a wake ; but your quarter-staffs would 
 avail you little against bayonets. 
 
 P. We might easily provide ourselves with better arms. 
 
 S. Not so easily: when the moment of resistance came, you 
 would be deprived of all arms j and those who should furnish 
 you with them, or exhort you to take them up, would be called 
 traitors, and probably put to death.
 
 8 
 
 P. We ought always, therefore, to be ready ; and keep each 
 of us a strong- firelock in the corner of his bed-room. 
 
 S. That would be legal as well as rational. Are you, my 
 honest friend, provided with a musket ? 
 
 P. I will contribute no more to the club, and purchase a fire- 
 lock with my saving's. 
 
 <Si. It is not necessary — I have two, and will make you a present 
 of one with complete accoutrements. 
 
 P. I accept it thankfully, and will converse with you at your 
 leisure on other subjects of this kind. 
 
 S. In the mean while, spend an hour every morning- for the 
 next fortnig-ht in learning* to prime and load expeditiously, and to 
 fire and charg-e with bayonet firmly and reg-ularly. I say every 
 morning — because, if you exercise too late in the evening, you 
 may fall into some of the leg"al snares, which have been spread 
 for you by those g-entlemen, who would rather secure g-ame for 
 their table, than liberty for the Nation. , 
 
 P. Some of my neig"hbours, who have served in the militia, 
 will readily teach me : and, perhaps, the whole villag-e may be 
 persuaded to procure arms, and to learn their exercise. 
 
 *S. It cannot be expected that villag-ers should purchase arms, 
 but they mig-ht easily be supplied, if the g-entry of the Nation 
 would spare a little from their vices and luxury. 
 
 P. May they return to some sense of honour and virtue ! 
 S. Farewell, at present j and remember, " that a free state is 
 " only a more numerous and more powerful club, and that he 
 " only is a free man, who is member of such a state." 
 
 P. Good morning-. Sir ! you have made me wiser and better 
 than I was yesterday ; and yet, methinks, I had some knowledg-e 
 in my own mind of this g-reat subject, and have been a politician 
 all my life without perceiving it. 
 
 Printed by Richard Carlile, 62, Fleet Street.
 
 DIALOGUE 
 
 BETWEEN THE 
 
 GREEK PHILOSOPHER EPICTETUS 
 
 AND HIS SON. 
 
 LOUDOn: 
 
 PRINTED FOR A TRACT SOCIETY BY THOMAS MOSES, No. 9, G AR- 
 NAULT PLACE. 
 
 1825.
 
 DIALOGUE, 
 
 4c. (Sfc. 
 
 Epictetus, I feel death fast approacliin^, I have not many mi- 
 nutes to live. You may retain a pleasing remembrance of me my 
 son, for I have employed my time and all the talents I possess- 
 ed in trying to improve the world and in endeavouring to 
 diminish the extent of human sufTerjig. I expect, however, that 
 you will not dishonour my memory by giving vent to useless tears 
 and lamentations — I expect you will follow the path I have tra- 
 ced out, and lend your assistance towards banishing vice and 
 misery from the world by enlightening the multitude. I die con- 
 tented and with feelings of satisfaction, when I think my means 
 of doing good will not b^ ended by ray death, as I shall leave be- 
 hind me in the person of my son, a willing and sincere agent in 
 the great and good cause of exterminating ignorance and in 
 teaching people to exert their understanding and to think and 
 judge for themselves. Let me hear you declare that your sole 
 aim will be to ameliorate, by dispelling ignorance, the condition 
 of mankind. 
 
 Son. You may die happy my honoured father; for, rest assured, 
 after the noble example you have given me, I shall think no other 
 pursuit worthy of my attention and time. But you seem to have 
 no apprehensions at the approach of death ; do you feel no regret 
 at quitting all sensation ? 
 
 E. Wherefore should 1 feel regret at a circumstance beyond 
 all human control? Could I avert it by regret, there would be 
 some reason for regretting, and I should make no scruple to use 
 those means of prolonging niy stay here, since I might still employ 
 myself usefully for my fellow creatures. But as I have no con- 
 trol over the event, I suffer no whining to disturb ray last few 
 hours of existence — But let me ask you, wherefore should I feel 
 any apprehensions at dying? 
 
 Son. Because it appears to me, that you are on the brink either 
 of total annihilation ; or you are on the eve of a new state of 
 existence. It is the total ignorance of what is going to happen to 
 you, that should raise the feelings of apprehension. 
 
 E. If I am, as you say, in total ignorance upon the sulyect, 
 there is not the shadow of a reason for alarm, for no alarm will 
 dispel that ignorance — What is djath, my son? wherefore should 
 tlic death of a man cause more anxiety than the death of any of
 
 the other less intelligent animals ? All the knowledge that we 
 can gather from experience, regarding death, is, that we are de- 
 Tarived of all sensation. Now without sensation what have we to 
 fear? Death can only act in three different ways. I must either 
 have a continuation of the sensation which I have already 
 experienced in this life ; or, I must be deprived of sensation 
 altogether ; or lastly, I must have other and new sensations. 
 Now, if I am to have a continuation of the sensations of this life, 
 1 am not in ignorance concerning what they will be. By being 
 able to appreciate them, I need not feel any alarm, since, 
 by possessing such sensations, my life will be merely in a state of 
 prolongation. If, as in the second case, I am totally deprived of 
 sensation, what have I to apprehend ? Nothing can happen to 
 me, that can be of any consequence, since, I shall no longer 
 possess the capability of feeling, and therefore pleasure or pain 
 will be equally negative in their eftbrts upon me. If, as in the 
 last case, I have other sensations given to me, perfectly different 
 from any of those I have hitherto experienced, I am again re- 
 lieved from all apprehensions; because, to feel those new sensa- 
 tions, I must be remodelled, m.ust become a different creature al- 
 too-ether. — Why then should I feel any apprehensions for entering, 
 into a state of which I cannot have the remotest idea ? 
 
 Son. Your reasons are unanswerable. To the philosopher, 
 death has no more terror, than his nightly slumbers. But this 
 new sect of religionists who have come out of Palestine, and who 
 preach a continuation of existence after death, seem to think, that 
 the present sensations will also continue, and that it is through their 
 medium that punishment will be inflicted for bad conduct here. 
 
 E. What! is there any sect of people from Judea reviving the 
 superstitions and fables of the poets? 
 
 Son. You have always taught me that the word virtue had no 
 meaning attached to it, without it meant a course of actions bene- 
 ficial to mankind, in extending the general happiness, by pointing 
 out the paths that lead to the pleasurable sensations, and by 
 teaching others to avoid the roads that conduct to the painful 
 sensations. But this new sect from Palestine makes virtue to 
 consist in very useless and I might add mischievous actions. In 
 fact, it is quite of a new species that I never have heard of be- 
 fore. 
 
 E. Do these people inculcate doctrines that do not tend to 
 promote human happiness ? What is this new sect ? 
 
 Son. It is composed of Jews who sell rags and love-charms, 
 and who were notorious at Rome for passing base money. 
 
 E. Do they teach virtue by the same rule, as that by which they 
 weigh their money ? 
 
 Son. They do not make virtue to consist in a train of actions 
 useful to promote human happiness, they place it in circumci- 
 sing themselves ; and they say you cannot be a good man unless
 
 you are dipped in or sprinkled with water, by one of their priests, 
 who repeats certain magical words over you, as " I put you in the 
 water in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." 
 But even upon this point they are not agreed. They have partly 
 divided into Circumcisers, and Water-Sprinklers : some say cut- 
 ting off the foreskin makes the party a virtuous character, others 
 say, there is no need to perform this operation. One party af- 
 firms water to be absolutely essential to form the good man ; the 
 others ridicule this, and say it is of no consequence. But they 
 all agree upon one point, they unanimously preach that we must 
 give them money. 
 
 E. The ceremonies you have been telling me, only merit laugh- 
 ter and contempt. But wherefore do they require money ? Do 
 they perform any labours that merit the reward? Do they ask 
 for money in order to employ it in acts useful to society ? 
 
 Son. Ah! my father, this sect makes a very different applica- 
 tion of it. They apply it to purposes of self aggrandisement. Not 
 only do they exact our contributions, but they require us to de- 
 liver up to them every thing we possess, even to the last 
 obole. 
 
 E. Nay, do not joke with me, nor try to impose upon me. 
 There is but one class of people in society who act in this man- 
 ner, and they are thieves by profession. Such people it is our duty 
 to bring before the tribunals of justice. Has any person denoun- 
 ced this sect according to its deserts? 
 
 Son. Your question makes me smile ! they do not call them- 
 selves thieves, but they would rather compaie themselves to mer- 
 chants who give the finest commodity in the world for money; for they 
 promise in exchange for it, a never ending life. If, in bringing your 
 wealth to them, you keep back only enough to subsist your wife 
 and children with the commonest diet, they pretend to have the 
 power to make you drop down dead instantly. By the influence 
 of fear, they work so upon the timid and uneducated part of 
 the people, that they are believed. 
 
 E. These people are worse than absurd, they are assassins to 
 the peace of society. The authorities should cleanse the city of 
 such propagators of vice and misery. 
 
 Son. By dealing in the marvellous and mysterious, they have 
 obtained a strong hold over the imagination of the ignorant peo- 
 ple. It is believed, that they are great magicians, who hold human 
 life at their command ; that they can kill by a word ; and this 
 sect declare they have such power, and that they obtained tliis 
 power, from the person whom they stile the father, through the 
 medium of the Son. One of their proselytes, who smelt most of- 
 fensively, but who preached in the suburbs and out houses of the 
 city with much success, told me, that one of his relations called 
 Ananias having sold his farm, to please the son in the nan)e of 
 the father (this is the magical term these people make use of)
 
 6 
 
 brought the money to one of their head priests called Barjona ; 
 but, as Ananias had not lost his appetite because he had been 
 sprinkled with water and had had tlie magical names pronounced 
 over him, he kept back a small portion of the money produced by 
 the sale to purchase food for his family, and for doing this, Bar- 
 jona punished him with death upon the spot. His wife came 
 in afterwards, and Barjona made her die also, only by pro 
 uouncing a single word. 
 
 E, My son, if you are speaking the truth to me, these people 
 are the most abominable and barefaced criminals upon the face 
 of the earth. But it strikes me that you have been imposed upon 
 and that these stories are too ridiculous to be true. 
 
 Son. Oh no, my father, all that I relate to you is openly taught 
 and implicitly believed by this sect. Moreover, they have the 
 impudence to try to persuade people, that if they obtain from 
 them a promise of this eternal bliss for their money, they have th6 
 better baroain of the two. 
 
 E. This doctrine supposes the existence of a God — but admit- 
 ting that existence, can we imagine him worse than the worst of 
 mankind? for such this doctrine makes hini. Can we suppose 
 that, if eternal bliss or life were to be the portion of part of 
 the living animals who cover the face of the earth, that decree 
 would not have been long ago known to man, as surely as he 
 knows that he must die, so that I, you, and all the men and wo- 
 men who live in the various parts of the world, would 
 not feel a doubt upon the subject? Does it not carry the stain 
 of falsehood strongly marked upon it, when we remember that it 
 proceeds from the most immoral people of Asia, who dwell in an 
 unfrequented corner of the earth ? It is truly astonishing that it 
 should ever have obtained the least credence. But of what use is 
 this doctrine proposed to be of to mankind ? 
 
 Son. By holding out the belief of reward and punishment in a 
 life to come, it is proposed to diminish crime in this life, from 
 the ffear of the anticipation of what may await us hereafter. 
 
 E. Oh ! the inconceivable folly of mankind ! Do these idiots 
 bring forward this short-sighted and cruel doctrine, as a proof of 
 the wisdom and benevolence of their God ? 
 
 Son. They say that God himself visited earth to declare it. 
 
 E. I do not know which to admu-e most, the lying fabrication, 
 or the folly of the doctrine, the injustice, or the malevolence ! 
 They propose to prevent crime, first by postponing the punish- 
 ment due to it, to a time when the perpetrators shall no longer be 
 able to commit it, and secondly, by giving them so heavy a quantity 
 as to be out of all proportion to the crime. Experience in legis- 
 lation has taught men, that the only way to lessen crime is to ad- 
 minister the proper chastisement inmiediately upon its commis- 
 sion ; and that by so doing, by rendering the punishment imme- 
 diate and certain, less cruel and barbarous punishments will suf-
 
 fice; because, a small immediate punishment has more effect in de- 
 terring men from committing crimes, than a heavy deferred one. 
 It is imperatively required by the laws of benevolence, that if 
 evil is a necessary means to our end, every expedient should be 
 made use of to reduce it to the smallest quantity possible. It is 
 cruelty, it belongs only to a malignant nature, to apply evil in a 
 Avay which demands a larger quantity than would have otherwise 
 sufficed. To try at once the amazing absurdity and uselessness 
 of this doctrine, let us suppose that the Athenians should pass a 
 law by which tliey enacted that no act of theft should be inves- 
 tigated or punished, until twenty or more years had passed 
 after the commission, or till the life of the thief was near its end. — 
 Is it not evident, that, in this case, all punishment, however dread- 
 ful, would be destitute of power? Philosophy teaches us to ap- 
 ply the penalty due to bad actions, as surely and instantly as, 
 when we put our finger into the fire, we are burned for our folly. 
 Would itnoi be wicked beyond expression, if, instead of the imme- 
 diate slight burn our finger receives upon touching the flames, the 
 pain should be postponed for a few years, in order, that we might 
 lose our arm, or life, by the fire only then taking effect? 
 
 Son. I fully agree with you, my father, and I wish some of 
 these poor deluded people could have the benefit of your remarks. 
 How soon would the truth of your reasonings dispel the error 
 into which these wretched men plunge the multitude. Besides 
 these doctrines, this sect, as usual, pretends to perform mira- 
 cles ; you shrug your shoulders my father, and I do not wonder 
 at it. 
 
 E. The ignorant delight in the marvellous. — The less preva- 
 lent you find knowledge, the more you will find fable and super- 
 stition prevail. — But have these Jews admitted you to see the per- 
 formance of one ? 
 
 Son. Oh no, philosophers, and those who love reason and truth 
 better than fable and lies, never are permitted to enter into the 
 mysterious depths of miracles, but I have spoken to many peo- 
 ple, both men and women, who tell me, that many of their gossips 
 and grandmothers have been witnesses of them. 
 
 JE. Enough, enough of their absurdities. What moral precepts 
 do this sect inculcate? 
 
 Son. I will repeat some of them, and you shall judge how far 
 they are entitled to adoption. First, they say, that a man of 
 property cannot be a good man, and they exemplify this precept 
 by saying, it is easier for a camel to go tlirough the eye of a nee- 
 dle, than for a rich man to inherit the life that is to come, in 
 what they call the kingdom of heaven, (I suppose they mean a 
 sort of garden for the reception of resurrectionists.) It is very 
 clear, that it is for the interest of these priests, that the rich, and 
 people of moderate pro[)erty, should believe them; because, in 
 proportion as these latter make themselves beggars, the former
 
 secure the possession of good things that they otherwise must 
 labour to obtain. 
 
 2. That only fools, and those who are poor in spirit and want 
 information, in fact, only such as are ignorant like little children, 
 will be happy, or, as they call it, blessed. 
 
 3. That if people do not leave their father, their mother, and 
 their relations, for the sake of these doctrines, they never will be 
 permitted to enter the kingdom or garden. 
 
 4. That the preachers come to bring war, not peace. 
 
 5. That when any person is inclined to give a marriage feast, 
 he must force all the strangers and chance passengers into the 
 house to come to the feast; and all those among this chance 
 medley, who are not prepared with a nuptial robe, are to be cast 
 out in a dungeon. 
 
 E, My life draws rapidly to a close ; but I am filled with grief 
 and indignation at the recital of these enormities and mischievous 
 follies. Most imperatively are you called upon, ray beloved son, 
 to exert yourself to instruct your poorer brethren, and, indeed, 
 mankind in general, and to shew them the errors and falsehoods 
 that are attempted to be imposed upon them. Guide them to seek 
 out happiness by acquiring the knowledge requisite to diminish 
 the mass of misery that surrounds them ; teach them to be just and 
 kind, and to assist each other in misfortune; engage them to 
 the performance of acts calculated to increase the sum of human 
 happiness. Alas! I foresee, that vice and misery will continue long 
 in the world, if this superstition becomes predominant. Let me be 
 assured that the son of Epictetus will devote his life to the remo- 
 val of ignorance from among mankind. To stop the tide 
 of these absurdities is not possible by any other means than 
 by instructing the ( reasoning faculties and by teaching to the 
 world a good and sound morality. Such errors and superstitions 
 may prevail for some years — nay, even for some centuries, but 
 reason and truth will prevail at last. Farewell! 
 
 THE END. 
 
 Printed by T. Moses, No. 9, Gamault Place, London.
 
 THE 
 
 CHARACTER 
 
 OF 
 
 THE BIBLE, 
 
 AND THE 
 
 BIBLE GOD, 
 
 WITH A 
 
 SKETCH 
 
 OF THE 
 
 HISTORY OF THE ONE GOD 
 
 iLoution: 
 
 PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY R. CARLILE, 62, FLEET STREET. 
 
 1826. 
 Frke Ttcopence.
 
 CHARACTER 
 
 OF 
 
 THE BIBLE. 
 
 A NATION can never be blessed or prosperous while such a contradictory 
 mass of rules, precepts, and doctrines, ?s this old collection of fabulous 
 Jew Books contains, gives a spirit to its laws. It has no fixed system in 
 morals or in physics, in religious idolatry, when but partially stripped of 
 its pretended divinity and generally read, it is calculated to divide a nation 
 into sects and schismatics, by its doctrines being so opposite, and so gene- 
 rally false, both in morals and in physics. It is a string of fabulous contra- 
 dictions, from the tabled cosmogony in Genesis to the fabled destruction of 
 the world in the book of fabled Revelations Its descriptions of a Deity 
 are not only contemptible throughout, but often horrible. lie is made to 
 assume ail shapes and characters, according to the disposition of the 
 writer of the fabled tale ; and in no instance a higher or more dignified cha- 
 racter than that of a tyrant. The Jews never approached towards any 
 thing like civilization while a nation, and as the idol God worshipped is al- 
 ways made the emblem of the worshippers, so Jehovah has never been 
 painted like a civilized or moral being. The style of the Bible is romantic 
 throughout, and could the original Hebrew copy be generally read and un- 
 derstood, it would be not only generally offensive to English notions of 
 morals, but disgusting. What is called the English Bible is not a literal 
 translation of the original Hebrew into the English language; but merely an 
 English version fabricated lor the purposes of English priests. As a piece 
 of history, the Bible has not one corroborated truth. It is the fabled his- 
 tory of an obscure tribe that did not occupy a greater extent of territory 
 than the Principality of Wales. Its biography is confined to a history of 
 villany;not one strictly moral life is therein recorded. It is an account of 
 fornications, adulteries, rapes, sodomies, assassinations and massacres. 
 Treachery is a predominant trait throughout all the characters sketched in 
 this book. It relates the quarrels and jealousies of petty chieftains, of al- 
 most too low a character to interest oramuse an American Indian. In as- 
 tronomy, oriu general philosophy, it absolutely teaches nothing that is cor- 
 rect. Some of the books that the Jews borrowed from the Persians con- 
 tain scraps of morals, but taken as a whole, the Bible cannot possibly aid 
 the cause of civilization. Not one moral or useful institution is desciibed 
 in it that can give stability to society or aid in adding to the existing state 
 of knowledge. A Jewish temple must have resembled Smithfield market, 
 or a large slaughter-house, such as is connected with our navy victuallmg 
 offices; wiiilst the frying and the frizzling of the carcases, and the gorman- 
 dizing of the priests round the altars, must have resembled a state of cannibal- 
 ism. Jeiiovah is depicted as a ravenous wild beast that delighted in the sa- 
 voury sniells of burning tat-> and frying limbK.and who could only be appeased 
 by this perpetual teusr of the priests! Such are the laws, such is the God
 
 unfolded in this " blessed book !" It is an outrage upon the present state of 
 knowledge and comparative civilization that this book should be supported 
 by laws, and propagated by associations and subscriptions. The persecu- 
 tions which now exist in defence of this book exceed those of all former 
 times in hypocrisy and viilany, because science has made such a progress 
 as to pronounce the whole a string of lies, and has rendered it impossible 
 for an intelligent man to give it honest and conscientious credence. In the 
 present day, it has no moral support, and is kept in countenance only by 
 force and fraud. It is the last remnant of priestly magic, and the last prop of 
 all the temples of idolatry. Its annihilation as a creed and a code must be 
 the wish, as it will be the aim of all good men and women. 
 
 Reader, if thou hast a Bible, refer to the following Chapters and Verses. 
 
 OIH C00tamettt, 
 
 Genesis 
 
 Leviticus . . 
 
 Numbers . . 
 Deuteronomy 
 Judges 
 
 ciUP 
 
 . VER. 
 
 
 CHAP, 
 
 VER. 
 
 16 
 
 M to 16 
 
 Judges . . . 
 
 . 21 
 
 1 
 
 25 
 
 19 
 
 8 
 
 36 
 
 1 Samuel . . 
 
 . 25 
 
 1 
 
 44 
 
 20 
 
 1 
 
 18 
 
 2 Samuel . . 
 
 . 11 
 
 1 
 
 27 
 
 30 
 
 14 
 
 18 
 
 
 13 
 
 1 
 
 39 
 
 34 
 
 1 
 
 31 
 
 - 
 
 16 
 
 20 
 
 23 
 
 35 
 
 22 
 
 
 1 Kings • . . 
 
 . 11 
 
 1 
 
 4 
 
 38 
 
 8 
 
 30 
 
 2 Kings . . . 
 
 . 9 
 
 8 
 
 
 39 
 
 7 
 
 18 
 
 Esther .... 
 
 . 3 
 
 4 
 
 
 15 
 
 15 
 
 33 
 
 Songs of Solomon 
 
 1 to8 
 
 
 
 18 
 
 1 
 
 30 
 
 Ezekiei . . . 
 
 . 4 
 
 1 
 
 17 
 
 20 
 
 1 
 
 27 
 
 
 16 
 
 1 
 
 63 
 
 25 
 
 6 
 
 8 
 
 
 22 
 
 9 
 
 12 
 
 31 
 
 17 
 
 85 
 
 
 23 
 
 1 
 
 49 
 
 22 
 
 13 
 
 30 
 
 Hosea .... 
 
 . 1 
 
 1 
 
 11 
 
 231,13,17,18 
 
 
 2 
 
 1 
 
 23 
 
 19 
 
 1 
 
 30 
 
 
 3 
 
 1 
 
 25 
 
 CHAP. VER. 
 
 . Epistle of Paul to the Romans 1 25, 26, 27, 28. 
 First Epistle to Timothy . . .5 11. 
 
 Chapters to be read by all humane, moral, and reflecting Persons, both 
 Male and Female. 
 
 i^lQ ^t^umeitt. 
 
 Genesis 
 
 , 
 
 . 34 
 
 1 Samuel 
 
 Numbers . 
 
 , 
 
 . 31 
 
 2 Samuel 
 
 Joshua 
 
 , 
 
 8, 10 
 
 1 Kings 
 
 Judges 
 
 • 
 
 . 4,5,20,21- 
 
 2 Kings 
 
 . 5 
 
 12,21 
 . 2 
 . 10
 
 vSKETCH 
 
 CF THE 
 
 HISTORY OF ONE GOD. 
 
 Introduction. 
 
 This history is to be confined to the one God of the Deists, of 
 the Unitarians, or Christians generally ; of the Mahometans; of the 
 Jews; of Plato and Socrates, and such Greeks as confined them- 
 selves to one God; of the American Indians; of the Chinese; 
 and of every nation where one God has had a predominant wor- 
 ship. The Christians, and many others here included, have in 
 reality, more than one God ; but they speak of one as pre-emi- 
 nent, and of that one we shall see what can be said. 
 
 Section I. 
 
 God is a word for which we have no prototype or sign among 
 the things which we see or know to exist. But, to this word, 
 great, even the greatest, powers are attributed, and some men 
 have adopted it as a general cloak for their ignorance. In dif- 
 ferent countries, it has existed under difi'erent names, such as 
 Deus, Zeus, Theos, Jupiter, Jove, Jehovah, Jahouh, Jao, Fot, 
 Bel, Brama, Sojnmonocodorn, Osiris, Thor, Thot, El, Elohiyn, A I, 
 Allah, with a thousand others, and that we interpret as the 
 Great Spirit of the American Indians. All nations have meant 
 one and the same thing, by their diflPerent words, namely 
 a personification of their own ignorance. And all have been ido- 
 lators, or there have been no idolaters. The common meaning 
 of the word is the expression of all that does exist, the all, and 
 it appears that the English word all is a correct expression of the 
 name of the common deity, and very like in sound to EI, Al, 
 Allah. I am that I am; I am all that ever was or ever shall be, 
 no mortal has yet dared to lift my veil;* I am alpha and omega; 
 
 • I have dared and will dare to do it.
 
 6 
 
 I am the beginning and llie ending; Life; soul; spirit; exist- 
 ence; nature; matter; are all names, or the best description that 
 can be given of this common deity: and all express nothing 
 more than the ignorance of mankind, of what we now call 
 matter or the elements of matter. They were not chemists, 
 William Allen finds more of his God in his laboratory than else- 
 where. It is there he obtains the most correct knowledge of 
 Deity. His crucible forms his best Bible, and his best religion 
 is his profession as a chemist. 
 
 Section IL 
 
 Sun-worship, though simple Theism, must have been a prior 
 worship to that of matter, the great whole, as the worship of 
 a specific powerful object, at a time, when other planetary bodies 
 were rated as to importance according to their apparent size. It 
 was comparatively the work of art, science, and civilization, to 
 form an idea of a God embracing the powers of matter. It 
 appears common among the Chinese, through all their records. 
 It was evidently embraced throughout Asia, as far as we have re- 
 cords. In the earliest history of Egypt, and other parts of Africa, 
 we have proofs that the then mind of mankind was in those parts 
 exercised upon the subject of a powerful Deity. Many sculptured 
 remains bear proof of this. Indeed, we need not search for proofs 
 of that, to which the common sense of mankind will ever bear 
 witness. The Jews, Christians, and Mahometans had no original 
 God revealed to them. They were mere copyists, and corrupt 
 ones, of the labours and decisions of men of former ages. 
 
 Section III. 
 
 When an intelligent God was imagined, it was necessary 
 to find him some external location as a dwelhng-place, and 
 thus arose the idea of a heaven. The American Indians 
 have it on the other side of a high blue mountain. The 
 Greeks had it on the top of Olympus, their highest moun- 
 tain. The writer of the Jew Books does not appear to have con- 
 fined himself to the top or side of a mountain, he has crystalized 
 the atmosphere of the earth and placed his Lord God above it.* 
 The Christian adheres to something of this notion, only, unlucki- 
 
 • There is an exception where Jehovah is brought on Mount Sinai and to dwell 
 in the 8rk, iabernacle, temple, &c, 'J lie Bible was the work of tiitferent men, 
 and each had his notions of God and his dwelling place. Jehovah on JMount Si- 
 nai is but another Jupiter on Mount Olympus. Jehovah in the ark, tabernacle, or 
 temple of the Israelites is but another Pagan mjistery. Ceres had lier ark : and 
 the bearing of an r.rk that contained a god was a very ancient and very common 
 Pau-an ceremony. The Israelilish story on this head is but a copy from those of 
 other tribes or nations.
 
 ly, for him of the present day, the telescope has extended his 
 ideas, and has sent him a long way off, to a place, the boundary 
 of which is not in sight, for his heaven; while some of them are 
 so humble, as to talk of making the present earth, with a few re- 
 pairs, a filling up of holes and a removing of projections, a little 
 painting and whitewashing, answer the put pose of their future 
 heaven. Thus man, and not the Lord, created the heaven and 
 all things that are therein. 
 
 Section IV. 
 
 There is one thing to be said in favour of the Jewish religion, 
 the Jews have made no hell. They were cruel to their 
 enemies while living ; but, in putting them to death, their cruelty 
 did not extend to finding them a place of perpetual torment. This 
 divine and religious disposition has originated with the Christians, 
 from whom the Mahometans have copied it. 
 
 Section V. 
 
 Some nations have reduced their God to an image. This has 
 been common throughout Asia and Africa, and though the more 
 ignorant part of the community might have attributed virtues to 
 the figure, as the Christians do to acrucifix, the more sensible part 
 deemed it but an emblem of power. The purpose of figures 
 of this kind is apt to meet perversion, abuses creep in everywhere, 
 but the motive might not have been bad, that first deified a 
 power and then reduced it to a figure. The mischief began when 
 the priest joined the project. 
 
 Section VI. 
 
 Temples followed the establishment of the priesthood; sacri- 
 fices of animals and vegetables, fruit, wine, and oil, were declared 
 necessary for the God; but intended as food or riotous living for 
 the priest. Human labour became taxed to support the God, 
 and religion became a most extensive evil. The first deification 
 was the origin of moral evil, and the extinction of the last God 
 will remove it. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 In this epitome of the history of the common God of mankind, 
 it will not be well to enter into all the wanderings of human 
 error, to describe religious ceremonies. This must be reserved 
 for a larger work. It must here suffice to shew, that the Jews, 
 Christians, and Mahometans have no original revelation upon the
 
 8 
 
 subject ; that there has been a common notion among mankind 
 upon the subject of one God, or one most powerful God ; that 
 such a notion is erroneous, and that neither antiquity nor num- 
 bers can preserve it against the researches of this age displayed 
 by free discussion. 
 
 Men are every where the same ; their Gods are every where the 
 same, and if their notions had not been alike erroneous, there could 
 not have been a succession. The one true God, if there had been 
 a true God, would have triumphed over all others, or never have 
 permitted their existence. They are all so many errors of the hu- 
 man imagination, that imagineth vain things and runneth after 
 that which is marvellous. There are phenomena in matter : but 
 there is nothing marvellous, as far as it can be explained ; and 
 what cannot be explained should not be deemed marvellous. 
 We should confess our ignorance and patiently wait for it while 
 we industriously seek improvement. The history of God is no 
 farther the history of a reality than error or frailty is a reality. 
 We must acquire knowledge, and error will vanish. 
 
 Uniform with this are published, price Tivopence each, 
 
 The CHARACTER of a PRIEST. 
 
 SOLDIER. 
 
 . PEER. 
 
 the CHRISTIAN MYSTERIES. 
 JEW BOOKS. 
 
 N. B. The Character of the Bible and References to the im- 
 moral parts of the Bible are printed on a leaf, and may be had for 
 One Halfpenny. 
 
 Printed and Published b^r R. Carlile, 62, Fleet-street.
 
 Tnii 
 
 CHAHACTER 
 
 OF 
 
 A P E E R; 
 
 BY 
 
 PIIILANTIIROPOS. 
 
 iiontron : 
 
 PRINTED AND PUnLISIIED BY R. CARLILE, 55, FLEET- 
 STREET. 
 
 1821. 
 
 Price Twope?ice.
 
 THE 
 
 CHARACTER OF A PEER. 
 
 Although the Deity for wise purposes has created 
 different races of men, with organizations that adapt 
 them to different regions of the earth : spme for the 
 torrid and some for the frigid zone, yet he has not 
 created any gradation of rank among the same race, 
 there is no natural division denoting superior and 
 inferior, master or slave, labourer or idler; all have 
 the same powers of body, the same capacities of mind, 
 excited by the same wants, and gratified by the same 
 enjoyments. If there is a difference of physical 
 force, of mental acquirement, of intellectual vigour, 
 they are owing to acquired causes, to the operation of 
 collateral agents, to some traceable action; Nature 
 equally generous, equally bountiful, has no favourites, 
 no preference ; she neither exalts one nor depresses 
 another ; the elementary arrangements of Nature are 
 similar; order or variation, exactness or change she 
 impartially embraces; the stature of the Elephant, 
 the agility of the Squirrel, and subtlety of the Mon- 
 key, are distinguishing, incapable of confusion ; when 
 Nature wishes to separate, she creates marks of dis- 
 tinction ; when &he wishes to confuse, she assimilates 
 to identity.
 
 Having the power of distinction, possessing the 
 elements of separation, the essence of difference, we 
 would see it manifested when necessary, introduced 
 when wanted. In the operations of Nature we see 
 constancy, inflexibility, uniformity ; we see no change 
 independent of foreign action and specific essence or 
 wise ends ; equal to intentions, careful to denote them, 
 to characterize them, had she intended such animals 
 as Kings, or Dukes, or Lords, to decorate her creation, 
 she would have distinctly marked them ; they would 
 have been covered with stars and garters, and rib- 
 bons, glittering, brilliant, and splendid ; they would 
 have been born with superior intellect, perfect with- 
 out application, without labour, without toil; they 
 would have been born with a vigorous- body, exempt 
 from sickness, from infirmity, from preternatural de- 
 cay, and probably, as the choicest of the choice, bless- 
 ed with perennial youth. 
 
 Endowed with such faculties, with such powers, 
 with such distinctions, who could have questioned, 
 who could have resisted, who could have denied, the 
 superiority of such animals as Kings, and Dukes, and 
 Counts over man ; have they those marks of distinc- 
 tion? have they those marks of superiority? have 
 they those proofs of divinity? Oh! no, they neither 
 differ in shape, in organization, nor in mind, they 
 neither excel in health, nor in strength, nor in wisdom, 
 nor in longevity; there is no difference, no separation, 
 no distinction, no superiority between Lords and 
 Slaves ; the Peer is not the creation of matter but of 
 man ; he is not created by honesty, because honesty is 
 inseparable from nature, but by dishonesty, by fraud,
 
 ^ 
 
 by hypocrisy, and by villainy, usurping the rights 
 of Nature inseparable from man. 
 
 Men stimulated by avarice and actuated by tyran- 
 ny, planned personal aggrandizement ; for vain marks 
 of distinction they created titles to conceal the fraud, 
 they assumed individual superiority ; professed to be 
 more than men, assumed the name given to God, 
 professed to be demi-Gods, holding the destiny of 
 men; the men of wealth and power combined, fraud 
 cemented a conspiracy against the people, they form- 
 ed coalitions to deprive the people of the right of 
 Nature, to deprive them of their liberty and property, 
 by rapine, by treachery, and by usurpation ; the ban- 
 ditti of military robbers placed at its head a King, a 
 Chief, a Captain of the Gang, sometimes with and 
 sometimes without a bauble upon his head. All the 
 underlings, every individual, every atom of the horde 
 of robbers had a nick-name, or participated in the 
 public plunder, or both formidable in numbers and 
 in desperation they overawed, they seduced, or be- 
 trayed all opposition ; villainy triumphed over justice, 
 lead her captive, destroyed her; in some places re- 
 action has taken place, but, too generally, the tyrants, 
 the impostors, and the conspirators rule. 
 
 William landed in England from Normandy, he 
 brought with him an immense horde of plunderers, 
 of freebooters, of legalized and licensed murderers. 
 He came on purpose to rob and murder wholesale. 
 He slew the King, defeated the soldiers, murdered 
 the people, seized the country and carved it out 
 among his gang with the sword ; he gave the slices 
 among his followers, according to the aid they had 
 given, the largest piece to the greatest villain, and so
 
 6 
 
 on in proportion to the rest of his banditti ; the Arch- 
 murderer and plunderer gave to his banditti on con- 
 ditions, viz. in knight-service, in wardship, in homage 
 and fealty, in capite, in grand-serjeantry, and in soc- 
 age, thus reserving to himself out of baronies and 
 manors a revenue and assistance ; and the lord again 
 from his vassals, tenants, copy-holders, &c. who paid 
 in suit and service. 
 
 William was one of the most cruel^ vindictive, ar- 
 bitrary, and barbarous tyrants that ever reigned in 
 England ; he associated with none, he preferred none, 
 he valued none, but such as were effective agents in 
 his pillage, in his midnight assassinations, and his pub- 
 lic murders. 
 
 Although the Captain of the Banditti seized all the 
 property of our forefathers, and bedewed his hands in 
 their blood, the law has been so prostituted, and the 
 lawyers so servile, as to declare *' that all lands are 
 holden of the crown mediately or immediately \' 
 The profession cannot be more degraded than by 
 making the assertion — or a public more insulted by 
 slavish sycophants. 
 
 As the nobility are chiefly of William's introduc- 
 tion from Normandy or the descendants of such as 
 were ennobled ~, so the present race are the offspring 
 of that conqueror, his coadjutors, his assassins, and 
 his ketches ; the descendants of the banditti are still 
 in the fraudulent possession of the property of our 
 ancestors; they are gay, they are splendid, they are 
 
 ' Vide Sir Henry Spelman's Works, and Lord Bacon's. 
 
 * Eighty-three Enghsh Baronets say they can trace their pater- 
 nal ancestry to the g-eneral robbery, vulgarly called the con- 
 (5|uest!!!
 
 even insolent at the expense of people now poor who 
 were plundered of their patrimony. 
 
 The real owners of mansions, of manors, or districts 
 may be in penury, in pauperism, or in workhouses ; 
 if the tyranny, the rapine and the insolence of the 
 aristocracy ended with mere occupation, there might 
 be less objection, but all the rapacity of manorial 
 rights, and the outrageous disposition of game-laws 
 are inexorably enforced; there is no degeneration, 
 no leniency, no relaxation, no indulgence, manifested 
 by those feudal tyrants ; they possess all the arbitrary, 
 brutal, vindictive malignancy of their ancestors ; there 
 are few instances of reform, or repentance, among 
 the nobility of this country ; the ignorance, the bar- 
 l^arism, the bloody-mindedness have descended with 
 the usurped estates from the general robbery. 
 
 The Peers pride themselves on the antiquity of their 
 families ; (is any family more modern ?) let them re- 
 vert to the general robbery, when their ancestors 
 plundered our forefathers of their estates, assassinated 
 or exiled them, they are welcome to go back to a 
 Jonathan Wild or a Robin Hood : thev have no 
 occasion to treat the people with contempt, they have 
 no occasion to treat the people with contumely, and 
 to sneer at their ignorance and distress, when the 
 robbery and subsequent injustice produced it; when 
 their forefathers robbed by privilege of the sword 
 and robbed with impunity, and they have the impu- 
 dence to keep possession of the plunder ; not one of 
 the hereditary estates of the aristocracy has been 
 gained by fair means, but by extortion, by swindling, 
 and plundering the public. 
 
 Instead of the old nobility of England being of the
 
 8 
 
 most illustrious origin and accumulating splendour in 
 their descent, as fools and rogues assert ; they have 
 sprung from public murderers^ wholesale devastators 
 and freebooters ; the first creation has been rivalled in 
 posterity, in infamy, perfidy, rapine and tyranny ; 
 being more fortunate than pirates, buccaniers and 
 corsairs. TJie successful villain is ennobled, the unsucess- 
 ful ignohled. 
 
 The Nobility may be defined, props of the throne 
 and plunderers of the people ; the Trinket Man w^as 
 the creator, and is still the chief of the gang of ma- 
 rauders ; there is an implied partnership between the 
 King and Nobility; each are participators in the 
 spoil, and connive at the operations of each other 
 upon the pockets of the people. 
 
 In conclusion it may be observed, Firstly, that Na- 
 ture knows no such animal as Duke, or Earl, or 
 Count; and Secondly, the order of the Nobility was 
 not created by the people, but instituted and sup- 
 ported by regal tyrants, to aid, assist, abet, coun- 
 tenance, justify, and protect them in villainy. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 Just Published, from the same Author. 
 
 The CHARACTERS of a SOLDIER and a PRIEST. 
 Price Twopence each. 
 
 Printed and Published by Pi. CARTJLE, 55, Fleet Street.
 
 Zi)t §:ttont:i CS&itiom 
 
 THE 
 
 CHARACTER 
 
 OF 
 
 A PRIEST: 
 
 BY 
 
 PHTLANTHROPOS 
 
 PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY R. CARLILE, 55, FLEET 
 
 STREET. 
 
 1822. 
 
 Price Twopence.
 
 THE 
 
 CHARACTER OF A PRIEST. 
 
 Nature pregnant with equality, with justice, and gene- 
 rosity, has given all men the same organization, the same 
 functions, the same powers; she has neiiher created higher 
 uor lower, superior nor interior, master nor slave; inequality 
 would imply monopoly; monopoly, partiality; and par- 
 tiality, divine injustice; all ihe operations of Nature are 
 simple, just, equitable, and invariable: nothing is done at 
 random, nothing is effected by chance, nothing is the result 
 of uncertain laws. The operations of Nature, the physical 
 laws of men and of morality are as uniform as the revolu- 
 tions of the solar system ; every action is consistent with the 
 essence of the acting body; nothing can act inconsistently 
 with its elements. 
 
 All Nature acts in conformity with universal laws; man 
 forms an integral part of Nature, and must act in unison 
 with his elements; the laws of Nature are beyond human 
 controul, they are independent of man, unchangeable by 
 any power less than the Contriver; the laws of Nature are 
 neither arrested, interrupted, biassed, or controverted by 
 venal, bigoted, fanatical Priests. 
 
 A Priest has the same essence, is composed of the same 
 elements, endowed with the same organization as other 
 men; he has no more natural command, no greater power, 
 no greater right; Priests do not come into the world with 
 crosiers, or with mitres, or with rosaries; the revolutions of 
 matter create and destroy them; they are decomposed as a 
 cow or a cabbage. It is not Nature, but the folly of man 
 that has given cousequrncr to the Priest; all the wealth, all 
 the advaufomont, all Ihe i)ower the Priests enjoy, are ac-
 
 quired by hypocrisy, by perjury, by extortion, and by 
 swindling; the traile is founded in fraud, in blasphemy, and 
 impiety; matured by cupidity, by venality, and by masked 
 villainy. The ini[)ostor pretends to have exclusive access 
 to exclusive favour from the Deity. 
 
 It is by inflexible truth, by the invariable laws of Na- 
 ture, that the impostor will be analyzed; bring him to the 
 shrine of reason, denude him of his robes, of his mask, of his 
 hypocrisy, he is not more than man by Nature, but worse 
 by morality, inasmuch as he is covered by infamous of- 
 fences; however intention may operate, however simplicity 
 may be deluded, there cannot be one honest, one indepen- 
 dent, and one intelligent man among tlie whole body of 
 Priests; bigots bv^ education, dishonest by trade, ignorant 
 of the first principles of science, they must necessarily be 
 superstitious, cruel, and vindictive; whatever purity, what- 
 ever humility, whatever candour, the Priest may profess, is 
 resolvable into individual interest; he has no parent but 
 avarice, no God but money. Although the Evangelists, 
 the Priests, the sacred impostors, are similar by nature, 
 similarly educated in chicane and hypocrisy, they do not 
 agree in any one religious profession: the Bonzes, the Muf- 
 tis, and the Priests, have different churches, different Gods, 
 different creeds. Religious impostors uniformly coincide in 
 plundering the people; there is no other symptom of simi- 
 larity, no atom of cohesion, but rapine, among Priests : 
 God is mHde something and nothing, everywhere and no 
 where; he is one thing at Ispahan, another at Constantino- 
 ple, and a third at Rome; what is religion at one place, is 
 blasphemy at another. 
 
 If truth v»as as mutable, as liable to change, as subject to 
 variation, as the dogmas of Priests, conflicting opinions 
 would act to mutual destruction. God, acting always 
 through Nature, always by universal and self-evident laws, 
 would not permit a thousand sects of ignorant, profane, 
 impious, blaspheming Priests, to mislead, impoverish, and 
 barbarize the people. If God manifested himself through 
 the medium of Priests, of churches, and of creeds, it would 
 be by means as self-evident as universal, and as candid and 
 invariable as the rotations of the solar system ; it would not 
 be by starvation at one hour, and gluttony at another; or 
 kneeling, tenths, pilgrimages, exorcisms, sprinklings, crosses., 
 sacraments, ablutions, circumcision, and gibberish.
 
 i) 
 
 Religion is a matter of imagiuation, of fiction, an hypo- 
 thesis, and not of fact : the multifarious dogmas of secta- 
 rians, demonstrates the multiplicity of vapours and con- 
 jectures ; while men reason from false principles, religions 
 will multiply to iutinity. Philosophers have only one God 
 — the God of Nature; but roguish Priests, old women and 
 fools have an endless number; every arch-impostor has 
 profanely made a God of his own ; Priesily genius, preg- 
 nant with extortion, and cogitating more effectually to pick 
 pockets, with his own new trap, than with the stale tool of 
 other men, has given rise to a multitude of diurnal Deities. 
 If we witnessed as many variations in the laws of Nature 
 as in the Priest-trade, the Priests might insist that some at- 
 tention should be given to the business of fraud and cant. 
 Every Priest diifers from every other Priest, and all differ 
 from' the truth ; the Deity does not operate by stealth, he 
 does not work clandestinely in holes and corners, as the 
 miracle-mongers attest, but generally, openly, in the face of 
 day, before all the world, in his works: he does not skulk 
 in mosques, in churches, or in wildernesses, but is equally- 
 every where ; he knows no more of the cross, the crescent, 
 or the crosier, than he does of a tobacco-pipe, a mile-post, 
 or a broom-stick. If there is one man more wicked than 
 another it is the impostor, and the lying, cheating Priest — 
 the misleader of innocent, inoffensive, unsuspecting men ; 
 the more the Priests profess to believe, the greater is the 
 iniquity, and impiety, and hypocrisy — the more religion 
 they believe, the less morality l»hey practise. The people 
 should believe the Priests when they profess principles con- 
 sistent with Nature, and scorn them when thej claim belief 
 in inconceivable and false enigmas ; attention is to be given 
 when assertion is demonstrable by collateral facts and not 
 to matters of faith, mystery and superstition ; the Priests 
 are more likely to tell lies, swindle and deceive the people, 
 than the Deity is to be cruel, inconsistent, impotent, and 
 enigmatical; believe nothing out of the order of Nature; 
 the assertion of even one thousand honest fanatics would be 
 inadequate to induce any sensible man to believe that the 
 course of Nature was changed for one moment. 
 
 'o^ 
 
 The Priests knew it would be useless to spend their time 
 in declamation, in anathemas, in denunciation, against such 
 as would not from mercenary motives, or good sense, pay 
 tithes, and feed the idol of superstition ; to enforce their doc- 
 trines, to support their extortion, to effect their uiilioly ra-
 
 6 
 
 pine, they fallaciously promulgated posthumous torture ; 
 they invented a Hell, to agonize, to rack, to torment such 
 as would not help to support the imposition. The Priests 
 know their Hell is not a place of actual existence, but a 
 bugbear, and the Devil, the head master, is invented, is 
 used as an emptying-pocket tool ; such as do not believe 
 this pick-pocket machinery, such as do not suffer (hem- 
 selves to be duped, misled, and plundered, by hypocrites, 
 swindlers, rogues, and extortioners, are reproached as cri- 
 minals, as sinners, as blasphemers, as infidels, and as lu- 
 natics, and doomed to suffer everlasting torture. Is it like- 
 ly that a just, wise, and benevolent iJeity would tlius un- 
 mercifully punish innocent men for refusing to contribute to 
 the lasciviousness, licentiousness, and drunkenness, of u 
 vagabond, blaspheming Priesthood? there is no greater im- 
 piety than attributing such enormity to a wise and parental 
 God I The profanity of Priests cannot be sufficiently de- 
 precated for alledging such monstrous injustice to the Deity, 
 and asserting that he has more horrible powers, principles, 
 and actions than the Devil ; the latter is generous, brave, 
 and forbearing, compared with their God, to whom they 
 attribute malice, revenge, cruelty, fallacy, and persecution 
 to a whole race of people because a poor, ignorant, ex- 
 hausted woman happened to rob an apple-tree, as he per- 
 mits school-boys to do with impunity daily : even the 
 Priests must allow he does not think so much of his apples 
 as formerly. The Priest should build altars and offer 
 apples to the Lord to act consistently. 
 
 The Priests are famous mathematicians ; they can demon- 
 strate that one is equal to three, or that three equals one; 
 three eternals is equal to one eternal, and one holy equal to 
 three holies ! 
 
 To please the Deity is to act consistent with his ways; his 
 desire, his intention, his object, is manifested in the organi- 
 zation of Nature, and as independence and equality are the 
 predominating features in Nature, so those who most 
 strenuously advocate those principles are the most religious, 
 the most patriotic, the most praiseworthy among men. 
 
 The contrary policy of Priests, destined solely to aggran- 
 dize their trade, is debasing the Deity, degrading man, and 
 trampling upon his creation. Whatever the Deity values. 
 Priests despise •, with a vandal ferocity they attack whatever
 
 does not lead to secure, enlarge, or multiply theemolunienls 
 of the mosque and the church ; it is not, in fact, about the 
 church they bicker, nor about souls and religion, but about 
 tithes and offerings: the conduct of men is immaterial, they 
 have a licence to commit any crime, so long as they will 
 pay money for absolution and subscribe to the sanctity of 
 tithes. There is no competition among Priests who shall do 
 the utmost degree of good, but who shall have the power of 
 tithing and deceiving the people: if the people had sufficient 
 sense they would treat all Priests as the different kinds of 
 Priests treat each other — as hypocrites and impostors; con- 
 stant in jealousy, constant in acrimonious opposition and 
 mutual abuse, every order, every genus, are contending for 
 the spoil of credulity. 
 
 The Priests are the enemies of liberty, the adversaries of 
 free discussion, and the opposite of (quality, constantly 
 conspiring against a people enjoying the blessings of free- 
 dom, constantly fettering, debasing, and insulting the slave. 
 While the Priest is too weak to be intolerant, he is flatter- 
 ing, deceitful, mean and servile; but when fraud has ele- 
 vated him to power, he is arbitrary and domineering, in^ 
 flated with despotism, with insolence, and with vanity. 
 
 The multitude of assassinations, of massacres and of 
 wars — the avarice, the villainy, the bigotry and bloody- 
 mindedness of Priests have occasioned, exceeds the powers 
 of calculation ; the number of religious murders is lost in 
 figures; every field has groaned under an altar of immola- 
 tion ; the vegetation of every country has been fertilized, 
 and the streets of every town deluged with blood shed by 
 the machinations of priests ; look at that fact, for the bene- 
 fit of your religion, you followers of the cross and the cre- 
 scent; cant no more about your justice, your generosity, 
 your forbearance, your humanity, your meekness, or your 
 candour. The Priests have been, lor selfish purposes, the 
 orators and fomentors of most of the mischiefs that have 
 disgraced, paralyzed, and disfigured the fair character of 
 human nature: it is disgraceful to any man to be seen in a 
 dispute between Priests and Kings; as hypocrites, as im- 
 postors, as common rogues, men of wisdom will never par- 
 ticipate, never be interested, never be duped by the quarrels, 
 and the envious animosities of the swindling trades. 
 
 All the Priests — all that live by the trade of hypocrisy,
 
 8 
 
 all that live by sacred imposition, are blasphemers, are infi- 
 dels, are perverters of the truth, are the distorters of the will 
 and object of the Deity ; and such as most assiduously at- 
 tempt to dispel the delusion, are most religious in the eyes 
 of God. Blasphemy is not an olTeuce against truth, but the 
 offence of truth against Priestcraft. 
 
 Notwithstanding the bickering, the animosity, and the 
 jealousy the Priests entertain towards each other, they are 
 consistent, they are unanimous, they are combined, in pro- 
 secuting any man who has ability, who has honesty, and 
 independence to attack the fraud and hypocris)^ by which 
 they live; whoever attempts to analyze the farce, to unveil 
 the imposition of revealed religion, is sure to be attacked by 
 Bishops, by Imans, by Bonzes, and by Muftis; truth acts 
 upon these animals as light does' upon the organization of 
 bats and owls, and other reptiles, at mid-day. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 Just Published^ from the same Author, 
 
 The CHARACTERS of a SOLDIER, a PEER, and the 
 
 JEW BOOKS. 
 
 Price Twopence each. 
 
 Printed and Published hy R. CARLILE, 5;), Fleel-Street.
 
 THE 
 
 CHARACTER 
 
 OF 
 
 A SOLDIER; 
 
 Br 
 
 PHILANTHROPOS. 
 
 Honlron : 
 
 PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY R. CARLILE, 55, 
 FLEET-STREET. 
 
 1821. 
 
 Price I'wopenee^
 
 THE 
 
 CHARACTER OF A SOLDIER 
 
 Nothing prevails more abundantly than hypocrisy, 
 sophistry, and bigotry ; — the dupers and the duped — 
 the rogues and fools, make up a considerable portion 
 of the world, reluctantly compelled, forced by observa- 
 tion, necessitated by experience, I unwillingly admit 
 the existence of so much moral error and delinquency. 
 
 For want of thought, for want of reason, for want 
 of reflection, men suffer themselves to be made subser- 
 vient to the views of military tyrants, regal and sacred 
 impostors. 
 
 A Soldier is a machine that privileged rogues work 
 with : a Soldier is a brute, a biped, an erect monster, 
 having the power of loco-motion, and a great thirst for 
 human blood: — ithiresitself out to slay men, to slaugh- 
 ter the innocent, or the guilty, as it may be ordered ; a 
 Soldier is a unique monster, the most cool blooded ani- 
 mal ; it will meditate upon its work of destruction, of 
 voracity, upon its sanguinary repast, for years before its 
 preternatural appetite is feasted with human gore. 
 
 This bloody automaton, this infernal machine, this 
 horrible monster, is not a man, it shall not be called 
 man, it shall not disgrace man by being put by his 
 side — itbifes itself out for a small sum to be the butcher 
 <5f the human race, to shed blood, to push it,-;; sabre. 6f
 
 death into the breast of inuoceut men, women, and chil- 
 dren ; to see the blood follow its blow, to withdraw 
 the scythe reeking from the wound, to see the heart's 
 blood bubble up in crimson froth, to see the victim fall, 
 distorted, convulsed, agonized, and every pore pouring 
 forth the cold clammy sweat of death, fills the monster 
 with extacy. 
 
 What can this monster be but a brute, a ferocious, 
 carnivorous brute; stop not so fast. Sir, the tiger would 
 say, " I have the credit of bloody ferocity, of carrying 
 devastation through the woods, of spreading terror in 
 my way, of desolating my course, I scorn, I despise, I dis- 
 own the parallel, and loath the sanguinary automaton 
 soldier; I am driven by my form, by my organization, 
 by ray wants, to feed upon flesh, but not the flesh of 
 my species ; I never destroy what 1 do not want to eat, I 
 never shed oceans of blood I cannot suck, I never com- 
 mence a wholesale carnage upon the females and the 
 whelps of mykind, as was done at Manchester: Inever 
 hiremyself too thers who want to carry on public devasta- 
 tion ; do not disgrace me by comparison to a Soldier, do 
 not cover me with ignominy, with calumny, with crimes, 
 by so unnatural a comparison ; do me the justice, Sir, 
 to rescue me from such infamous imputations, and 
 although the servility of the elephant has placed him 
 in the ranks of the Soldier, be assured the independent 
 tiger knows no such climax of infamy, cruelty, and 
 villainy as the manslayer glories in ; neither age, nor 
 sex, norhuuger, disease, nor extremes of temperature, 
 impel the tiger to attack, to wound, to mutilate his 
 species ; there is a reciprocity of amity, of indulgence, of 
 forbearance towards each other, even the lamb is sa- 
 cred during satiety, the tiger is a lamb compared 
 with a Soldier, there is less difference between a lamb 
 and a tiger, than between a Soldier and a tiger." 
 
 A Soldier is a male animal that hires itself out to 
 slaughter the human species; to slaughter wholesale or 
 retail, in units or thousands ; it engages to cut any man's 
 throat when ordered, to level with cannon, to mow 
 down with the sword or with musquetry, unarmed or
 
 s 
 
 armed men ; the more wounds and blood,and raulilations.' 
 and deaths, the more honour ; the more shrieks and 
 screams, and widows, and orphans, and gore, the 
 more laurels, medals and rejoicing. The heart of the 
 Soldier is as cold as lead, as callous as flint, all the finer 
 energies and soothing sympathies of the human soul are 
 frozen up; an exsiccated feeling, a phlegmatic apathy, 
 obscures, and eclipses, the dignified sensations of man. 
 Did but man change his person, did but as great a 
 metamorphosis take place in body as in mind, when he 
 entered the ranks, he would be one of the most hideous 
 objects that could be conceived or pictured ; could but 
 ingenuitymake manifest the terrific, the murderouswork- 
 ings of the Soldier's heart: — could but a transparency- 
 manifest his servility, his sneaking sycophancy, and his 
 mutual tyranny, his daily hope of slaughter for sake of 
 promotion, and of gathering crimson blooded laurels. He 
 prays to see fields deluged, theearth fertilized with blood, 
 the birds, and grass, and herbs, fat and luxuriant from 
 feeding upon human flesh and fluids; heisinextacy to 
 hear the winds loaded with the sighs, and sobs, and 
 groanSjof helpless wives and orphans ; he hopes to see the 
 pearly eye bedewed with tears, swoln, red, and wild, 
 in its watching and distraction ; he hopes the cold, hag- 
 gard, motionless, oblivious hand of death will fall upon 
 his companion, his superior, his commander ; If the 
 Soldiers breast was diaphanous, his ebony heart would 
 show all those horrible, those base, those degrading 
 passions. 
 
 Developement of these manifest principles, exposure 
 of the Soldier's heart mustproveuothing exists in animat- 
 ed nature of so horrible a character; what child can 
 respect such a father? What father can respect such a 
 sou ? What wile pos:-;essing all thegenerous sympathy of 
 human kindness can caress such a husband ? She must 
 shudder before she takes such a monster of human na- 
 ture into her bosom; all the crocodiles, the boas, and 
 j)oisonous serpents, never destroyed so many human 
 beings, as the Soldiers have in an hour. 
 
 If the Soldier should be so misled, so ignorant, so 
 barbarou.«, so bloody-minded, as to hire biniself as a
 
 maji-kiUer to some regal iiiipo.stor; if he is su foolish, 
 as to sacrifice his life, his health, or his family, other 
 men should not countenance him ; should not associate 
 with him, should not in any manner be connnected 
 with a monster, that has turned their enemy, the com- 
 mon destroyer of human life; the Soldier should be 
 scouted by every citizen, whose common enemy he is. 
 
 A standing army is a legalized banditti : it is worse 
 than an illegal banditti, inasmuch as it robs and mur- 
 ders under the name of law, and so evades the gibbet; 
 the last may be extirpated and the body politic may be 
 relieved of the nuisance, but the former is a cancer 
 corroding the vitals of the country. 
 
 A Soldier had his origin in barbarous times ; war is 
 a custom descended from savage life, it is the appeal of 
 ignorance and brutality ; it is the ignorance of men that 
 makes Soldiers, the villainy of kings that makes war; if 
 men were properly impressed from infancy of the su- 
 periority of justice, over injustice, of right over wrong, 
 they would see the folly, the monstrosity, and the wick- 
 edness of war ; if sovereigns were to inculcate such no- 
 tions of justice, of mercy, and of honesty, the people 
 would not submit to the rapine, thetorture, and the hypo- 
 crisy they now practice under the names of law, religion 
 and regality ; the people would submit to nothing but 
 sovereignty with limited power, and exercised in hu- 
 manity, and justice ; now the kings of the earth, Spain 
 and Portugal excepted, tyrannize over the people, and 
 daily swindle and plunder them. 
 
 The human mind is in a state of improvement; al- 
 ready it has acquired knowledge to discard apart of 
 the imposition practised by Kings and Priests, if men 
 would reason correctly, tbey would discard the whole; 
 when men are impressed with justice, with reason, and 
 humanity, they will be ashamed of the custom of war, 
 every man will be ashamed to be a Soldier, he will 
 be considered in the most execrable light, the name will 
 be synonymous with villainy, with manslaughter, and 
 with murder ; Regimentals are llw livery of the lice?i8- 
 ed murderer of mankind .
 
 War is the darling game of King«:, and the life and 
 property of the subject is the prize staked ; while 
 bloody minded despots are allowed to continue this prac- 
 tice there will be no happiness for the human race. If 
 the more civilized people of the earth were impressed 
 with those sentiments, there would be no more war 
 among them ; the rising generation would see the hor- 
 rid barbarity of the custom, and would almost disown 
 their forefathers for having practised such cruel folly. 
 
 The Governments of Spain, Portugal, and America, 
 alone can be identified with men ; all the other king- 
 doms of tbeearthmay be characterized as bloody, brutal, 
 ferocious despotisms. It is to the former countries I ap- 
 peal, I call upon them in the name of reason, justice, 
 and humanity to inculcate opinions from the senate 
 and the throne which unceasingly tend to remove the 
 delusion of the people in all countries. 1 call upon 
 them to disavow all foreign and aggressive wars, and 
 assure the people of all states, that the custom of war is 
 bloody, useless, and improvident, and that a Soldier 
 has laid down the noble character of a man and assum- 
 ed that of a monster, exceeding even the tiger in san- 
 guinary barbarity. 
 
 As a government is created for the common benefit of 
 men so ought such as created and constitute them, to do 
 every thing interesting to humanity ; they should never 
 cease to neutralize the baneful and unnatural efforts of 
 the bloody minded tyrants that profit by war. Except 
 the governments of men should be actually menaced 
 by war, by the blood governments of Europe, they 
 should not have on foot a militia, as that would keep 
 alive the bloody feeling that should be eradicated, the 
 name of every house, of every street, of every Bridge, 
 and of every Pillar should be changed, that associates 
 itself with any bloody battle or monster : until govern- 
 ments do advocate such schemes of philanthropy, until 
 they are so reformed as to do nothing but for public 
 good, and every thing for public good, their necessary 
 ends are not accomplished. 
 
 Daily encouragement should be held out to such as
 
 can by any effort of genius ad J to the utility of the arts 
 ajad sciences ; it is not by rewarding such as multiply the 
 infernal naachines of death, but by compensating those 
 who study the means of pursuing long and healthful life, 
 that the genius, the wisdom and the generosity of the 
 governinentis evinced ; how much blood has been shed, 
 how much property has been devastated, how many 
 seas of tears have flowed, it is impossible to calculate; 
 but it is quite certain that all the Soldiers that ever ex- 
 isted never effected the real service of one hay-maker 
 in a single day's labour. 
 
 Had it not been for tyrannical, blood-thirsty kings, 
 priests,andgovernors, who preferred the crooked wind- 
 ings of injustice to justice, a battle never would have" 
 been fought, and there would have been neither tyrant 
 nor slave upon the earth; all would have been free, 
 rich, and happj^ 
 
 The day will arrive, it must arrive, when war will be 
 viewed in its true light, and will be discarded as the re- 
 mains of barbarism.andcruelty ; If the principles con- 
 tended for were advocated by Spain, Portugal and, 
 America, other states would be ashamed, would cease 
 to practice the horrible villarny. As it would require 
 sometime, totally to eradicate this shocking, barbarous 
 and bloody trade from the listof iniquity practised by 
 priviliged villainy, so such nations as were foremost to 
 emancipate themselves from disgrace, might be placed 
 in some degree of danger by their savage neighbours; 
 under such circumstancesthe odium attached to the trad- 
 ing murderer would not apply, as the case would be un- 
 equivocally one of self-defence which the laws of nature 
 qualify all men to do their utmost to preserve, still, the 
 principles advocated should be held in view, and, the mo- 
 ment danger is over, that moment should the soldier 
 become a citizen. 
 
 Printed and Published by E„Caelile, 55, Fleet Stjeet, London.
 
 THOUGHTS 
 
 ON 
 
 l^dtstoti. 
 
 BY M. DIDEROT. 
 
 PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY R. CARLILE, 
 No. 183, FLEET STREET. 
 
 1819. 
 
 PRICii rOURPENC*.
 
 
 * I ' 1 j< > 'M ' 
 
 
 ii>r[' 
 
 ^'S--^J
 
 THOUGHTS 
 
 ON 
 
 igleligion. 
 
 Doubts in religious matters, far from being 
 blameable — far from being acts of impiety ;, ought 
 to be regarded as praiseworthy, when they pro- 
 ceed from a man who humbly acknowledges his 
 ignorance, and arise from the fear of offending 
 God by the abuse of reason. 
 
 To admit any conformity between the reason 
 of man, and the eternal reason of God, and to 
 pretend that God demands the sacrifice of human 
 reason, is to maintain that God wills one thing, 
 and intends another thing at the same time. 
 
 When God, of whom I hold my reason, de- 
 mands of me to sacrifice it, he becomes a mere 
 juggler that snatches from me what he pretended 
 to give. 
 
 If I renounce my reason, 1 have no longer a 
 guide — I must then blindly adopt a secondary 
 principle, and the matter in question becomes a 
 supposition. 
 
 A 2
 
 4 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 If reason be a gift of Hearven, and we 
 can say as much of faith, Heaven has certainly 
 made us two presents not only incompatible, but in 
 direct contradiction to each other. In order to 
 solve the difficulty, we are compelled to say either 
 that faith is a chimera, or that reason is useless. 
 
 Pascal, Nicole and others have said, that 
 God will punish with eternal torments the faults of 
 a guilty father upon all his innocent offspring; 
 and that this is a proposition superior to reason, 
 and not in contradiction to it; but what shall we 
 propose as being contradictory to reason if such 
 blasphemy as this is not so? 
 
 Bewildered in an immense forest during the 
 night, and having only one small torch for my 
 guide, a stranger approaches and thus addresses 
 me : — '' Friend, blow out thy light, if thou 
 wouhh< make sure of the right path." This 
 stranger was a priest. 
 
 If my reason be the gift of Heaven, it is the 
 voice of Heaven that speaks ; shall I hearken 
 to it ? 
 
 Neither merit nor demerit is applicable to the 
 judgment of our rational faculties, for all the 
 submission and good-will imaginable could not 
 assist the blind man in the perception of colours. 
 .1 am compelled to perceive evidence where it 
 is, or the want of evidence where it is not, so
 
 THOUGHTS ON UELIGIOX. ^) 
 
 long as I retain my senses; and if my judgment 
 fail me^ it becomes a misfortune, not a sin. 
 
 The Author of Nature would not reward me 
 for having- been a icit, surely, then, he will not 
 damn me for having been di fool. Nay, more; 
 he will not damn me even for being- wicked. Is 
 not my own conscience a sufficient punishment 
 for me ? 
 
 Every virtuous action is accompanied with an 
 inward satisfaction ; every criminul action with 
 chagrin and remorse. The mind acknowledges 
 without shame its repugnance to such, or such 
 propositions, although there is neither virtue nor 
 vice in the belief or disbelief of them. 
 
 If grace be necessary to belief, let us wait till 
 that grace be sent us from above. 
 
 God surely will not punish us for the want 
 of that which it has not pleased him to bestow 
 upon us. You tell me to ask this grace in prayer, 
 but is not grace necessary to assist me in asking 
 for faith, the want of which I cannot discover 
 by the light of reason ? 
 
 The true religion, interesting the whole human 
 race at all times and in all situations, ought to be 
 eternal, universal, and self-evident; whereas the 
 religions pretended to be revealed having none of 
 these characteristics, are consequently demon- 
 strated to be false.
 
 q THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 The miracles, of which only a few men are 
 said to have been witnesses, are insufficient to 
 prove the truth of a religion that ought to be be- 
 lieved by the whole world. 
 
 The pretended facts with which all revealed 
 religion is supported are ancient and wonderful; 
 that is to say, the most suspicious evidence pos- 
 sible, to prove things the most incredible ; for to 
 prove the truth of the Gospel by a miracle, is to 
 prove an absurdity by a contradiction in nature. 
 
 Is it quite certain that the God of the Chris- 
 tians is the true God ? It appears that the Devil 
 is a much more powerful Being, seeing that the 
 number of the damned is so much greater than 
 that of the elect. 
 
 The Son of God died purposely to vanquish 
 the Devil. In order to gain his point he was re- 
 duced to the necessity of dying, and yet the Devil 
 has ever since had the ascendancy. How then 
 are we benefitted by the death of the Son of God? 
 
 The God of the Chistians, for an apple, punish- 
 ed all the human race and killed his own son. 
 This only proves that God is a father who makes a 
 great deal to do about his apples, and cares very 
 little for his children. 
 
 A God that killed God to appease God, was an 
 expressive phrase of La Hontan, a phrase of itself 
 sufficient to destroy the Christian religion, a phrase
 
 TIIOUGUT8 OK REUGION. 7 
 
 that will still retain its absurdity, should one hun- 
 dred folio volumes be written to prove it rational. 
 
 But what will God do to those who never heard 
 of the death of his Son ? or who, having heard of 
 him, still remained unbelievers ? Will he punish 
 the deaf for not hearing? Will he torment the 
 weak-headed for not understanding an inconceiv- 
 able absurdity? 
 
 -: Why are the miracles of Jesus Christ true, and ' 
 those of Esculapius, Pythagoras, and Apollonius, 
 false ? 
 
 All the Jews at Jerusalem who saw the great 
 miracles of Jesus, were doubtless converted ? By 
 no means. — So far from having any belief in him, 
 they put him to death. These Jews (whom a 
 God himself came to convert) must have been a 
 very stiff-necked race. — We have in every coun- 
 try seen the people drawn aside and deceived by 
 a single false miracle, and yet all the true miracles 
 of Jesus made very little impression on the minds 
 of the Jews. The miracle of their incredulity is 
 no doubt wonderful ; however, our priests reply, 
 that this obstinacy of the Jews had been predicted 
 as a chastisement from Heaven. In that case 
 why did God work so many miracles when the 
 futility of them had been foreseen ? 
 
 It is morally certain that Caesar existed. The 
 existence of Jesus is as certain as the existence of
 
 8 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 Caesar ; — it is thence inferred that the resurrec- 
 tion of Jesus is also certain, but the conclusion is 
 false; the existence of Cffisar was not miraculous, 
 wherefore should the existence of Jesus be thought 
 so? 
 
 The religion of Jesus, announced by ignorant 
 fanatics (who were either easily deceived or easily 
 deceived others) made the first Christians; the 
 same religion now preached by learned men con- 
 tinues to make unbelievers. 
 
 You tell me that these ignorant Apostles suffer- 
 ed death to prove the truth of what they preached 
 to mankind; instead of which they proved only 
 their own enthusiasm, or the chastisement of the 
 people on whom they practised their hypocrisy. 
 To suffer martyrdom in any cause proves nothing, 
 cxcej)t that our party is not the most powerful. 
 
 How did it happen that God permitted to be 
 put to death those men that he sent purposely to 
 convert the world .? Would it not have been more 
 in conformity with the divine attributes to change 
 the hearts of the people ? 
 
 As for the martyrs who suffered after the time 
 of the Apostles, they were not witnesses of the 
 miracles of Jesus ; they died to maintain that those 
 who had instructed them in the Christian religion, 
 had neither deceived themselves nor wished to de- 
 ceive others.
 
 THOUGHTS ON REUGION. 9 
 
 We attest what we have ourselves seen, or 
 what we believe we have seen. When we attest 
 what Others have seen, we prove nothing, except 
 that we are willing to believe them on their words. 
 The whole fabric of Christianity is built on the 
 authority of those who had formerly an interest 
 in establishing it, and who now have an interest 
 in maintaining it. 
 
 It is pretended, that submission to legislative 
 authority forbids all examination and reasoning ; 
 but do not the interested Priests of all the reli- 
 gions on earth pretend to possess this authority ? 
 Does it not equally belong to the Bramins, the 
 Talapoins, the Bonzes, the Molochs, as well as 
 to the Ministers of Christianity ? 
 
 It is the education of youth which makes a 
 Christian believe in Christ, a Turk in Mahomet, 
 and an Indian in the incarnations of the Vestnou. 
 It is the education of youth which makes the Sia- 
 mese believe the wonders that are told him about 
 Sommonocodom, 
 
 Faith, in every country, is only a blind defer- 
 ence to the sentiments of the priests, who are al- 
 ways infallible where they are sufficiently power- 
 ful. 
 
 Our priests are unceasingly talking to us of the 
 weakness and errors of the human mind ; but is 
 the mind of a priest more infallible than mine ?
 
 \0 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 Is his understanding less subject to error than 
 that of an unbeliever ? May not his passions and 
 interests deceive him in the same way that others 
 are deceived ? 
 
 We no sooner refuse to believe on the bare 
 word of a priest, than he endeavours to frighten 
 us ; but the terror he excites in us is not a con- 
 vincing argument, neither can fear be a motive of 
 credibility. Believe, or you will he damned. 
 This is the strongest argument in Theology, 
 
 But is it certain that 1 shall be damned for 
 not believing what appeared to me incredible? 
 Divines have long been asked to reconcile the 
 dogma of eternal punishment with that of infinite 
 mercy ; but this they will not meddle with ; yet 
 still they persist in representing our heavenly 
 Father as a tyrant, to whom no father of a family 
 would wish to have any resemblance. 
 
 Why would you punish a guilty wretch when 
 no utility can arise from his punishment? What 
 good results to mankind, or to the Deity himself, 
 from the punishment of the millions of unfortu- 
 nate beings who have already been damned? 
 
 The dogma of eternal punishment is the off- 
 spring of folly, of atrocity, and of blasphemy. If 
 God will punish eternally, what proportion exists 
 between the offence and the chastisement? If he 
 punish for his own satisfaction, he becomes a
 
 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION". II 
 
 monster of barbarity ; if he punish to correct 
 others^ his risjour is useless for those who are not 
 witnesses of it. 
 
 But further : — Why is this God so wrathful ? 
 Can man, either living or dead, tarnish his glory 
 and disturb his repose and felicity ? If God be 
 offended at sin, it is because he wills to be offend- 
 ed. If God will eternally punish sin, it is be- 
 cause he wills that sin shall eternally be com- 
 mitted. 
 
 It is pretended that God will burn the wicked 
 man (who can do nothing against him) in a fire 
 that shall endure for ever; yet should we not re- 
 gard as culpable any father who should plan the 
 easiest death imaginable for his son, though that 
 son had compromised his honour, his fortune, or 
 even his life ? 
 
 God the Father judges mankind deserving of 
 his eternal vengeance ; God the Son judges them 
 worthy of his infinite mercy ; the Holy Ghost re- 
 mains neutral. How can we reconcile this ver- 
 biage with the unity of the will of God? 
 
 All the evi-ls that could possibly be committed 
 would only merit an infinite punishment; yet, 
 in order that we may always be terrified at the 
 idea of Deity, the priests have made man suffici- 
 ently powerful to offend the Author of Nature to 
 all eternity.
 
 \ft THOUGHTS ON RELIGION, 
 
 All the evil which man is capable of committing; 
 is not all the evil that possibly might be com- 
 mitted. How can a finite being-, a worm of earth, 
 offend the infinite being who created him, or dis- 
 turb the powers which regulate the universe? 
 
 I should, without hesitation, believe any re- 
 spectable individual who might bring me the in- 
 telligence of an army having obtained a victory 
 over its opponent, &c.; but should the whole 
 population of Paris assure me that a dead man 
 rose from his grave, I would not believe a word 
 of it. When we find that an historian has imposed 
 upon us, or that a whole nation has been de- 
 ceived, we must not take these for prodigies. 
 
 A single demonstration is more convincing 
 than fifty unconnected facts. Pontiff of Maho- 
 met ! — cause the lame man to walk, the dumb to 
 speak, the blind to see, or the dead to rise from 
 their graves, and to thy great astonishment my 
 faith shall not be shaken. Wouldst thou have me 
 to become thy proselyte — lay aside these pranks 
 and let us reason together. I have more depend- 
 ance on my judgment than I have on my eyes. 
 
 How canst thou believe that God requires to be 
 worshipped ? Weak mortal ! What need has 
 the Deity of thy homage ? Dost thou think that 
 thou canst add any thing to his happiness or to 
 his glory ? Thou mayest honour thyself by rais-
 
 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 13 
 
 ing thy thoughts to the Great Author of thy be- 
 ing, but thou canst do nothing for him, he is too 
 much above thy insignificance. Always bear in 
 mind, that if any kind of worship be more accept- 
 able to him than the rest^ it must be that which 
 proceeds from an honest heart. What matter 
 then in what manner thou expressest thy senti- 
 ments ? Does he not read them in thy mind ? 
 What matters it in what garments^ in what atti- 
 tude, in what language thou addressest him in 
 prayer ? Is he like those kings of the earth who 
 reject the petitions of their subjects, because they 
 have been ignorant of, or disregarded some little 
 formality ? Pull not down the Almighty to thy 
 own littleness^ but believe that if one worship were 
 more agreeable to him than another, he would have 
 made it known to the whole world. Believe that 
 he receives with the same goodness the wishes of 
 the Mussulman, the Catholic, and the Indian ; 
 that he hears with the same kindness the prayers 
 of the savage, who addresses him from the midst 
 of a forest, as those of a Pontifl', who wears the tiara. 
 Nothing could be better adapted to overthrow 
 morality and destroy it altogether, than to couple 
 it with religion ; neither could any thing be more 
 pernicious than to make men believe that they 
 offended God when they injured themselves or 
 their fellow- creatures; and henc^ arose the ne-
 
 14 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION. 
 
 cessity of obtaining- God's favour^ without any re- 
 gard to the duties they owe to their brethren. 
 
 Reason tells us that when we commit crimes, 
 it is men, and not God, that we injure; and 
 common sense tells us that we injure our- 
 selves when we give way to disorderly pas- 
 sions. The Christian religion teaches us to 
 imitate a God that is cruel, insiduous, jealous, and 
 implacable in his wrath. Christians! with such 
 a model before you, what will be your morality ? 
 Can the God of Moses, of Joshua, and of David, 
 be the God of an honest man ? 
 
 A religion is dangerous when it confounds our 
 ideas of morality; a religion is false when it de- 
 stroys the perfections of the Deity ; a religion is 
 detestable when it substitutes for its worship a 
 vindictive daemon instead of a beneficent God. 
 
 Christians ! in obeying your gospels to the let- 
 ter, you will be neither citizens, husbands, fathers, 
 friends, . nor faithful subjects. You will be pil- 
 grims on earth — strangers in your own country 
 — fierce enemies to yourselves — ^and your bre- 
 thren, and your groans even will not leave you the 
 hope of ever being happy. 
 
 FINIS. 
 
 Printed 4>y R. Carlile, No. 183, Fleet-street,
 
 JUST PUBLISHED, 
 
 By R. Carlile, 183, Fleet-street, 
 
 THE 
 
 THEOLOGICAL WORKS 
 
 OF 
 
 THOMAS PAINE: 
 
 CONTAINING 
 
 THE AGE OF REASON, in Three Parts. 
 
 A LETTER to the Honourable THOMAS ERSKINE, on 
 
 the Prosecution of Thomas Williams. 
 
 A DISCOURSE, delivered to the Society of Theopbilan- 
 thropists at Paris. 
 
 AN ESSAV on the ORIGIN of FREEMASONRY. 
 
 A REPLY to the BISHOP of LLANDAFF'S APO- 
 LOGY for the BIBLE. 
 
 Shortly Ttill be Published^ 
 THE LIFE OF DAVID ; or, A Man after God's own 
 
 Heart. 
 
 Also^ 
 
 JEHOVAH UNVEILED, in a Letter to the Bishop of 
 LUndaff. By A Tradesman.

 
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