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 ^fitoiOQical Wiovh^ 
 
 OF 
 
 THOMAS PAINE. 
 
 ftoniron: 
 
 PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY M. A. CARLILE,65,FLEET STREET 
 
 1820. 
 
TO tllE NATIONAL INTELLIGENCER. 
 
 Towards the latter end of last December, I received a letfef 
 from a venerable patriot, Samuel Adams, dated Boston, 
 Nov. 30th. It came by a private hand, which I suppose 
 vras the cause of the delay. I wrote Mr. Adams an answer 
 dated January 1st, and that I might be certain of receiving 
 it, and also that I might know of that reception, I desired a 
 friend of mine at Washington to put it under cover to some 
 friend of his at Boston, and desire him to present it to Mr. 
 Adams. The letter was accordingly put under cover while 
 I was present, and given to one of the clerks of the Post- 
 Office to seal and put in the mail. The clerk put it in his 
 pocket-book, and either forgot to put it in the mail, or sup- 
 posed he had done so among other letters. The Postmaster- 
 General, on learning this mistake, informed me of it last 
 Saturday, and as tiie cover was then out of date, the letter 
 was put under a new cover with the same request, and for- 
 warded by the post. I felt concerned at this accident, lest 
 Mr. Adams should conclude I was unmindful of his atten- 
 tion to me; and therefore, lest any further accident should 
 prevent or delay his receiving it, as well as to relieve myself 
 from that concern, I give the letter the opportunity of reaching 
 him by the newspapers. I am the more induced to do this, 
 because some manuscript copies have been taken of both let- 
 ters, and therefore there is a possibiUty of imperfect copies 
 getting into print; and besides this, if some of the Federal 
 printers (for 1 hope they are not all base alike) could get 
 hold of a copy, they would make no scruple of altering it 
 and publishing it as mine. I therefore send you the original 
 letter of Mr. Adams and my own copy of the answer. 
 
 THOMAS PAINE. 
 Federal City, .Tun. 22, 1803. 
 
 7b Thomas Paine. 
 
 Sir, Boston, Nov. 30th, 1802. 
 
 I HAVE frequently with pleasure reitected on your services 
 to ray native, and your adopted cottntry. Your Common 
 
 a2 
 
 iv^Sy 
 
4 TO THE NATIONAL INTELLIGENCER. 
 
 Sense, and your Crisis, unquestionably awakened the public 
 mind, and led the people loudly to call for a declaration of 
 our national independence. I therefore esteemed you as a 
 warm friend to the liberty and lasting welfare of the human 
 race. But when I heard you had turned your mind to a de- 
 fence of infidelity, I felt myself much astonished, and more 
 grieved, that you had attempted a measure so injurious to 
 the feelings, and so repugnant to the true interest of so great 
 a part of the citizens of the United States. The people of 
 New England, if you allow me to use a Scripture phrase, 
 are fast returning to their first love. Will you excite among 
 them the spirit of angry controversy at a time when they are 
 hastening to unity and peace? I am told, that some of our 
 newspapers have announced your intention to publish an ad- 
 ditional pamphlet upon the principles of your Age of Rea- 
 son. Do you think that your pen, or the pen of any other 
 man, can unchristianize the mass of our citizens, or have you 
 hopes of converting a few of them to assist you in so bad a 
 cause? We ought to think ourselves happy in the enjoy- 
 ment of our opinion, without the danger of persecution by 
 civil or ecclesiastical law. 
 
 Our friend, the present President of the United States, has- 
 been calumniated for his liberal sentiments, by men who have 
 attributed that liberality to a latent design to promote the 
 cause of infidelity. This, and all other slanders have been 
 made without a shadow of proof. Neither religion nor li- 
 berty can long subsist in the tumult of altercation, and 
 amidst the noise and violence of faction. 
 
 Felix qui cautus. 
 Adieu, 
 
 SAMUEL ADAMS. 
 
 To Samuel Adams. 
 
 My dear and venerable friend, 
 
 I RECEIVED with great pleasure your friendly and aflfection- 
 ate letter of Nov. 30th, and I thank you also for the frank- 
 ness of it. Between men in pursuit of truth, and whose 
 object is the happiness of man both here and hereafter, 
 there ought to be no reserve. Even error has a claim to in- 
 dulgence, if not to respect, when it is believed to be truth. 
 
TO T.Mi: NATIONAL INTELLIGEXCER. 5 
 
 I am obliged to you for your affectionate remembrance of 
 what you style ray services in awakening the pu'ulic mind to 
 a declaration of independence, and supporting it after it was 
 declared. I also, like you, have often looked back on those 
 times, and have thought, that if independence had not been 
 declared at the time it was, the public mind coold not have 
 been brought up to it afterwards. It will immediately occur 
 to you, who were so intimately acquainted with the situation 
 of things at that time, that I allude to the black times of 
 seventy-six ; for though I know, and you my friend also 
 know, they were no other than the natural consequences of 
 the military blunders of that campaign, the country might 
 have viewed them as proceeding from a natural inability to 
 support its cause against the enemy, and have sunk under 
 the despondency of that misconceived idea. This was the 
 impression against which it was necessary the country should 
 be strongly animated. 
 
 I now come to the second part of your letter, on which 
 I shall be as frank with you as you are with me. " But (say 
 you) when I heard you had turned your mind to a defence 
 of infidelity, I felt myself much astonished," &c. What, 
 my good friend, do you call beheving in God infidelity? 
 for that is the great point mentioned in the Age of Reasofi 
 against all divided beliefs and allegorical divinities. The 
 Bishop of Landaff (Dr. Watson) not only acknowledges 
 this, but pays me some compliments upon it, in his answer to 
 the second part of that work. " There is (says he) a philo- 
 sophical sublimity in some of your ideas, when speaking. of 
 the Creator of the Universe." 
 
 What then, (my much esteemed friend, for I do not respect 
 you the less because we differ, and that perhaps not much, 
 in religious sentiments) what, I ask, is the thing called infi- 
 delity? If we go back to your ancestors and mine, three 
 or four hundred years ago, for Ave must have fathers and 
 grandfathers or we should not have been here, we shall find 
 them praying to saints and virgins, and believing in purga- 
 tory and transubstantiation ; and therefore, all of us are infi- 
 dels according to our forefathers' belief. If we go back to 
 times more ancient we shall again be infidels according to the 
 belief of some other forefathers. 
 
 The case, my friend, is, that the world has been overrun 
 with fable and creed of human invention, with sectaries of 
 whole nations, against other nations, and sectaries of those 
 sectaries in each of them against each other. Every sectary, 
 except the Quakers, have been persecutors. Those who 
 
b TO THE NATIONAL INTELLIGENCER. 
 
 fled from persecution, persecuted in their turn, and it is this 
 confusion of creeds that has filled the world with persecu- 
 tion, and deluged it with blood. Even the depredation on 
 your commerce by the Barbary powers, sprang from the 
 crusades of the church against those powers. It was a war 
 of creed against creed, each boasting of God for its author, 
 and reviling each other with the name of infidel. If I do 
 not believe as you believe, it proves that you do not believe 
 as I believe, and this is all that it proves. 
 
 There is, however, one point of union wherein all reli- 
 gions meet, and that is in the first article of every man's 
 creed, and of every nation's creed, that has any creed at all. 
 / believe in God. Those who rest here, and there are mil- 
 lions who do, cannot be wrong as far as their creed goes. 
 Those who choose to go further 7nay be wrong, for it is im- 
 possible that all can be right since there is so much contra- 
 diction among them. The first, therefore, are, in my opi- 
 nion, on the safest side, 
 
 I presume you are so far acquainted with ecclesiastical 
 history as to know, and the bishop who has answered me has 
 been obliged to acknowledge the fact, that the Books that 
 compose the New Testament, were voted by yeas and nays 
 to be the Word of God, as you now vote a law, by the 
 Popish Councils of Nice and Laodocia, about fourteen hun- 
 dred and fifty years ago. With respect to the fact there is 
 no dispute, neither do I mention it for the sake of contro- 
 versy. This vote may appear authority enough to some, 
 and not authority enough to others. It is proper, however, 
 that every body should know the fact. 
 
 With respect to the Jge of Reason, which you so much 
 condemn, and that, I believe, without having read it, for 
 you say only that you heard of it, I will inform you of a 
 circumstance, because you cannot know it by other means. 
 
 I have said in the first page of the first part of that work, 
 that it had long been my intention to publish my thoughts 
 upon religion, but that 1 had referred it to a later time of 
 life. I have now to inform you why I wrote it and pub- 
 lished it at the time I did. 
 
 In the first place, I saw my life in continual danger. My 
 friends were falling as fast as the guillotine could cut their 
 heads off, and as I expected every day the same fate, I re- 
 solved to begin my work. I appeared to myself to be on my 
 death bed, for death was on every side of me, and 1 had no 
 time to lose. This accounts for my writing at the time I 
 did, and so nicely did the time and intention meet, that I 
 
TO THE NATIONAL INTELLIGENCER. 7 
 
 had not finished the first part of the work more than six 
 hours, before I was arrested and taken to prison. Joel Bar- 
 low was with me, and knows the fact. 
 
 In the second place, the people of France were running- 
 headlong into atheism, and I had the work translated and 
 published in their own language, to stop them in that career, 
 and fix them to the first article (as I have before said) of 
 every man's creed, who has any creed at all, I believe in 
 God. It endangered my own life, in the first place, by op- 
 posing in the Convention the execution of the King, and la- 
 bouring to shew they were trying the monarch and not the 
 man, and that the crimes imputed to him were the crimes of 
 the monarchical system ; and endangered it a second time by 
 opposing atheism, and yet some of your priests, for I do not 
 believe that all are perverse, cry out, in the whar-whoop of 
 monarchical priestcraft. What an infidel! what a wicked 
 man is Thomas Paine! They might as well add, for he be- 
 lieves in God, and is against shedding blood. 
 
 But all this war-whoop of the pulpit has some concealed 
 object. Religion is not the cause, but is the stalking horse. 
 They put it forward to conceal themselves behind it. It is 
 not a secret that there has been a party composed of the 
 leaders of the Federalists, for I do not include all Federalists 
 with theirleaders, who have been working by various means 
 for several years past, to overturn the Federal Constitution 
 established on the representative system, and place govern- 
 ment in the new world on the corrupt system of the old. To 
 accomplish this a large standing army was necessary, and as 
 a pretence for such an army, the danger of a foreign invasion 
 must be bellowed forth, from the pulpit, from the press, and 
 by their public orators. 
 
 I am not of a disposition inclined to suspicion. It is in its 
 nature a mean and cowardly passion, and upon the whole, 
 even admitting error into the case, it is better, I am sure, it is 
 more generous to be wrong on the side of confidence, than 
 on the side of suspicion. But I know as a fact, that the 
 English Government distributes annually fifteen hundred 
 pounds sterling among the Presbyterian ministers in Eng- 
 land, and one hundred among those of Ireland; and when I 
 hear of the strange discourses of some of your ministers and 
 professors of colleges, I cannot, as the Quakers say, find 
 freedom in my mind to acquit them. Their anti-revolu- 
 tionary doctrines invite suspicion, even against one's will, 
 and in spite of one's charity to believe well of them. 
 
 As you have given me one Scripture phrase, I will give 
 
8 TO THE NATIONAL INTELLIGENCER. 
 
 you another for those ministers. It is said in Exodus, 
 chapter xxiii, verse 28, " Thou shalt not revile the Gods, 
 por curse the ruler of thy people." But those ministers, 
 such I mean as Dr. Emmons, curse ruler and people both, 
 for the majority are, politically, the people, and it is those 
 who have chosen the ruler whom they curse. As to the first 
 part of the verse, that of not reviling the Gods, it makes no 
 part of my Scripture. I have but one God. 
 
 Since I began this letter, for I write it by piece-meals as 
 I have leisure, I have seen the four letters that passed be- 
 tween you and John Adams. In your first letter you say, 
 " Let divines and philosophers, statesmen and patriots, unite 
 their endeavours to renovate the age by inculcating in the 
 minds of youth the fear and love of the Deity, and univer' 
 sal philanthropy.'' Why, my dear friend, this is exactly my 
 religion, and is the whole of it. That you may have an 
 Idea that the ^ge of Reason (for I believe you have not 
 read it) inculcates this reverential fear and love of the 
 Deity, 1 will give you a paragraph from it: 
 
 " Do we want to contemplate his power ? We see it in the 
 immensity of the Creation. Do we want to contemplate his 
 wisdom ? We see it in the unchangeable order by which the 
 incomprehensible whole is governed. Do we want to con- 
 template his munificence? We see it in the abundance with 
 which he fills the earth. Do we want to contemplate his 
 mercy? We see it in his not withholding that abundance 
 even from the unthankful." 
 
 As I am fully with you in your first part, that respecting 
 the Deity, so am I in your second, that of universal phi- 
 lq,nthropy ; by which I do not mean merely the sentimental 
 benevolence of wishing well, but the practical benevolence 
 of doing good. We cannot serve the Deity in the manner 
 we serve those who cannot do without that service. He 
 needs no services from us. We can add nothing to eternity. 
 But it is in our power to render a service acceptable to him, 
 and that is not by praying, but by endeavouring to make his 
 creatures happy. A man does not serve God when he prays, 
 for it is himself he is trying to serve; and as to hiring or 
 paying men to pray, as if the Deity needed instruction, it is 
 in my opinion an abomination. One good school-master is 
 of more use and of more value than a load of such parsons 
 as Dr. Emmons, and some others. 
 
 You, my dear and much respected friend, are now far in 
 the vale of years ; I have yet, I believe, some years in store, 
 for I have a good state of health and a huppy niiud ; I take 
 
TO THE NATIONAL INTELLIGENCER. 9 
 
 care of botb, by nourishing the first with temperance, and 
 the latter with abundance. 
 
 This, I believe, you will allow to be the true philosophy 
 of life. You will see by my third letter to the citizens of 
 the United States, that I have been exposed to, and preserved 
 through, many dangers; but instead of buffeting the Deity 
 with prayers, as if I distrusted him, or must dictate to him, 
 1 reposed myself on his protection ; and you, my friend, 
 will find, even in your last moments, more consolation in the 
 silence of resignation than in the murmuring wish of prayer. 
 
 In every thing which you say in your second letter to 
 John Adams, respecting our rights as men and citizens in 
 this world. I am perfectly with you. On other points we 
 have to answer to our Creator and not to each other. The 
 key of heaven is not in the keeping of any sect, nor ought 
 the road to it to be obstructed by any. Our relation to each 
 other in this world is as men, and the man who is a friend 
 to man and to his rights, let his religious opinions be what 
 they may, is a good citizen, to whom I can give, as I ought 
 to do, and as every other ought, the right hand of fellowship 
 and to none with more hearty good will, my dear friend, 
 than to you. 
 
 THOMAS PAINE. 
 
 Federal City, Jan. 1, 1S03. 
 
OF THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 Archbishop Tillotson says, " The difference between the 
 style of the Old and New Testament is so very remarkable, 
 that one of the greatest sects in the primitive times, did, upon 
 this very ground, found their heresy of two Gods, the one 
 evil, fierce, and cruel, whom they called the God of the Old 
 Testament ; the other was good, kind, and merciful, whom 
 they called the God of the New Testament; so great a dif- 
 ference is there between the representations that are given of 
 God in the Books of the Jewish and Christian Religion, as 
 to give, at least, some colour and pretence to an imagination 
 of two Gods." Thus far Tillotson. 
 
 But the case was, that as the Church had picked out se- 
 veral passages from the Old Testament, which she most ab- 
 surdly and falsely calls prophecies of Jesus Christ, (whereas 
 there is no prophecy of any such person as any one may 
 see by examining the passages and the cases to which 
 they apply,) she was under the necessity of keeping up the 
 credit of the Old Testament, because if that fell the other 
 would soon follow, and the Christian system of faith would 
 soon be at an end. Asa book of morals, there are several 
 parts of the New Testament that are good ; but they are no 
 other than what had been preached in the Eastern world se- 
 veral hundred years before Christ was born. Confucius, 
 the Chinese philosopher, who lived five huudred years be- 
 fore the time of Christ, says, acknowledge thy benefits by the 
 return of benefits, but never revenge injuries. 
 
 The clergy in Popish countries were cunning enough to 
 know, that if the Old Testament was made public, the fallacy 
 of the New, with respect to Christ, would be detected, and 
 they prohibited the use of it, and always took it away 
 wherever they found it. The Deists, on the contrary, al- 
 ways encouraged the reading it, that people might see and 
 judge for themselves, that a Book so full of contradictions and 
 wickedness, could not be the word of God, and that we dis- 
 honour God by ascribing it to him. 
 
 A TRUE DEIST. 
 
OF CAIN AND ABEL. 
 
 The story of Cain and Abel is told in the fourth chapter of 
 Genesis, Cain was the elder brother, and Abel the younger, 
 and Cain killed Abel. The Egyptian story of Typhon and 
 Osiris, and the Jewish story in Genesis of Cain and Abel, 
 have the appearance of being the same story differently told, 
 and that it came originally from Egypt. 
 
 In the Egyptian story, Typhon and Osiris, Typhon is 
 the elder, and Osiris the younger, and Typhon kills Osiris. 
 The story is an allegory on darkness and light; Typhon the 
 elder brother is darkness, because darkness was supposed to 
 be more ancient than light: Osiris is the good light, who 
 rules during the summer months, and brings forth the fruits 
 of the earth, and is tne favourite, as Abel is said to have 
 been, for which Typhon hates him ; and when the winter 
 comes, and cold and darkness overspread the earth, Typhon 
 is represented as having killed Osiris out of malice, as Cain 
 is said to have killed Abel. 
 
 The two stories are alike in their circumstances and their 
 event, and are probably but the same story ; what corrobo- 
 rates this opinion, is, that the fifth chapter of Genesis histori- 
 cally contradicts the realify of the story of Cain and Abel in 
 the fourth chapter, for though the name of Setli, a son of 
 Adam, is mentioned in the fourth chapter, he is .spoken of in 
 the fifth chapter as if he was the first-born of Adam. The 
 chapter begins thus: — 
 
 " This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the 
 day that God created man, in the likeness of God created he 
 him. Male and female created he them, and blessed them, 
 and called their name Adam in the day when they were 
 created. And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years and 
 begat a son, in his own likeness and after his own image, 
 and called his name Seth." The rest of the chapter goes on 
 with the genealogy. 
 
 Any body reading this chapter cannot suppose there were 
 any sons born before ^eth. The chapter begins with what 
 is called the creation of Adam, and calls itself the book of 
 (the generations of Adam^ yet no mention is made of such 
 
12 OF CAIN AND ABEL. 
 
 persons as Cain and Abel ; one thing, however, is evident on 
 the face of these two chapters, which is, that the same per- 
 son is not the writer of both ; the most blundering historian 
 could not have committed himself in such a manner. 
 
 Though I look on every thing in the first ten chapters of 
 Genesis to be fiction, yet fiction historically told should be 
 consistent, whereas these two chapters are not. The Cain 
 and Abel of Genesis appear to be no other than the ancient 
 P'/gyptian story of Typhon and Osiris, the darkness and the 
 light, which answered very well as an allegory without 
 being believed as a fact. 
 
ON DEISM AND THE WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE. 
 
 The following reflections, written last winter, were occa- 
 sioned by certain expressions in some of the public papers 
 against Deism and the Writings of Thomas Paine on that 
 subject. 
 
 " Great is Diana of the Ephesians" was the cvj of the 
 people of Ephesus ;* and the cry of " our holy religion,^' 
 has been the cry of superstition in some instances, and of 
 hypocrisy in others, from that day to this. 
 
 The Brahmin, the follower of Zoroaster, the Jew, the 
 Mahometan, the church of Rome, the Greek church, the 
 Protestant church, split into several hundred contradictory 
 sectaries, preaching, in some instances, damnation against 
 each other, all cry out, " our holy religion." The Calvinist, 
 who damns children of a span long to hell to burn for ever 
 for the glory of God, (and this is called Christianity) and the 
 Universalist, who preaches that all shall be saved and none 
 shall be damned, (and this also is called Christianity) boasts 
 alike of their holy religion and their Christian faith. Some- 
 thing more, therefore, is necessary than mere cry and whole- 
 sale assertion, and that something is TRUTH ; and as in- 
 quiry is the road to truth, he that is opposed to inquiry is not 
 a friend to truth. 
 
 The God of Truth is not the God of fable; when, there- 
 fore, any book is introduced into the world as the word of 
 God, and made a ground-work for religion, it ought to be 
 scrutinized more than other books to see if it bear evidence of 
 being what it is called. Our reverence to God demands 
 that we do this, lest we ascribe to God what is not his, and 
 our duty to ourselves demands it lest we take fable for fact, 
 and rest our hope of salvation on a false foundation. It is 
 not our calling a book holy that makes it so, any more than 
 our calling a religion holy that entitles it to the name- 
 Inquiry, therefore, is necessary in order to arrive at truth. 
 But inquiry must have some principle to proceed on, some 
 standard to judge by, superior to human authority. 
 
 When we survey the works of creation, the revolutions of 
 the planetary system, and the whole economy of what is 
 called nature, which is no other than the laws the Creator 
 has prescribed to matter, we see unerring order and univer- 
 
 * Acts, chap. XIX. ver. 28. 
 
14 ON DEISM AND THE WRITINGS OF PAINE. 
 
 sal harmony reigning throughout the whole. No one part 
 contradicts another. The sun does not run against the 
 moon, nor the moon against the sun, nor the planets against 
 each other. Every thing keeps its appointed time and place. 
 This harmony in the works of God is so obvious, that the 
 farmer of the field, though he cannot calculate eclipses, is as 
 sensible of it as the philosophical astronomer. He sees the 
 God of order in every part of the visible universe. 
 
 Here, then, is the standard to which every thing must be 
 brought that pretends to be the work or word of God, and 
 by this standard it must be judged, independently of any 
 thing and every thing that man can say or do. His opinion 
 is like a feather in the scale compared with the standard that 
 God himself has set up. 
 
 It is, therefore, by this standard, that the Bible, and all 
 other books pretending to be the word of God, (and there 
 are many of them in the world) must be judged, and not by 
 the opinions of men or the decrees of ecclesiastical councils. 
 These have been so contradictory that they have often re- 
 jected in one council what they had voted to be the word of 
 God in another ; and admitted what had been before re- 
 jected. In this state of uncertainty in which we are, and 
 which is rendered still more uncertain by the numerous con- 
 tradictory sectaries that have sprung up since the time of 
 Luther and Calvin, what is man to do ? The answer is easy. 
 Begin at the root — begin with the Bible itself. Examine it 
 with the utmost strictness. It is our duty so to do. Com- 
 pare the parts with each other, and the whole with the 
 harmonious, magnificent order that reigns throughout the 
 visible universe, and the result will be, that if the same Al- 
 mighty wisdom that created the universe, dictated also the 
 Bible, the Bible will be as harmonious and as magnificent in 
 all its parts, and in the whole, as the universe is. But if in- 
 stead of this, the parts are found to be discordant, contra- 
 dicting in one place what is said in another, (as in 2 Sam. 
 chap. xxiv. ver. 1. and 1 Chron. chap. xxi. ver. 1. where the 
 same action is ascribed to God in one book and to Satan in 
 the other), abounding also in idle and obscene stories, and 
 representing the Almighty as a passionate, whimsical Being, 
 continually changing his mind, making and unmaking his 
 own works as if he did not know what he was about, we 
 may take it for certainty that the Creator of the universe is 
 not the author of such a book, that it is not the word of 
 God, and that to call it so is to dishonour his name. The 
 Quakers, who are a people more moral and regular in their 
 
ON DEISM AND THE WRITINGS OF PAINE. 15 
 
 conduct than the people of other sectaries, and generally al- 
 lowed so to be, do not hold the Bible to be the word of God, 
 They call it a history of the times, and a bad history it is, 
 and also a history of bad men and of bad actions, and 
 abounding with bad examples. 
 
 For several centuries past the dispute has been about doc- 
 trines. It is now about fact Is the Bible the word of God, 
 or is it not? for until the point is established no doctrine 
 -drawn from the Bible can afford real consolation to man, and 
 he ought to be careful he does not mistake delusion for truth. 
 This is a case that concerns all men alike. 
 
 There has always existed in Europe, and also in .America, 
 since its establishment, a numerous description of men, (I do 
 not here mean the Quakers) who did not, and do not believe 
 the Bible to be the word of God. These men never formed 
 themselves into an established society, but are to be found in 
 all the sectaries that exist, and are more numerous than any, 
 perhaps equal to all, and are daily increasing. From Deus^ 
 the Latin word for God, they have been denominated Deists, 
 that is, believers in God. It is the most honourable appella- 
 tion can be given to man, because it is derived immediately 
 from the Deity, It is not an artificial name like Episco- 
 palian, Presbyterian, &c. but is a name of sacred significa- 
 tion, and to revile it is to revile the name of God. 
 
 Since then there is so much doubt and uncertainty aboul 
 'Ihe Bible, some asserting, and others denying it to be the 
 word of God, it is best that the whole matter come ouL It 
 is necessary, for the information of the world, that it should. 
 A better time cannot offer than whilst the Government, pa- 
 tronizing no one sect or opinion in preference to another, 
 protects equally the rights of all; and certainly every man 
 must spurn the idea of an ecclesiastical tyranny, engrossing 
 the rights of the press, and holding it free only for itself. 
 
 Whilst the terrors of the Church, and the tyranny of the 
 State, hung like a pointed swoi^i over Europe, men were 
 commanded to believe what the church told them, or go to 
 the stake. All inquiries into the authenticity of the Bible 
 were shut out by the inquisition- We ought, therefore, t© 
 suspect that a great mass of information respecting the Bible 
 and the introduction of it into the world has been suppressed 
 by the united tyranny of Church and State, for the purpose 
 of keeping people in ignorance, and which ought to be 
 known. 
 
 The Bible has been received by the Protestants on the 
 authority of the Church of Home, and on no other autho- 
 
16 ON DKISM AND THE WRITINGS OF PAINE. 
 
 rit}'. It is she that has said it is the word of God. We do 
 not admit the authority of that church with respect to its 
 pretended infallibility^ its manufactured miracles, its setting 
 itself up to forgive sins, its amphibious doctrine of transub- 
 stantiation, &c. ; and we ought to be watchful with respect 
 to any book introduced by her, or her ecclesiastical coun- 
 cils, and called by her the Word of God; and the more so, 
 because it was by propagating that belief and supporting it 
 by fire and faggot, that she kept up her temporal power. 
 That the belief of the Bible does no good in the world may 
 be seen by the irregular lives of those, as well priests as 
 laymen, who profess to believe it to be the word of God, 
 and the moral lives of the Quakers who do not. It abounds 
 with too many ill examples to be made a rule for moral life, 
 and were a man to copy after the lives of some of its most 
 celebrated characters, he would come to the gallows. 
 
 Thomas Paine has written to shew that the Bible is not 
 the word of God, that the books it contains were not writ- 
 ten by the persons to whom they are ascribed, that it is an 
 anonymous book, and that we have no authority for calling 
 it the word of God, or for saying it w^as written by inspired 
 penmen, since we do not know who the writers were. This 
 is the opinion, not only of Thomas Paine, but of thousands 
 and tens of thousands of the most respectable characters in 
 the United States and in Europe. These men have the same 
 right to their opiuioris, as others have to contrary opinions, 
 and the same right to publish them. Ecclesiastical tyranny 
 is not admissible in the United States. 
 
 With respect to morality, the writings of Thomas Paine 
 are remarkable for purity and benevolence; and though be 
 often enlivens them with touches of wit and humour, he 
 never loses sight of the real solemnity of his subject. No 
 man's morals either with respect to his Maker, himself, or 
 his neighbour, can suffer by the writings of Thomas Paine. 
 
 It is now too late to abuse Deism, especially in a country 
 where the press is free, or where free presses can be estab- 
 lished. It is a religion that has God for its patron and 
 derives its name from him. The thoughtful mind of man, 
 wearied with the endlesis contentions of sectaries against 
 sectaries, doctrines against doctrines, and priests against 
 priests, finds its repose at last in the contemplative belief 
 and worship of one God and the practice of morality, for 
 as Pope wisely says, 
 
 " He can't be wrong whose life is in the right/' 
 
TO THE MEMBERS OF THE SOCIETY, STYLING ITSELF 
 THE MISSIONARY SOCIETY. 
 
 The New York Gazette of the I &th (August) contains the 
 following article — " On Tuesday, a Committee of the 
 Missionary Society, consisting chiejly of distinguished 
 Clergymen, had an interview at the City Hotel, with the 
 Chiefs of the Osage tribe of Indians, now in this Citi/, 
 (New York) to whom they presented a Bible, together 
 with ail Address, the object of which was, to inform them 
 that this good book contained the will and laws of the 
 GREAT SPIRIT." 
 
 It is to be hoped some humane person will, on account of 
 our people on the frontiers, as well as of the Indians, unde- 
 ceive them with respect to the present the Missionaries have 
 made them, and which they call a good book, containing, they 
 say, the will and laws of the GREAT SPIRIT. Can those 
 Missionaries suppose that the assassination of men, women, 
 and children, and sucking infants, related in the books ascribed 
 to Moses, Joshua, &c. and blasphemously said to be done 
 by the command of the Lord, the Great Spirit, can be edi- 
 fying to our Indian neighbours, or advantageous to us? Is 
 not the Bible warfare the same kind of warfare as the In- 
 dians themselves carry on, that of indiscriminate destruc- 
 tion, and against which humanity shudders, can the horrid 
 examples and vulgar obscenity, with which the Bible 
 abounds, improve the morals, or civilize the manners of the 
 Indians? Will they learn sobriety and decency from drunken 
 Noah and beastly Lot; or will their daughters be edified 
 by the example of Lot's daughters? Will the prisoners they 
 take in war be treated the better by their knowing the hor- 
 rid story of Samuel's hewing Agag in pieces like a block 
 of wood, or David's putting them under harrows of iron? 
 Will not the shocking accounts of the destruction of the 
 Canaanites when the Israelites invaded their country, sug- 
 gest the idea that we may serve them in the same manner, 
 or the accounts stir them up to do the like to our people on 
 the frontiers, and then justify the assassination by the Bible 
 
 B 
 
18 TO THE MISSIONARY SOCIETY. 
 
 the Missionaries have given them? Will those Missionary 
 Societies never leave off doing mischief? 
 
 In the account which this Missionary Committee give of 
 their interview, they make the Chief of the Indians to say, 
 that, " as neither be nor his people could read it, he begged 
 that some good white man might be sent to instruct them." 
 
 It is necessary the General Government keep a strict eye 
 over those Missionary Societies, who under the pretence of 
 instructing the Indians, send spies into their country to find 
 out the best lands. No society should be permitted to have 
 intercourse with the Indian tribes, nor send any person 
 among them, but with the knowledge and consent of the 
 Government. The present administration have brought the 
 Indians into a good disposition, and are improving them in 
 the moral and civil comforts of life; but if these self-created 
 societies be suffered to interfere, and send their speculating 
 Missionaries among them, the laudable object of Govern- 
 ment will be defeated. Priests, we know, are not remark- 
 able for doing any thing gratis; they have, in generad, some 
 scheme in every thing they do, either to impose on the igno- 
 rant, or derange the operations of Government. 
 
 A FRIEND TO THE INDIANS. 
 
OF THE SABBATH DAY OF CONNECTlCtJT. 
 
 The word, Sabbath, means tiEST, that is, cessation ffom la- 
 bour ; but the stupid Blue Laws* 6t Connecticut make a 
 labour of rest, for they oblige a person to sit still from sun- 
 rise to sun-set on a Sabbath-day, which is hard work. Fa- 
 naticism made those laws, and hypocrisy pretends to reve- 
 tence them, for where such laws prevail hypocrisy will 
 prevail also. 
 
 One of those laws says, " No person shall run on a Sab- 
 bath-day, nor walk in his garden, nor elsewhere, but reve- 
 rently to and from meeting." These fanatical hypocrites 
 forgot that God dwells not in temples made with hands, and 
 that the earth is full of his glory. One of the finest scenes 
 and subjects of religious contemplation is to walk into the 
 woods and fields, and survey the works of the God of the 
 Creation. The wide expanse of heaven, the earth covered 
 with verdure, the lofty forest, the waving corn, the magnifi- 
 cent roll of mighty rivers, and the murmuring melody of 
 the cheerful brooks, are scenes that inspire the mind with 
 gratitude and delight; but this the gloomy Calvinist of 
 Connecticut, must not behold on a Sabbath-day. Entombed 
 within the walls of his dwelling, he shuts from his view the 
 temple of creation. The sun shines no joy to him. The 
 gladdening voice of nature calls on him in vain. He is deaf, 
 du,mb, and blind to every thing around him that God has 
 made. Such is the Sabbath-day of Connecticut. 
 
 From whence could come this miserable notion of devo- 
 tion ? It comes from the gloominess of the Calvinistic creed. 
 If -men love darkness rather than light, because their works 
 are evil, the ulcerated mind of a Calvinist, who sees God 
 only in terror, and sits brooding over the scenes of hell and 
 damnation, can have no joy in beholding the glories of the 
 creation. Nothing in that mighty and wonderous system 
 accords with^is principles or his devotion. He sees nothing 
 there that fells him that God created millions on purpose 
 
 * They were called Blue Laws because they were originally 
 printed on blue paper.- 
 
20 OF THE (BABBATH DAY OF CONNECTICUT. 
 
 to be damned, and that children of a span long are born to 
 burn for ever in hell. The creation preaches a different 
 doctrine to this. We there see that the care and goodness 
 of God is extended impartially over all the creatures he has 
 made. The worm of the earth shares his protection equally 
 with the elephant of the desert. The grass that springs 
 beneath our feet grows by his bounty as well as the cedars 
 of Lebanon. Every thing in the creation reproaches the 
 Calvinists with unjust ideas of God, and disowns the hard- 
 ness and ingratitude of his principles. Therefore he shuns 
 the sight of them on a Sabbath-day. 
 
 AN ENEMY TO CANT AND IMPOSITION. 
 
THE WILL AND TESTAMENT OF THOMAS PAINE. 
 
 The people of the State of New York^ by the Grace of Goclf 
 free and independent, to aU to whom these presents shall 
 come or may concern^ send greeting : 
 
 Know ye, that the annexed is a true copy of the Will of 
 Thomas Paine, deceased, as recorded in the Office of our 
 Surrogate, in and for the city and county of New York. 
 In testimony whereof, we have caused the seal of said ^Office 
 of our Surrogate to be hereunto affixed. — Witness, Silvanus 
 Miller, Esq. Surrogate of said county, at the city of New 
 York, the twelfth day of July, in the year of our Lord one 
 thousand eight hundred and nine, and of our independence, 
 the thirty-fourth. 
 
 Silvanus Miller. 
 
 The last Will and Testament of me, the subscriber, Thomas 
 Paine, reposing confidence in my Creator God, and in no other 
 being, for I know of no other, nor believe in any other. [ 
 Thomas Paine, of the State of New York, author of the 
 work entitled Common Sense, written in Philadelphia, in 
 
 1775, and published in that city the beginning of January, 
 
 1776, which awoke America to a Declaration of Indepen- 
 dence on the fourth of July following, which was as fast as 
 the work could spread through such an extensive country ; 
 author also of the several numbers of the American Crisis, 
 thirteen in all, published occasionally during the progress of 
 the revolutionary war — the last is on the peace ; author also 
 of Rights of Man, parts the first and second, written and 
 published in London, in 1791 and 1792; author also of a 
 work on religion, Age of Reason, part the first and second. 
 N. B. I have a third part by me in manuscript, and an an- 
 
22 THE WILL AND TESTAMENT OF THOMAS PAINE. 
 
 swer to the Bishop of LandafiF; author also of a work, 
 lately published, entitled Examination of the Passages in 
 the New Testament, quoted from the Old, and called Pro- 
 phecies concerning Jesus Christ, and shewifig there are no 
 Prophecies of any such Person; author also of several other, 
 works not here enumerated, Dissertation on the First Prin- 
 ciples of Government, — Decline and Fall of the English 
 Sijstem of Firiance, — Agrarian Justice, &c. &c. make this 
 my last Will and Testament, that is to say : I give and be- 
 queath to ray executors hereinafter appointed, Walter Mor- 
 ton and Thomas Addis Emmet, thirty shares I hold in the 
 New York Phoenix Insurance Company, which cost me 
 fourteen hundred and seventy dollars, they are worth now 
 upwards of fifteen hundred dollars, and all my move- 
 able effects, and also the money that may be in my trunk or 
 elsewhere at the time of my decease, paying thereout the 
 expences of my funeral, in trust as to the said shares, 
 moveables, aud money for Margaret Brazier Bonneville, of 
 Paris, for her own sole and separate use, and at her own dis- 
 posal, notwithstanding her coverture. As to my farm in 
 New Rochelle, 1 give, devise, and bequeath the same to my 
 said executors, Walter Morton and Thomas Addis Emmet, 
 and to the survivor of them, his heirs and assigns for ever, 
 IN TRUST, nevertheless, to sell and dispose thereof, now in 
 the occupation of Andrew A. Dean, beginning at the west 
 end of the orchard, and running in a line with the land sold 
 
 to Coles, to the end of the farm, and to apply the 
 
 money arising from such sale as hereinafter directed. I give 
 to my friends Vfalter Morton, of the New York Phoenix 
 Insurance Company, and Thomas Addis Emmet, Counsel- 
 lor at Law, late of Ireland, two hundred dollars each, and 
 one hundred dollars to Mrs. Palmer, widow of Elihu Pal- 
 mer, late of New York, to be paid out of the money arising 
 from said sale; and I give the remainder of the money 
 arising from that sale, one half thereof to Clio Rickman, of 
 High or Upper Mary-le-Bone Street, London, and the other 
 half to Nicholas Bonneville of Paris, husband of Margaret 
 B. Bonneville aforesaid : and as to the south part of the said 
 farm, containing upwards of one hundred acres, in trust to 
 rent out the same or otherwise put it to profit, as shall be 
 found most adviseable, and to pay the rents and profits 
 thereof to the said Margaret B. Bonneville, in trust for her 
 children, Benjamin Bonneville and Thomas Bonneville, their 
 education and maintenance, until they come to the age of 
 
THE WILL AND TESTAAIENT OF TH03IAS PAINE. 23 
 
 twenty-one years, in order that she may bring them well up, 
 give them good and useful learning, and instruct them iu 
 their duty to God, and the practice of morality, the rent of 
 the land or the interest of the money for which it may be 
 sold, as hereinafter mentioned, to be employed in their edu- 
 cation. And after the youngest of the said children shall 
 have arrived at the age of twenty-one years, in further trust 
 to convey the same to the said children, share and share 
 alike, in fee simple. But if it shall be thought adviseabte by 
 my executors aud executrix, or the survivor or survivors of 
 them, at any time before the youngest of the said children 
 shall come of age, to sell and dispose of the said south side 
 of the said farm, in that case 1 hereby authorise and em- 
 power my said executors to sell and dispose of the same, and 
 I direct that the money arising from such sale be put into 
 stock, either in the United States Bank stock, or New York 
 Phojnix Insurance Company stock, the interest or dividends 
 thereof to be applied as is already directed for the education 
 and maintenance of the said children, and the principal to 
 be transferred to the said children, or the survivor of them, 
 on his or their coming of age. I know not if the society of 
 people called Quakers admit a person to be buried in their 
 burying ground, who does not belong to their societ)', but if 
 they do, or will admit me, I would prefer being buried 
 there ; my father belonged to that profession, and 1 was 
 partly brought up in it. But if it is not consistent with 
 their rules to do this, 1 desire to be buried on my farm at 
 New Rochelle. The place where I am to be buried, to be a 
 square of twelve feet, to be enclosed with rows of trees, and 
 a stone or post and rail fence, with a head stone with ray 
 name and age engraved upon it, author of Common Sense. 
 I nominate, constitute, aud appoint Walter Morton, of the 
 New York Phoenix Insurance Company, and Thomas Ad- 
 dis Emmet, counsellor at law, late of Ireland, and Margaret 
 B. Bonneville, executors and executrix to this my last Will 
 aud Testament, requesting them the said Walter Morton aud 
 Thomas Addis Emmet, that they will give what assistance 
 they conveniently can to Mrs. Bonneville, and see that the 
 children be well brought up. Thus placing confidence in 
 their friendship, I herewith take my final leave of them and 
 of the world. I have lived an honest and useful life to 
 mankind ; my time has been spent in doing good, and I die 
 in perfect composure and resignation to the will of my Cre- 
 ator God. Dated this eighteenth day pf January, iu tiie 
 
21 TIIK WILL AND TESTAMENT OF •fHOMAS PAINE. 
 
 year one thousand eight hundred and nine; and 1 have also 
 signed my name to the other sheet of this Will in testimony 
 oi' its being a part thereof. 
 
 THOMAS PAINE. [L S.] 
 
 Signed, sealed, published and declared by the Testator, 
 in our presence, who at his request, and in the presence of 
 each other, have set our names as witnesses thereto, the 
 words " published and declared" first interlined. 
 
 Wm. Keese. 
 James Angevine. 
 Cornelius Ryder. 
 
 Printed bj- M. A. CARLILE, 55. Flett Street. 
 
14 DAY USE 
 
 RETURN TO DESK FROM WHITHRORROWED 
 
 LOAt/ 5IPX 
 
 This book is due on the last date stamped below, or 
 J on the date to which renewed. 
 Renewed books are subject to immediate recall. 
 
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 General Library 
 
 University of California 
 
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 U.C.BERKELEY LIBRARIES 
 
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