335. 1 
 
 Ow2 Y r 
 
 REDFOHD. 
 
 A SERMON, IN REPUTATION OP T“iE DOC- 
 TRINES OP ROBERT OV/EN. 
 
OAK ST, HDSF 
 
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A SERMON 
 
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 REPLY. 
 

 
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 SERMON, 
 
 IN REFUTATION OF 
 
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 PREACHED BY 
 
 THE REV. G. REDFORD, A.M., 
 
 IN 
 
 ANGEL-STREET CHAPEL, WORCESTER, 
 ON SUNDAY EVENING, DEC. 15 , 1833 . 
 
 TO WHICH IS APPENDED^ 
 
 A REPLY, 
 
 BY 
 
 THE REV. J. E. SMITH, A. M., 
 
 OF LONDON. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 B. D. COUSINS, 18 , DUKE-STREET, LINCOLn’s-INN-FIELD3. 
 
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335 ./ 
 
 SERMON. 
 
 “ But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, 
 deceiving, and being deceived.”— II, Timothy iii. 13. 
 
 These words describe some in our day, as well as 
 in the days of the Apostle Paul, when they were 
 written. There are many persons who make lofty 
 pretensions to superior wisdom and intelligence : they 
 have an extraordinary taste for novelty, and have set 
 themselves up as remodellers of society, extendine- 
 their principles not only into the departments of noli- 
 and political economy, but also into religion. 
 Now, It will not be expected of me in this place 
 and upon this occasion, to refer, more than is abso- 
 lutely necessary to that department which properly 
 belonp to worldly men. All that porUon of their 
 speculations which relates to business, commerce, and 
 other worldly matters, I have nothing to do with 
 
 give only one word of advice. Let all who feel 
 interested in those new views, consider that there 
 are other interests in the world besides their own 
 Let workmen consider that their masters have inte- 
 rests as well as themselves, and therefore, whatever 
 IS done, let it be done fairly for all parties. Consider, 
 also, that there may be schemes of improvement put 
 forth, which. If adopted by men of all countrie/at 
 once, would really be improvements ; but which if 
 adopted only by this or any other country, might prove 
 ruinous. Let all men, therefore, consider eafh other’s 
 
 A 2 
 
4 
 
 interests, and not allow a spirit of mean, low selfish- 
 ness to actuate them. 
 
 I should not in the slightest degree have interfered 
 with these Social Reformers, as they call themselves, 
 had they not obtruded themselves into affairs of reli- 
 gion. With this, I have peculiarly to do ; and I con- 
 ceive it to be a duty which I owe to all my friends 
 and hearers, to guard them against these novel notions, 
 which, as I shall presently show you, tend to no 
 advantage, even in this world, but are calculated to 
 overthrow all order, virtue, and happiness. 
 
 Before I proceed further, it is necessary I should 
 state that I have nothing to do with any man’s per- 
 sonal character. I stand not up here to bring an 
 accusation against any man ; for I wish to be the 
 friend of all men. I shall speak only of principles 
 set forth in public documents, which I have here 
 before me, and which are most extensively circulated 
 among the lower orders of society. They are sub- 
 versive of the holy Scriptures, and, consequently, of 
 good order, virtue, and happiness. Again, I wish 
 not to impugn any man’s motives : they may be good, 
 disinterested, philanthropic ; with these we have 
 nothing to do, for their motives are no guarantee of 
 the truth of their doctrines, which must be tried by 
 the test of reason and the Scriptures. 
 
 With these few words of explanation, I am about 
 this evening to introduce to the notice of my hearers 
 a subject which, to many of them, will be entirely 
 new, but which claims the serious attention of all real 
 Christians, and demands from them a prompt effort to 
 resist. 
 
 I hold in my hand a printed card, headed “ So- 
 cial Reformers,” and upon which are laid down the 
 following principles : — 
 
 All human beings are good by nature.” 
 
 Ignorance is tbe only devil that exists, or ever did exist.” 
 
 Vice is nothing else than ignorance.” 
 
 Truth leads to virtue and happiness.” 
 
 The character of every human being is formed ybr him, 
 and not by himself.” 
 
5 
 
 Now, these sentences are printed in capital letters, 
 and are, I suppose, the very basis upon which these 
 Social Reformers intend to build. I have here ano- 
 ther document, which I am about to compare with the 
 principles laid down upon this card. It is called 
 “ The Catechism of the Society for Promoting Na- 
 tional Regeneration ; whose object is, to remove as 
 far as possible the social and commercial evils now 
 existing, and which, by their rapid increase, are fast 
 destroying every vestige of happiness and order.’’ A 
 very excellent thing, certainly, if it could be brought 
 about ; but the fact is, we cannot regenerate whole 
 nations; we must seek to regenerate individuals. I 
 propose, however, to compare these two documents, 
 and see how far they agree. It is affirmed upon the 
 card of the Social Reformers, that ‘‘ All human 
 beings are good by nature.” Now, in the Cate- 
 chism, we have the following answer to the 16th 
 question : — 
 
 “ The return for these services (that is, eight hours’ 
 work per day,) ought to be a sufficiency of all these 
 things (viz. food, lodging, clothes, and furniture,) to 
 the honest and industrious producer. The original 
 imposition of labour was manifestly attended with this 
 promise, ‘ In the sweat of thy face thou shalt 
 EAT BREAD ;’ Gen. iii. 19. But the present system 
 tends to remove this merciful condition, and, in effect, 
 says, ‘ In proportion as thy face shall sweat, thy 
 bread shall fail.’ ” 
 
 Now, here is an authority from the holy Bible. 
 The author either quoted from this book honestly or 
 dishonestly. He either believed in the Bible, or he 
 did not. If he did not, then he mocks his readers. 
 If he did, I will refer him to the context of the pas- 
 sage he has here quoted, and then see if it agrees with 
 the declaration that ‘‘ all human beings are good by 
 nature.” In the same chapter of Genesis to which we 
 are referred, it is said “ Cursed is the ground for thy 
 sake ; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy 
 life ; thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to 
 
 A 3 
 
6 
 
 thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field.” Now, 
 if this authority does not flatly contradict what is said 
 upon the card, t really do not understand the meaning 
 of language. The card says “ All human beings are 
 good by nature the Bible says the very reverse : the 
 ground is cursed for the sake of man, and if man had 
 not sinned, why make him toil and eat in sorrow ? 
 But, further, the same authority which is quoted by 
 this renownedCatechism,you will find, in the 6th chap- 
 ter of Genesis, contradicts what is said by these Social 
 Reformers. At the 5th verse it is said, ‘' And God saw 
 that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and 
 that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart 
 was only evil continually and a*gain God says, in 
 another part of the same chapter, “ Behold, I will de- 
 stroy them (men) with the earth.” So much for this 
 celebrated principle, “ that all men are good by 
 nature.” 
 
 The Catechism quotes Scripture no less than ten 
 times, and I am bound to believe that these quota- 
 tions are made honestly ; and if a man quotes an au^ 
 thority on his side, it will, of course, be allowed that I 
 should quote the same authority on my side. Passages 
 are introduced from the Psalms, and the book of Psalms 
 is full of declarations of human depravity. In the 
 14th Psalm it is said of men, “ They are all gone aside, 
 they are altogether become filthy ; there is none that 
 doeth good, no not one.” Now, to assert, in the face 
 of this, that “ all human beings are good by nature,” 
 is to give the Bible the lie. Both these principles 
 cannot stand ; and these new notions and nostrums of 
 the Social Keformers will perish, for the book of God 
 must prevail. In quoting Scriptural passages, these 
 ineri have shipped a cargo which must inevitably sink 
 their vessel. Only let us have reference to iVJoses and 
 Isaiah, the Psalmist and the Apostles, and their 
 flimsy principles must be quickly swept awa 3 \ In 
 thje 5th chapter of Romans and the 12th verse, St. 
 Paul says, “ Wherefore, as by one man sin came into 
 the world, and death by sin ; and so death passed upon 
 
7 
 
 all men, for all have sinned.” But I need scarce pur- 
 sue this portion of the subject further. 
 
 I think I have clearly shown that the Scriptures 
 appealed to by the Catechism most decidedly con- 
 tradict the creed of these Social Reformers. I should 
 not have thought of instituting a comparison between 
 the Catechism and the card, but that I found the same 
 respectable name attached to both, and 1 therefore 
 conclude that they have each his sanction and ap- 
 proval. 
 
 But to pursue the subject : — It is said upon the 
 card, “ Ignorance is the only devil in existence.” In 
 the Catechism, in answer to the 19th query, is quoted 
 a passage from the Corinthians, ‘‘ Satan himself is 
 transformed into an angel of light.” jNow, how do 
 these two passages agree ? They are palpable con- 
 tradictions ! “ Vice,” say the Social Reformers, “ is 
 nothing else but ignorance.” A very nice doctrine 
 truly, for all sorts of sinners ; a delicious morsel to roll 
 under their tongue I Let us see whether the Catechism 
 acknowledges vices or not. In reply to the fifth query, 
 “ selfishness ” is denounced. This is certainly a vice, 
 and a very bad one too. The whole reply to the fifth 
 query runs thus: Individual competition and unre- 
 stricted, though mistaken, selfishness, are the obstacles 
 which require to be removed, in order to obtain the 
 legitimate and beneficial purposes of society.” “ They 
 hunt every man his brother with a net. The best 
 man is a brier — the most upright is sharper than a 
 thorn hedge Micah vii. 2, 4. Well, there is not 
 much goodness there ; where the best is a brier, and the 
 most upright sharper than a thorn hedge, there must 
 surely be vice enough. Again, in another part of 
 the Catechism another vice is complained of, viz., 
 “ the overwhelming ascendancy of the love of our 
 money over the love of our neighbour and “the bane- 
 ful selfishness of a few artful capitalists.” ^Jow, the 
 vice of selfishness in this instance cannot be imputed 
 to ignorance, because it is said to be committed by 
 artful men. Again, the 18th query runs thus, “ Can 
 
8 
 
 men who wilfully and knowingly uphold and perpe- 
 tuate a system, which thus tends to impoverish and 
 brutalize mankind, be entitled to be considered honest 
 men or sincere Christians?’’ The reply to this is, 
 “ By no means, for by their fruits shall ye know 
 them.” Now, here are two sins, namely dishonesty 
 as men, and insincerity as Christians, imputed to the 
 vast majority of the people, since they are upholders 
 of the present system ; and in the very next question 
 and answer, the Regenerators go so far as to impute 
 even Satanic hypocrisy to some men as professors of 
 religion ; and yet, remember, it is asserted on the card, 
 that “Vice is nothing else than ignorance.” 
 
 Again, in the reply to the 22nd query, the pre- 
 valence of injurious and immoral habits among the 
 labourers is spoken of ; and thus it here fairly comes 
 out that there is vice. Now, I have certainly no 
 right to be angry with an ignorant man ; but the 
 commission of vice supposes that the party guilty of 
 it has knowledge, and a free will of his own. Thus, 
 you perceive, there is in these documents an utter con- 
 founding of things most essentially different. Ano- 
 ther of the principles stated on the card is: “ Truth 
 leads to virtue and happiness.” This is so very gene- 
 ral and vague, that one scarcely knows how to treat 
 it. If the writer here speaks of all truth, then the 
 assertion is false. There are some truths which men 
 had better not know, and some truths which it would 
 do them no good to know. Does the writer mean the 
 truths of these Social Reformers ? Do they lead to 
 virtue and happiness? Judge for yourselves. One 
 of the truths is, that “ Ignorance is the only devil 
 that exists, or ever did exist.” Or does the writer 
 mean the truths of Christianity ? This certainly can- 
 not be ; for a little lower down he says, “ fc.very 
 religion taught in the world, by the different priests, is 
 founded on error, and in direct opposition to truth 
 and nature.” Now, who would think of quoting from 
 a book of error? And yet in this Catechism there are 
 no less than ten quotations from Scripture to support 
 
9 
 
 the dogmas of these National Regenerators ! It is 
 said that every religion is founded in error, including, 
 of course, the Christian religion in the number, which 
 is founded on the Scriptures : this Catechism, there- 
 fore, which is made to rest on Scripture truths, must be 
 erroneous. The next principle set forth upon the card 
 is, ‘‘ The character of every human being is formed 
 for him, and not by himself.” This is certainly a very 
 curious statement. I suppose the author of this 
 means that the character of a man is formed for him 
 in the same way as is his house or his clothes. What 
 a curious thing a character must be ! and if our cha- 
 racters are made for us, and presented to us, what 
 curious beings we must be ! If this be true, our wills 
 and minds can have nothing to do in the matter ; they 
 must be like clay, or blocks of wood, which may be 
 moulded or carved into any figures we please. But, 
 in this celebrated Catechism, which is to revolutionize 
 the world and the church, I find a great deal said 
 about character. The capitalists, for instance, are 
 condemned for their oppression towards the poor. 
 The evils of society are spoken of; and enormous 
 evils I know there are ; but, then, who is the author of 
 them ? No one can be guilty, since we are told the 
 character of every human being is formed for him. I 
 cannot reproach the drunkard or the thief, for their 
 characters have been formed for them. The man who 
 has stolen my property, may turn round and say, 
 “ Don’t blame me ; it is not my fault, for my cha- 
 racter was formed for me.” This is certainly a very 
 nice doctrine for the vicious ; but is this the way, I 
 ask, to reform the world ; first to teach men that 
 there is no vice, and then to tell them that their cha- 
 racter is formed for them ? If no man’s character is to 
 make him responsible, why is intemperance, on the 
 part of the workmen, or selfishness on the part of the 
 great capitalists, denounced by these National Rege- 
 nerators ? 
 
 But the card goes on to say, “ If the above be 
 true, all those that examine for themselves, will find 
 
10 
 
 every religion taught in the world, by the different 
 priests, is founded on error, and in direct opposition 
 to truth and nature. Hence have followed priestcraft, 
 war, law or injustice, aristocracy, and every drone 
 that exists on the labour of the industrious many.” 
 In the first place, then, there is in this sentence a 
 blow struck at the Christian religion, in common with 
 others. The words law and injustice are coupled 
 together, as though they were synonymous terms. 
 You observe, also, how these Social Reformers 
 would have you treat your poor, aged parents, who, 
 being drones in society, “ exist on the labour of the 
 industrious many.” So much for this part of the 
 subject. 
 
 But as yet I have only been exposing the contra- 
 dictions of these men, and I now proceed to say 
 something of the principles themselves. Any man has 
 his option, he may take the card or the Catechism ; but 
 certainly, if he believe in one, he must necessarily 
 reject the other. If he chooses the Catechism, the 
 authority of the holy Scriptures is admitted, and they 
 condemn the man who does not believe the whole of 
 them. It will not do for a man to pick out certain 
 passages, and say he will believe those and reject all 
 the rest. Having sanctioned the Bible by quoting 
 liberally from it, let him take the whole of it as his 
 guide, and I cannot for a moment suppose that any 
 gentleman of honesty and candour would resort to the 
 artifice of hoisting the standard of Christianity merely 
 to allure away its professors, and then seek to poison 
 them with the blasphemous doctrines contained on this 
 card. Probably the two documents were composed 
 at different periods, and under different circumstances ; 
 but men who tell stories should have good memories. 
 A man should take care how he sanctions a law which 
 may be pleaded against himself. No, no ; we must 
 be either honest infidels or honest Christians. Either 
 Christ was what he represented himself, or he was the 
 greatest impostor that ever lived in the world. If you 
 take a part of the Bible, you must take the whole ; and 
 
11 
 
 if you do this, the first thing a man will learn from 
 that book is to repent of his sins, pray to God for 
 forgiveness, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, unite 
 himself to his church and walk in his commandments, 
 or it will be but mockery. No man who believes the 
 Bible can believe that “ all human beings are good by 
 nature.” But suppose these Social Reformers should 
 say they do not believe the Bible. Well, then, we shall 
 know how to treat them. Let them first of all get 
 this stumbling-block out of the way ; but this they will 
 find extremely difiicult. They have been nibbling at 
 this rock for a long time, but have been unable to shake 
 it. If the doctrines of these men were true, what an 
 easy thing it would be to produce an entire new race 
 of human beings ! Let us suppose that one of the Re- 
 formers takes a little child, say of two years old, per- 
 fectly pure by nature ; if all vice is the result of 
 example, he would only have to cutoff this child from 
 all intercourse with the world, and he must necessarily 
 make an angel of him. Why do not these Reformers 
 attempt a proof of their own principles, by taking, say 
 from fifty to sixty young children, of about a year and 
 a half or two years old, and cut them off from the outer 
 world ? How delightfully they must grow up ! What 
 beautiful little angels they must be at five or six years 
 nld There would, of course, be no scratching or 
 fighting about their playthings, no selfishness in their 
 hearts, nor any display of angry feelings. Now, I 
 know a little of children myself, I have eight of my 
 own, and although 1 have taken the greatest pains 
 with them, I must confess I cannot observe in them 
 any freedom from bad passions or vicious propensities ; 
 and I am persuaded that all human hearts are the 
 same. I do not believe that these fifty or sixty little 
 beings, shut up in their paradise, would come out 
 much better than those who have lived in the outer 
 world, and have been educated in our ordinary schools. 
 They might certainly differ in some few respects ; but 
 when they grow up women and men they would begin 
 to exhibit their natural sinful propensities ; but if the 
 
 LICRARY 
 
 UNIVCRSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 
12 
 
 doctrine of these men be true, where could they have 
 acquired these propensities from ? They should have 
 appeared as pure as Adam before his fall. These 
 people do not believe their own principle, or they 
 would act upon it. 
 
 If T believed there was no natural propensity to evil, 
 I would certainly sacrifice all learning or accomplish* 
 ments for my children, and isolate them from tho. 
 world in order to have them free from sin. I would 
 travel round the world to see a being without sin. But, 
 to proceed : ‘‘ Vice,’’ it is said, “ is nothing else but 
 ignorance.” Now, if a horse kicks me, I may impute 
 it to his ignorance ; but if a man knocks me down in 
 the street, and perhaps robs me into the bargain, can I 
 rationally say, that is on account of his ignorance ? 
 According to this doctrine, I must not discharge my 
 servant if he robs me, or correct my child if it does 
 wrong, because it is ignorance. 
 
 This doctrine, of course, involves the doctrine of 
 irresponsibility ; and if criminals are to go unpunished, 
 what is to become of society ? Or why, if it be true, 
 do we blame each other for vice, or reproach each 
 other for wickedness ? Why do these people them- 
 selves declaim against the selfishness of capitalists, and 
 the intemperance and bad habits of the lower orders ? 
 The only antidote to ignorance is education. Well, 
 let us try this principle upon this ground. Does edu- 
 cation make any alteration for the better in the 
 moral character of individuals ? I think not ; 
 for I believe it will be found that there is as much 
 vice among the educated as among the uneducated. 
 If you fill a man’s head full of knowledge, it is more 
 than probable that you will not find him less vicious ; 
 and if this be the fact, what becomes of this famous 
 proposition of the Social Reformers ? A man is cer- 
 tainly not accountable for his ignorance, if he has not 
 had an opportunity of being instructed ; but this must 
 not be confounded with the declaration that all vice is 
 nothing else but ignorance. This plan would not 
 serve a man in a court of justice, nor would it satisfy 
 
13 
 
 his conscience. Ilis conscience will tell him it is a 
 lie, for every human being is conscious that there is 
 vice in his nature. 
 
 The last principle stated upon the card is, that the 
 character of every human being is formed for him, and 
 not by himself.” I think 1 have almost said enough of 
 this already, and scarcely think it necessary to enlarge 
 on such nonsense. It is a contradiction in terms, and 
 whoever wrote it could have little idea of the meaning of 
 language. There is, to be sure, a character of a horse, but 
 we do notspeak of the character of human beings in that 
 sense. The characters of men are formed by their own 
 free will and consciences. If we were propelled by a 
 kind of animal magnetism, we should not be respond 
 sible to either man or God ; the bonds of society 
 would be rent asunder, and the whole world would be 
 thrown into confusion. The fact is, however, na- 
 ture is stronger than these philosophers. Constant 
 nature, both in them and in us, gives their doctrines the 
 lie; and they would themselves be the very last to 
 put them' into practice. Were a robbery to be at- 
 tempted upon then], they would be glad to avail 
 themselves of wliat they please to call injustice, 
 namely, the laws ot the land, for protection to their 
 property. 
 
 1 he deduclion of the Social Reformers from all 
 these principles is, that “ every religion taught in the 
 world by the different priests is founded on error, and 
 is in direct opposition to truth and nature.” And do 
 they really expect the world to believe this, upon 
 their bare assertion ? Here is a man who professes 
 to be a reformer, and he commences by telling us that 
 all religions, including my own, are founded in error, 
 and I immediately challenge him to the proof. But, 
 O this is a hard tiling ! and yet this they must do 
 before they can proceed a step with their scheme. 
 Many an inlidel has tried to impugn the inspiration of 
 the Scriptures, but without effect. Poor Tom Paine 
 tried it, and made himself a fool by the attempt. 
 Paine, speaking of Christ, where he says, “ Neither 
 
 B 
 
14 
 
 do men put new wine into old bottles, else the bottles 
 burst, and the wine runneth out,” observes, that none 
 but a fool would have uttered such a thing. Now, 
 the fact is, none but a fool would have made such a 
 ridiculous observation as this of Paine’s. In the days 
 of Christ wine was put into skins, although it is trans- 
 lated bottles ; and if new wine had been put into these 
 old skins, they would have burst. So much for these 
 cavillers’ knowledge of scriptural history, and the 
 usages of the times in which the Scriptures were 
 written. They had certainly much better go to school, 
 and acquire a little more knowledge, before they 
 hazard assertions on such important subjects. It is 
 really quite distressing to observe how recklessly they 
 expose themselves to ridicule in their awkward at- 
 tempts. Some of the wisest and best of men of all 
 professions which our country has produced have be- 
 lieved in the Christian faith. Sir Isaac Newton be- 
 lieved in the authenticity of the Scriptures as strongly 
 as in his own astronomy. The learned Bacon, who 
 shed a lustre on the times in which he lived ; Boyle, 
 the restorer of philosophy in our own age ; together 
 with a host of others who have been celebrated for 
 their great knowledge, wisdom, and philosophy, have 
 been believers in the Holy Scriptures. And how 
 many, in their very attempts to refute them, have become 
 convinced of their truth ! I was myself acquainted with 
 a man who possessed considerable knowledge in geo- 
 logy and mineralogy ; he set about very confidently to 
 upset the Mosaic account of the creation ; but, before 
 he had got far, he began to doubt ; and when he had 
 finished, he published his book for the very purpose 
 of proving the truth of the Mosaic account; and yet, 
 notwithstanding all this, it is broadly asserted that 
 “ all religions are founded in error;” and that, too, 
 without any attempt at proof. Rousseau, the rioted 
 infidel, after trying to find fault with the Bible, bore 
 the following testimony to its truth and value in hts 
 famous “ Confessions:” — “ That divine book, the 
 Cospel, the only one necessary to a Christian, and the 
 
most useful of all books to any man, even though he 
 be not a Christian. It needs only to be considered, to 
 fill the soul with love for its author.” 
 
 [Mr. Bedford here proceeded to read several pages 
 from Kousseau’s Confessions, which, having done, he 
 proceeded as follows :] — But the authors of this Cate- 
 chism also speak of Christian virtues and of theneces^ 
 sity of acquiring spiritual knowledge. One reason, in- 
 deed given for the eight-hour projectis, that the men may 
 have leisure to gain religious instruction ; and this pas- 
 sage is quoted, “ What shall it profit a man if he gain 
 the whole world, and lose his own soul ? ” I am glad 
 to find this passage is quoted : it will serve me as a 
 text for the conclusion of my discourse. Although 
 more hours, however, are required from the week to 
 attend to the duties of religion, yet the writer never 
 once calls upon the workmen to attend those duties on 
 the Sabbath-day. This is passed over as though there 
 was no Sabbath. 
 
 These Social Heformers seem to be seized all at once 
 with such a concern for the welfare of men’s souls, 
 that they combine to demand four hours of leisure each 
 day for the workman to attend to religion. But what 
 has he to do with religion, if it be, as they say upon 
 their cards, founded in error ? It is almost blasphemy 
 to connect these Scriptural texts with such principles. 
 What a very singular thing to find such a text as 
 that last quoted, “ What shall it profit a man if he 
 gain the whole world and lose his own soul ? ” in con- 
 nexion with the individual who is the author of the 
 principles I have been exposing ! I am glad, however, 
 that it is here : it cannot be blotted out, and most 
 ardently do I wish these people would live in accord- 
 ance with it; they would then live on better terms 
 with their neighbours, and instead of seeking to found 
 a new sect, would attend more closely to the affairs of 
 their own souls. They will find that it was no part of 
 the commandments of Jesus Christ to form these com- 
 binations, or draw up these Catechisms, and disregard 
 the Sabbath-day. He has commanded us to take his 
 
16 
 
 yoke upon us, and learn of him; and if we would do 
 this, we must search the Scriptures, repent of our 
 ins, pray for forgiveness, unite ourselves to his 
 hurch, and be baptized in the name of the holy trinity. 
 ^Let the inquiry, “ What shall it profit a man if he 
 gain the whole world and lose his own soul ? come 
 home to every man’s heart and conscience. Whether 
 he be one of the artful capitalists or one of the drunken 
 labourers, he has a soul which may be lost. 
 
 The specific object of the regenerators is to obtain 
 for the workman one-half more for his labour than he 
 at present gets. I heartily wish he could get it; 1 
 wish the workmen were well paid for their toil, for 1 
 know this is not the case now, in many instances at 
 least. But they are now to be incited to combine to 
 compel their employer to pay them as much for eight 
 hours’ labour, as he has been accustomed to pay for 
 twelve. And this we are told is to be the foundation 
 of all improvement in society. The increase of wealth 
 among the poor is to be the beginning of national 
 regeneration. Now, 1 think it most likely to lead to 
 an increase of vice. The evils complained of are not 
 in society, but in the human heart, and are to be found 
 alike in rich and poor, high and low. The corrupt 
 heart must be purified, ere we shall see any regenera- 
 tion in the world. Let me remind these philosophers 
 of the command of Christ to his disciples, “ Go ye 
 out into all the world and preach the gospel ; and he 
 that belie veth shall be saved; but he that be- 
 lieveth not shall be damned.” This is our autho- 
 rity for preaching the gospel, and let it but come 
 into contact with man’s sins and prejudices, and 
 then, and not till then, shall we see any thing like re- 
 generation : never will it be brought about by men 
 who teach the people to slight the Sabbath, and who 
 instruct them that all religions are false; this will only 
 make men worse than they are. 
 
 But, to conclude. There may perhaps be some pre- 
 sent, who think it still a question whether the Bible 
 be an inspired book or not, and if so, 1 would just 
 
17 
 
 place before them this alternative : Suppose the Bible 
 be all false, how stand the Christian and the infidel ! 
 V pon equal ground : the Christian will not be one 
 whit the worse off for having believed the Bible to be 
 true. But suppose the contrary to be the case ; that 
 is, that the infidel is wrong, and the Bible true ; how 
 stand the parties then ? The infidel is then con- 
 demned, and becomes subject to all the fearful de- 
 nunciations of that very book which he has neglected, 
 despised, and blasphemed ; whilst the Christian realizes 
 infinitely more joy than he could have conceived whilst 
 here on earth. Thus, you observe, the Christian has 
 greatly the advantage : whichever is right, he is still 
 «)n the safe side. 
 
 I address you all in the spirit of candour. 1 am 
 anxious that the truth only should prevail. I am per- 
 suaded that nothing will be lost by the strictest inves- 
 tigation ; and confident I am that the more a man 
 examines the Bible, the more his faith will be confirmed 
 in the great truths of the Christian religion. 
 
 I now leave these matters to your own private re- 
 flections, and may God incline your hearts to keep his 
 holy laws ! 
 
 B 3 
 
a REPLY, &c 
 
 BY THE REV J. E. SMITH, A.M. 
 
 I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus 
 Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his 
 appearing and his kingdom ; 
 
 Preach the word ; be instant in season, out of season ; 
 reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long-suflPering and doctrine. 
 
 For the time will come when they will not endure sound 
 doctrine ; but after their own lusts shall they heap to them- 
 selves teachers, having itching ears. 
 
 And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and 
 shall be turned unto fables.*' — II. Tim. iv. 1 — 4. 
 
 IIeverend Sir, 
 
 Having been furnished with a copy of your Ser- 
 mon in refutation of the doctrines of the new System 
 of Society, I have taken the liberty of giving it cir- 
 culation by means of the press, appending to it an 
 answer of my own, in a letter addressed to yourself. 
 I do not meet you as an infidel, but as one who 
 acknowledges the standard to which you refer : the 
 whole standard, including the Apocrypha, or excluding 
 it, as you please. I shall give you the choice of your 
 weapons, and without any demur proceed at once to 
 demonstrate that you, and those who assume the 
 name of Christ, are not Christians, but Infidels in 
 disguise ; and that it is much better not to be known 
 by the name of Christ, than to wear the mask of Chris- 
 
19 
 
 tianity, and to make sport of morality and human 
 suffering. 
 
 But, first of all, let us inquire what is a Christian : 
 a follower of ‘‘ The Christ,’’ or an expectant of the 
 Christ ; for one party says he is come, another says 
 not. The Christ is a titular name, like the Pope, 
 and belongs to him who shall fulfil the character ; and 
 to that people, church, or government, which shall 
 follow his example. His character is thus described : 
 “ He shall judge the poor of the people ; he shall save 
 the children of the needy, and break in pieces the 
 oppressor ; be shall deliver the needy when he crieth, 
 the poor also, and him that hath no helper.” The 
 Christ is therefore a person, principle, or system, or 
 all three combined, which shall effect a great political 
 change in behalf of the poor. But where is this per- 
 sonage ? You say he has come 1800 years ago. But 
 this Christ of your’s left the poor in as bad, nay, 
 worse, condition than ever, and every day is adding 
 to their misery. The Christ has therefore not yet 
 come; but “the idol shepherd, that leaveth the 
 flock,” (Zech. xi. 17.) has come ; and he that leaveth 
 the flock, as Jesus himself says, is not the true shep- 
 herd. In other words, an individual has come, who 
 has monopolized the titular name of the Christ to him- 
 self, and has exalted himself, or been exalted by 
 others, above all that is called God, and that is wor- 
 shipped ; and the power of the sword and the sophis- 
 try of the pulpit have been employed “ to compel the 
 people to come in to his marriage-supper,” and 
 acknowledge him to be the Christ, in spite even of 
 the demonstration of their senses. This is the sum 
 and substance of all the achievements of the church 
 militant; without which Christianity would have been 
 merely an isolated little sect. To this first Christ you 
 professedly belong ; under his banners you fight the 
 battles of individualism, and spend all your strength 
 to prove the concentration of infinity within a human 
 being six feet high at most, and twelve inches broad. 
 
 Now, allowing the mission of your first Christ to 
 
20 
 
 be divine, for every thing is divine, and all that occurs is 
 by the providence, not permission, (as superficial men 
 talk,) but express purpose and active power of God, 
 1 say that your Christ is not the Christ ; and so far 
 from the Scriptures proving him to be the Christ, they 
 prove the very contrary ; and therefore those who re- 
 gard him as the true and final Christ are not Christians, 
 but infidels ; men who mistake evil for good, and the 
 oppression of the poor for their deliverance. There are 
 two great Messiahs spoken of in Scripture : the one 
 to bring evil, and the other good; the one for divi- 
 sion, the other for unity. These (Zech. iv. 14.) are 
 called the two anointed ones ; and one of them is 
 called the idol shepherd, that leaveth the flock. An 
 idol is something that people make a god of, you 
 know — an image ; and Jesus is called the image of 
 God, and all the people have worshipped this image. 
 Hence individualism is kept up, and will be kept up 
 as long as this image continues to engross the exclu- 
 sive obeisance of mankind, in opposition to the uni- 
 versal principle of justice to the poor, which “ the 
 Christ’’ implies. 
 
 You know, for you are a clergyman, that Christ has 
 three different meanings in Scripture ; first, it means 
 the carpenter’s son ; this is its individual meaning. 
 Then it means the principle, or doctrine of this indivi- 
 dual. Thus Paul speaks of Christ being formed in us, 
 and being begotten in us, and living in us. He did 
 not mean that the carpenter’s son was to live in us. 
 And again it means the whole church, or Christian sys- 
 tem, government, or population. For Paul says that 
 men are members of the Christ’s body — Christ’s body 
 the church. These two last meanings are its collective 
 meaning; but in neither of the three canyon affirm, 
 without presumption, that the Christ has come. He 
 has not come, in the individual meaning ; for he has 
 left the flock, and not delivered the poor; he lias not 
 come in spirit, for the spirit of the Christ, which deli- 
 vers the poor and the needy, and in whom all the 
 population of the earth is to be blessed, is not to be 
 
f 
 
 21 
 
 found, even among the faithful. He is not come in 
 the government, for the poor are starving. He is not 
 come at all ; and you, who say he is come, must main- 
 tain that he is a tyrant. Y ou say, perhaps, he is come, 
 but evil prevails over him. What evil ? the evil of com- 
 petition, and the unequal distribution of wealth, which 
 you, and the clergy, his ministers, defend ; for you say 
 that an increase of wealth to the poor would only bring 
 an increase of vice ; and advise them to remember that 
 their masters have an interest, as well as they, though 
 Christ has told us to call no man master upon earth. 
 It is not the Christ who has come, neither did the 
 carpenter’s son maintain it ; he said, “ I am not come 
 to send peace, but a sword, and to set a man against 
 his neighbour, &c and he has fulfilled his mission, 
 as the Messiah of individualism and competition. But 
 the Messiah of universalism will terminate his reign, 
 and that is the second coming. If the first Christ 
 were the right one, why should we have a second? 
 Why should the Bible so frequently speak of two : a 
 man of division, and a man of peace ; a scatterer and a 
 gatherer ? and, pray, tell me, when the Messiah comes, 
 will he not fulfil his promise ? Why vaunt so much 
 of destroying the oppressor ? and yet the oppressor 
 treads the poor under his feet when he comes. You 
 say then, the carpenter’s son must be an impostor, 
 if he is not the Christ. I say, no ; I will stand up 
 for the carpenter’s son : he was no impostor ; he ful- 
 filled his office to create strife and individualism ; and 
 now that men have had experience of the evil, univer- 
 salism succeeds, and gathers together into one “ fold ” 
 the scattered tribes of men. But you say, Christi- 
 anity opposes combination and union. Yes, old Chris- 
 tianity, your Christianity, does ; but that is the Chris- 
 tianity of the old serpent. There is only one fold in 
 the true church, and that is a general union. 
 
 Then, who is it that has come ? A man — call him 
 a God- Man if you please, for he is divine — has come, 
 who has taught in mystery the doctrine of the Christ, 
 but without the power to realize, or reduce o prac- 
 
tice any thing' but the very opposite of the moral doc- 
 trine he taught, for he taught it in parable to puzzle 
 the brain, “ That seeing, men might see and not per^ 
 ceive ; and hearing, they might hear and not under- 
 stand,^^ But it is reserved for an age of universalism, 
 when men begin to see the folly of competition and 
 mystical controversy, to realize these morals by prac- 
 tical measures, which preaching and mystery cannot 
 accomplish. You say your master has told you to go 
 and preach the Gospel, and you lay much stress upon 
 this duty. Has he never told you to act and to love ? 
 Yes, but you obey and disobey what you please ; and 
 you have chosen to preach, but refused to do justice 
 and mercy. Your master has told you that the whole 
 duty of man is comprised in two commandments — 
 * ‘ Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart,’’ and “Love 
 thy neighbour as thyself.” And an apostle afterwards 
 very properly reduces these two commandments into 
 one, when he says, “ If a man says, 1 love God, and 
 loveth not his brother, he is a liar ; for if he love not 
 his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God 
 whom he hath not seen ?” Love then, you see, is the 
 foundation of true Christian morality, and love uni- 
 versal in the broadest sense of the word. No com- 
 mon-place love, or what they call philanthropy in 
 this world, but such love as will make you treat your 
 neighbour as you would like to be treated in similar 
 circumstances; to give him what he is in want of 
 when you have it in your possession, not merely when 
 you have it to spare, as the common phrase is ; (for 
 Christians, as well as infidels, have never any thing to 
 spare, even when they are rioting in luxury, and the 
 poor and their helpless children are famishing ;) but to 
 divide your substance with your neighbour, and treat 
 him as another self ; in other words, not only to preach 
 but to practise equal distribution, by sharing the pro- 
 duce of the earth amongst all mankind. Now, Sir, 
 do you preach this doctrine, or do you practise it ? 
 Do your disciples practise it? Are there no poor 
 amongst even your own flock, who are worse fed, 
 
23 
 
 worse clothed, worse sheltered than you are ? And 
 why don't you and the clergy preach it ? Why, 
 because either you are infidels, and do not believe 
 the truth of Christianity, or you are apostates ? What 
 apology can you make for yourselves, except that you 
 want to run with the stream of the old world, to enjoy 
 its prosperity, and leave the cause of the poor to the 
 Devil? who seems at last to have taken compassion 
 upon them ; for he has actually sent his own apos- 
 tles — the infidels — to preach deliverance to the poor, 
 to put to shame hypocrisy and priestcraft. 
 
 Now, recollect I am not opposing the son of Mary's 
 doctrines, or his mission, but defending both; for, as 
 he said that it was necessary that ofl'ences should first 
 come, but wo unto that man by whom they come ; so 
 he himself was destined to introduce the reign of 
 spiritualism and sectarianism, the division of the mind 
 and the affections ; and to suffer for it, as being the oS' 
 tensible cause of the evil. For the Bible teaches you 
 that God must appear in two different characters, first 
 as the author of division, and then as the author of 
 peace and unity. “ He that scattereth Israel shall 
 gather him, and keep him as a shepherd doth his flock." 
 In the first character he suflers, because it is just that 
 the author of political and social disturbance should 
 suft'er. Hence, the Bible says, he bears our sins, that 
 is, the guilt of our sins, and yet calls him a just man ; 
 and so he is, for all men arejustand unjust; thejustice 
 and injustice, though ostensibly committed, are not ori- 
 ginally begotten by the individual ; they are in the great 
 Power that rules the universe, who says of himself, 
 “ I make peace and create evil, 1 stop the ears, 1 shut 
 the eyes, I harden the heart." But as it is ostensibly 
 attributable to the individual, as being the agent, it is 
 ascribed sometimes to him and sometimes not ; on 
 which account the book speaks double, and you 
 pick out single passages, and stuff* the ears of your 
 people with them ; and when the others are adduced 
 against you, you say the Bible cannot contradict 
 itself ; this set of passages must be true, and we 
 
24 
 
 must get over the other hy some sophistry. I say, 
 they are both true. Then, 8ir, which of us two is 
 the greater infidel, 1 or you? Here I try you in 
 the following way : God says, he makes peace and 
 creates evil ; that he is all in all; hardens the heart; and 
 makes men obstinate and perverse, and causes them 
 even to commit crime, &c, (2d Sam. xii. 12.) Then, 
 again, it says that God is not the author of evil, 
 but man is, or the Devil is. Now, Sir, you believe 
 the latter, and not the former. I believe both. But 
 you cannot understand the Bible if you cannot re- 
 concile the two. — There is no final evil in nature. 
 Evil is merely a temporary development of a se- 
 vere physical, moral, and intellectual discipline, for 
 instruction to the human race. The ultimate ten- 
 dency is good. “It is at present not joyous but 
 grievous, but in the end it worketh the peaceable 
 fruits of righteousness.” Even you yourself acknow- 
 ledge, when you correct a child, that you do phy- 
 sical evil, but moral good ; but, refusing to apply this 
 mode of reasoning to the Bible, you launch yourself and 
 others into manifest contradictions, and become an 
 avowed inhdel by rejecting it and preaching against it. 
 Now% Sir, as the tree of knowledge, which you allow is 
 God himself, who is the tree of knowledge, was good 
 and evil, do not you think it reasonable to suppose 
 that he comes two different ways, bringing the evil 
 first, that the good may come and destroy it ? Now 
 the son of Mary said he was not sent with the good ; 
 “ I come not to send peace, but a sword.” Hence 
 another must come to take away the sword and bring 
 peace. This the son of Mary taught, by saying, “ If 
 I go. I will come again on which account you and 
 the rest of self-titled Christians look up to the clouds 
 for his descent, as the Jews looked to thrones of state 
 and ostentatious pomp. Can he not come in another 
 person? Who is the Christ? Is it the flesh and 
 hone, (jT the principle? Is it the flesh, or the spirit? 
 Your book says it is the spirit, because he only is uni- 
 versal. But you say, then, how does the Bible say 
 
25 
 
 there is only one Christ ? That is for you to answer 
 to your flock ; for it also says there are two.* But I 
 will help you to an answer : — The two Christs are one 
 in the same sense as the two images in your two 
 eyes become one. We see every thing double in 
 reality ; but we are sensible only of one image. So of 
 the two churches, or two sticks, or two Christs of the 
 Bible; the Lord says, I will make them one. You 
 evidently do not understand your own text-book, 
 you would not talk such nonsense as you do about the 
 great sin of overturning the first Christianity of the 
 priests, — a church which is dyed red with the blood of 
 men, the church of the sword, the church of division, 
 of mysticism, and of every thing that is evil ; for it is 
 doomed in your own book to perdition, to give way to, 
 or rather to be reformed and swallowed up by , the church 
 of morality, which is introduced by the spirit of liberty,, 
 who is no respecter of persons, and therefore employs 
 atheists, infidels, &c., and finally Jews and Chris- 
 tians, to do his work, to shame the world of professed 
 faith, and show them that all men are equal by nature; 
 that their characters are formed jfbr them, and not by 
 them ; that, as our good thoughts and good actions are 
 not originally attributable to ourselves, so neither are 
 our evil ; for, as the Apostle Paul says, “ It is not we 
 that sin, but sin that dwelleth in us.’’ This is the 
 Scripture doctrine ; and as you have sent forth a 
 challenge, I accept it, and claim the Scriptures — the 
 whole Scriptures — as my counsel and my su[>port, and 
 am willing to stand or fall by them. 
 
 The Christian morality is so well known that it is 
 scarcely necessary for me to adduce it in comparison 
 with the conduct of professing Christians. I have 
 already sh^own you that the fundamental character of 
 Christianiiy is social love — love thy neighbour as 
 thyself — and therefore the Social System is nothing else 
 than practical Christianity ; which you say will prove 
 subversive of order, virtue, and happiness ; but 
 
 * All men become Christs at last. 
 
 c 
 
•26 
 
 which we say shall enable all men to keep the pre- 
 cepts of Jesus Christ, to the very letter. These 
 precepts are peace, the cessation of public and private 
 strife, the end of competition between man and man, 
 the constitution of the human race into one family, 
 where each will regard the interests of the whole, and 
 not merely cater, like a ravenous beast, for himself; 
 where men will not abuse and revile each other, 
 merely to aggrandize themselves, and rise to prosperity 
 upon the ruin of their neighbour ; where Christians 
 shall not hate and devour, persecute and imprison, one 
 another, and suck each other’s life-blood out, by dis- 
 traints, arrests, law-suits, scandal, backbiting, puffing, 
 and imposition ; for the temptation to commit per- 
 sonal injury will be removed, and consequently the 
 evil will cease ; for man will never commit evil with- 
 out a temptation. Hence the Lord’s Prayer says. 
 Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from 
 evil.” The temptation will be removed in a very 
 simple manner, by those very combinations which you 
 say are opposed to your gospel ; for if all the work- 
 ing-men associate together, and do business collec- 
 tively instead of individually, every man would be in 
 comfortable circumstances; for the riches would belong 
 to the public, and each would have a due share, ac- 
 cording to his industry, without being able to raise 
 private capital so as to compete with the society, 
 whose resources would be so immense as to defy 
 single opposition. Hence private capital would not 
 grow as now ; but those who now have the capital 
 would gradually, without any violence, be absorbed into 
 the great body, the private capital always diminishing 
 in value and quantity as the public capital increased. 
 This would put an end to public and private robbery, 
 and all that scheming and shifting by which private 
 individuals accumulate fortunes to themselves, at the 
 expense of honesty and good faith. Then we should 
 have such encouragement given to literature and the 
 fine arts, by means of the concentrated wealth of 
 companies, that every individual would have access 
 
27 
 
 to the finest and the largest libraries and exhibitions 
 that society ever beheld. Men can do little indi- 
 vidually ; but, when combined, they produce splendid 
 results. We have often been accused of savagism in 
 our views and projects ; but never was there a more 
 false accusation made. We want to emancipate the 
 fine arts as well as the gross; they are all in thraldom 
 for want of public encouragement. Private encou- 
 ragement never yet favoured the arts, and never can ; 
 private schools and schools of competition never yet 
 succeeded in well-educating the population, and never 
 can. All private works are insignificant and trifling ; 
 but national works, or v/orks of associated individuals, 
 are great. We have rail- way associations, and bank- 
 ing associations, and gas and water associations, all of 
 which produce more splendid results than any private 
 efforts could ; and we have only to extend the princi- 
 ple, and teach the working-men to follow the example 
 of their masters, and then we shall see society re- 
 stored. But you say Christianity is opposed to such 
 combinations ; then why don’t you preach against rail- 
 way companies and gas companies; and endeavour, if 
 possible, to bring men back to perfect individualism 
 again ? But, no ! you won’t preach against masters ; 
 the poor are the scape-goats, and all moral, intellec- 
 tual, and physical evil is with them ; they are the 
 rogues and vagabonds : they are the ignorant, illiterate 
 fools : they are the ragged, raw* boned wretches which 
 insult humanity. They must not combine; your 
 Christianity gives no scope to them ; for your’s is the 
 first Christianity — the Christianity of division, of fire, 
 and of the sword. Well, we may rejoice that there is 
 another stage to come, and that stage is ^br the poor, 
 for the publicans, and the harlots, and the sinners, for 
 the base things of this world, for things that dre despised ; 
 and not for those in comfortable circumstances, who 
 have no desire to change. 
 
 Now, taking all these things into consideration, 
 and especially the moral precepts of Christ, will you 
 
 c 2 
 
28 
 
 answer the following question which I now put ? Arc 
 you a Christian, a follower of the Prince of Peace 
 and of Unity ? Remember, it is a serious question ; 
 beware of hypocrisy; make no false pretences ; trust 
 not in a name; for the Lord judgeth not asman judgeth; 
 the Lord looketh to the heart, “ and hypocrites and 
 liars shall have their portion in the lake that burneth” 
 Are you a Christian ? If you reply, yes, then I say 
 you have got a marvellous deal of presumption, a vast 
 deal more than we have got. Heaven, according to 
 your and the clergy’s teaching, seems to be got by 
 assuming a false name, and putting on a face of effron- 
 tery. The Christian spirit, if you had it, would enable 
 you to keep the commandments of Christ, which you 
 despise. It would enable you to give unto every one 
 •that asketh, and from him that would borrow of you 
 to turn not away. And it would not confine this love 
 to your own children, or your relatives, sect, or party, 
 or give more to them than to others ; but it would ex- 
 tend your beneficence alike to all men, for if you love 
 them that love you, what do ye more than others? do 
 not even the publicans the same ? And if ye lend to 
 them of whom ye hope to receive, what thanks have 
 ye ? for sinners also lend to sinners to receive as much 
 again. But love ye your enemies and do good, and 
 lend, hoping for nothing again Do you follow this 
 counsel ? know you any one that follows it? in other 
 words, know you a Christian? — not one; they are 
 all hypocrites; “they are all gone out of the way, 
 there is none righteous, no not one and yet you ex- 
 pect to get into heaven by despising these precepts ! 
 Why may not also the infidels get into heaven by 
 despising the faith? Are you a Christian, or is it 
 merely a nickname that you have taken ? You will 
 neither keep these precepts yourself, nor allow others 
 to keep them ; for when we propose to enable man to 
 keep them, you teach your flock to resist us, and pre- 
 vent the execution of our purpose. When Jesus 
 Christ was asked, if he was the Christ, he had 
 
29 
 
 ^arcely the courage to say so, for he was only the 
 first Christ — the individual or type, and he charged 
 his disciples to tell no man that he was the Christ : 
 but his pretended followers have acquired this courage 
 in proportion as they have departed from the beauty 
 of Christianity. Ye shall know them by their 
 fruits,’^ and 1 know you all very well ; and if I am 
 not your judge, I will be your accuser. Yet, in 
 accusing you, I also accuse myself ; for I am no 
 better. 1 am no Christian ; I wish I were one ; but 
 I would rather be an infidel than become a hypocrite. 
 Yet I am no infidel. What am I then ? A creature 
 suspended between faith and doubt, between hope 
 and fear. What are you ?— a Christian, I suppose ; 
 then so am I, and as good as you. 
 
 Having brought you and myself, and all other men, 
 to an equality, for we are all rogues together, and the 
 wickedness of man is great on the earth, as you 
 observe, I shall now show you that you are equally 
 deficient in respect to faith. What is faith ? “ Faith 
 is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of 
 things not seen,” and it is always directed to one great 
 and final result — the destruction of the evils of society ; 
 or, in other words, it is an anticipation of the regene- 
 ration of society, or the coming of the Christ univer-^ 
 sal ; that is, the spirit of liberty, and social and frater- 
 nal feeling. “ Where the spirit of the Lord is, there 
 is liberty “ I will pour out my spirit on all flesh.” 
 rhis faith of the Christ universal, or the social feeling, 
 you reject ; but you receive the faith of the Christ in- 
 dividual, that is, the unsocial feeling ; and although 
 you have had sufficient experience of the insufficiency 
 of the Christ individual to save mankind, either by 
 his death, or his resurrection, you, in opposition to 
 common sense and experience, maintain that men art 
 saved. Are you not an infidel ? And are not the infi- 
 dels Christians ? You reject the Christ wmversa/; they 
 reject the Chn^iindividual ; you are both infidels, 
 and ought to unite by receiving each other’s Christ, 
 
 c 3 
 
30 
 
 and joining hands. That is what you shall and must 
 do, kick and spur as you please; and until you do it 
 you will be beat, you will be buffeted, tormented, and 
 spend your strength in abusing and reviling each 
 other, till at last, wasted and worn out, like the two 
 knights that fought about the colour of a statue, which 
 was black on one side and white on the other, each 
 party only seeing one of the sides, and maintaining the 
 accuracy of his own eyesight and the error of his 
 neighbour’s, you shall fall down in mutual defeat, 
 and at last acknowledge, upon a more calm inspec- 
 tion, that both are right and both are wrong. 
 
 I say. Sir, There is no faith in the world. 
 All men are infidels, and all men are hypocrites, 
 and all men are selfish rogues and scoundrels — mere 
 devils, backbiters, slanderers, full of avarice, lust, 
 prejudice, bigotry, envy, jealousy, falsehood, low 
 cunning, cruelty, and, if there is any other degrading, 
 contemptible quality, add it to the list, for we all 
 have it; and these wretches are Christians ! Christ’s 
 body, the church ! My God, what a corrupt body 
 thou hast got! No, Sir ; Christ is not yet crucified ; 
 the Christ individual is crucified in body, but that is 
 merely a type ; for how can the blood of man redeem 
 the world, any more than the blood of bulls and 
 calves ? There is another, a second and last cruci- 
 fixion, a spiritual crucifixion, as your book tells you ; 
 and that is the crucifixion of the old Christ's spirit of 
 division and strife^ the shedding of the blood, or the cor- 
 ruption of the old church, that a new church may rise 
 out of it, like Christ from the tomb. Do you un- 
 derstand me, or is the spirit of darkness still upon 
 you? But, whether you understand it or not, others 
 will, and, from this day henceforth, it shall not cease 
 to be forced into their ears, until the people rise up as 
 one man, and cry, Away with him 1 away with him ! 
 crucify him I crucify him 1 crucify the church, the 
 the Christ of division, of the sword, andof blood, and 
 Jet us have the man of peace! If no other Judas can 
 
31 
 
 be found, I shall become a Judas to betray the old 
 God, for Satan has entered into me.* 
 
 You of the old faith, then, are infidels, and the in- 
 fidels of the social faith are Christians: but you are 
 only half-formed, both of you; you must join hands, 
 you rogues, and make the two Christs, the two 
 churches, one. 
 
 What did Abraham, your father, look for? Was 
 it not the Social System, in which all the nations of 
 the earth were to be blessed? But you say “ we 
 cannot regenerate nations, we can only regenerate in- 
 dividuals.” Right, well said ! I told you you be- 
 longed to the first Christ, the Christ of individualism, 
 and that you have no faith in the promise of univer- 
 salism. Now, my friend, have you ever produced 
 one single Christian with all your preaching ? Do 
 you know one single individual who can stand the 
 test of Christianity given above ? Have you not had 
 sufficient experience of the inefficiency of preaching 
 already ? Men have never yet attempted to regenerate 
 nations, yet you presume to say it is impossible ; and, 
 in perpetuation of an old system of folly, which has 
 been productive of the most ruinous evils, you still 
 keep up the outcry of preach ! preach ! in opposition 
 to a world of experience. See to what absurdities 
 your apostacy and infidelity have brought you ; you 
 are actually setting your face against the universal 
 establishment of Christianity, by upholding indivi- 
 dualism, or that vicious first-born system of nature 
 which is doomed to everlasting perdition. 
 
 But priests were always the enemies of truth and 
 Justice, as you yourself must acknowledge, for the 
 Bible says so. Their universal character throughout 
 the book is a bad one. “ The priests teach for hire, 
 
 * That is, the serpent. Be ye wise as serpents, and 
 harmless as doves.” It was a serpent that led the children 
 of Israel through the wilderness, for Moses* rod was a ser- 
 pent. The serpent is the representative of science, or the 
 movement principle of human society. 
 
32 
 
 and the prophets divine for money.” The law shall 
 perish from the priests.” There is no good thing said 
 of the priesthood, from the beginning to the end of the 
 book ; but, speakingof the New System, it says, “ I 
 will clothe her priests with salvation^ (a rarity !) and 
 her saints shall shout aloud for joy ; 1 will abundantly 
 bless her provision, and satisfy her poor with 
 BREAD.” This has yet to be fulfilled ; and, as all 
 reformations begin with the people, and /lever with the 
 priests, so we see the dawn of this happy change 
 already, and the priests, quite in character, raising up 
 the war-cry of opposition against it. The movement 
 spirit belongs to the people. The priests, the rulers, 
 and all that are settled in life, or bound down by 
 creeds and antique institutions, have the stationary 
 spirit, and require, as John Calvin hath it, “ to be 
 goaded onward like a slow and dull ass.” Then how 
 is it contrary to Scripture to say that all the religions 
 of the world, taught hy priests, are founded in error ? 
 
 You say it is impossible to regenerate nations. 1 
 say it is not impossible ; and that the individual can 
 never be regenerated by any other means. You say 
 that the heart must first be changed. What do you 
 mean by that ? Is it to be changed by conviction and 
 reflection ? or is an angel from heaven to come down 
 and pull out the old heart, and put in a new one ? 
 And suppose he did, what difference would it make? 
 Would a good heart submit to poverty, nakedness, 
 drudgery, and slavery, with patience and meekness ? 
 Is this what you call a good heart ? Then you do 
 not need to go to heaven for it ; you will get plenty 
 of such hearts in the brute creation. A good heart 
 would resist oppression immediately, and seek deli- 
 verance to the poor. Do you deny this ? Then why 
 does it say of the Christ, when he comes, that he shall 
 break in pieces the oppressor ? Do you believe this ? 
 You say, “ we ought not to pick out one passage, 
 and say, I believe this, and reject others.” I hope 
 you will follow this advice, and acknowledge that 
 THE Christ is not the man to sit patiently under the 
 
33 
 
 yoke of oppression, and bear the supercilious pride 
 and contempt of the lofty. He is not so patient as 
 the son of Mary was, who came to give countenance 
 to oppression, by abject submission and humility, 
 which is the office of the first Christ, the God of the 
 old world. The Christ raises his voice against it, and 
 subdues it without any weapons of war. The resist- 
 ance of the people, then, against oppression, is a proof 
 of the goodness of their hearts. Their hearts are being 
 changed already ; they have hitherto been patient 
 under the tuition of the priests ; now they see that 
 the priests are the ministers of the old God, and they 
 are determined no more to imitate the example of the 
 first Christ, but to clothe themselves with the spirit of 
 resistance, which is the character of the true Christ, 
 who feeds the poor and humbles the mighty. And do 
 not you think that, when poverty shall cease, and edu- 
 cation become general, and the people are well clothed 
 and sheltered, and provided with sufficient mental and 
 bodily recreation, that there shall be less crime? I 
 am sorry to say you do not. “ The increase of wealth 
 amongst the poor,” you say, “ is more likely to 
 lead to an increase of vice.” Then it must be very 
 cruel in God Almighty to promise that “ He will 
 satisfy the poor with bread.” This, according to your 
 doctrine, is a promise of the devil. Oh, Redford, 
 Redford ! how long will Satan blind thee to the truth ! 
 You see to what absurdities men are led when once 
 they begin to abandon the faith. 
 
 As long as poverty and inequality exist, there must 
 be an accumulation of moral evil of every description ; 
 for poverty is the main cause of all the violence and 
 outrage of society, which are the only species of crime 
 that is thought deserving of the vengeance of the 
 magistrate. The rich are never called to the criminal 
 bar, for they are never tempted to commit violence. 
 The system commits it for them. Were you travelling 
 alone, in a solitary way, and met a man in ragged, 
 dirty clothes, would you not say to yourself, “This 
 man is a dangerous character” ? But were you to meet 
 
34 
 
 a fine, well-dressed, clean person, would you not say 
 to yourself, “ This is a gentleman ; I am safe” ? 
 acknowledging by these very feelings that the circum- 
 stances of the individual are the principal causes of 
 good and evil, in respect to his behaviour as a member 
 of civil society. Yet you acknowledge that the edu- 
 cated and the uneducated are both alike, in respect to 
 vice. If so, you must acknowledge that the whole 
 system is radically wrong, since justice, as it is called, 
 only takes hold of the poor man’s vice, and suffers 
 the rich man’s vice to walk at large, and enjoy re- 
 spectability ; nay, it countenances it by law, and pro- 
 vides him with deeds, warrants, executions, and all 
 other rights and privileges, to commit it. Is it notan 
 infamous thing, this law ? and does not St. Paul well 
 describe it when he says that “ law entered that sin 
 might abound ; for where there is no law, there is no 
 transgression.” But, perhaps, you allude to other 
 vices of the rich and educated, their profligacy, idle- 
 ness, &C; Then, why oppose a system that will cure 
 this profligacy and idleness, by giving them employ- 
 ment ? In doing so, do you follow St. Paul’s counsel, 
 who says, “ If a man will not work, neither should 
 he eat” ? 
 
 Poverty is the source of direct crime; and even the 
 Bible teaches this doctrine ; for Agur, in his prayer 
 to God, says, “ Give me neither poverty nor riches, 
 lest I be full, and forget thee, and say, who is the 
 Lord ? or lest I be poor, and put forth my hand to 
 steal.” From this prayer of Agur you might easily 
 deduce, if you had a Christian spirit, the doctrine of 
 equality ; for both riches and poverty are condemned 
 as pernicious; which is the doctrine of the New Social 
 System, which proposes to realize the prayer of 
 Agur, by an approximation of the two extremes of 
 society. But you say, “ an increase of wealth to the 
 poor would be more likely to bring an increase of vice.” 
 Are you not an infidel ? Go and follow your own 
 counsel, which says, “We must either be honest 
 Christians or honest infidels.” 
 
35 
 
 You have laboured hard in this discourse of yours to 
 prove the inconsistency of those who propose to rege- 
 nerate society, and seem to think that, by detecting 
 their inconsistencies, you establish your own con- 
 sistency. But you are also full of incongruities ; 
 your practice is the reverse of your profession : and 
 your principles are merely an Epicurean concourse of 
 atoms. In condemning other men’s opinions, you have 
 merely been condemning your own Scriptures. No 
 doubt^ you think it very stupid for men to affirm that 
 is^norance is the only Devil ; do you not know that the 
 Devil is the Prince of Darkness, and that ignorance is 
 intellectual darkness ? and does not the Bible say 
 that “ Men are sanctified by the truth, and alienated 
 from the life of God by the darkness of the understand- 
 ing and the ignorance that is in them”? You say, if 
 a horse kicks you, you may impute it to his ignorance ; 
 but if a man knocks you down, you cannot impute his 
 crime to ignorance. But what is the cause of crime? 
 The unequal distribution of property ; that is, the riches 
 of the great, create the crimes of the poor : the rich, 
 then, are the true, the original, source of crime; and 
 were it not for their ignorance they would constitute 
 society anew, and prevent crime. Ignorance is the 
 original source of crime, for it prevents men from see- 
 ing the true system of society — the moral system. 
 
 “ All human beings are good by nature,” is another 
 of your eyesores ; yet the Bible declares that all nature 
 as it came from the hand of God was good. Man was 
 made in the image of God or nature, that is, good or evil 
 according to circumstances. The Psalmist says of God, 
 “ to the froward he will show himself froward ; and to 
 the upright he will show himself upright.” He is also 
 a God of love and a God of jealousy, — so is man ; 
 good originally and ultimately ; but bad when under 
 the training of adverse circumstances ; which is quite 
 natural, and quite like God himself, who is froward 
 among froward folks, and a radical at the last, for he 
 says, “ I will break in pieces the oppressor.” There 
 is no radical evil in the passions, it is only the injus- 
 
36 
 
 tice of society that corrupts them ; hence, men or chil- 
 dren cannot be reformed individually like your “ fifty 
 or sixty experiment,’’ but collectively, by changing 
 society, and producing a perpetual action of good and 
 always improving circumstances. But nature was 
 changed, you say, after man had eaten the apple — In- 
 deed ! The whole of nature? Were the sharks not 
 made with enormous jaws and sharp teeth to devour, 
 before man ate the apple? Were there no carnivorous 
 animals then ? Did hawks not devour sparrows, nor 
 sparrows caterpillars, nor one species of vermin destroy 
 another, before Adam and Eve ate the apple ? There 
 must have been a wonderful change certainly pmduced 
 by this said apple, which, no doubt, was only a crab 
 or wild apple, since there were then no improved gar- 
 den apples. Now, it appears to me that the Scriptures 
 rather approve of this action of eating the apple; it 
 was a very fortunate occurrence. In the first place, it 
 was fortunate, because it was the fruit of knowledge, 
 without which man is a mere brute ; hence the Gods'* 
 acknowledge, after man had eaten, “ Now the man is 
 become as one of us, to know good and evil.” “ He is 
 now in the right path of education, and by first know- 
 ing the evil and then the good, will become as a god 
 like ourselves.” If he had not eaten this apple, what 
 sort of fools must we all have been ! for it is evident, 
 however innocent man was, — and how could he be other 
 than innocent, when he was newly made ? — he was a 
 very great fool and simpleton; he had none of the wisdom 
 of the serpent in him, and could not get the wisdom 
 of the serpent until he went into the serpent’s school ; 
 which he did to the great regret of the pious, but the 
 delight and satisfaction of those who love knowledge. 
 
 * The gods/’ is the true translation ; but I do not deny 
 the unity of God or Nature, notwithstanding. The two 
 doctrines are perfectly reconcilable, as the Trinitarians 
 themselves acknowledge, although there are more than three 
 persons in the godhead. The Bible says God has seven 
 spirits. The church will only allow him one — a very short 
 allowance, and quite unscriptural as well as scriptural. 
 
37 
 
 But you say the ground was cursed for the evil he 
 committed ; I say the ground was cursed ‘‘ for his 
 sake/’ as the book says : the meaning of which is, 
 man being ignorant by nature, and capable of acquir- 
 ing useful knowledge by experience only, it is neces- 
 sary to curse the ground to make him work. If we 
 supply with every thing “ at hand,” he will always be 
 indolent, he will never acquire experience, therefore, 
 in order to make man an industrious, scientific being, 
 let us curse the ground “ for his sake.” This curse is 
 a blessing ; we should have been mere savages without 
 it, and could never become as gods.” And pray, how 
 could redemption have taken place, which, you say, 
 exalts the character of deity so much, if what you call 
 the fall had not taken place before it ? In fine, take any 
 view of the fall you choose, it was a step in progress, 
 through which it was necessary man should come to 
 enjoy that good which arises from the knowledge of 
 evil — physical, moral, and intellectual evil — without 
 the knowledge of which, we cannot become “ divine.” 
 How then is human nature evil, when it is going on the 
 right course to perfection? The evil is not in human 
 nature, but in the circumstances in which it is placed ; 
 which circumstances are only evil for the present, but 
 working out deliverance in future by the experience 
 they convey : so that all nature is radically good, as 
 your Bible says, “ And God saw that it was good.” 
 But a manifestation or development of what we call 
 evil, is produced by the native ignorance of man ; out of 
 which he gradually works and delivers himself, by the 
 discovery of truth, and the establishment of order and 
 justice, to which you give your decided opposition, by 
 defending the “ good old ways” of ignorance, inequa- 
 lity, and competition. 
 
 All has been and is right ; and now it is right to de- 
 stroy the old system, for men are sick of it, and have got 
 a glimpse of the new^ ; and it is also right in you to resist 
 as long as you do not see the truth, for men must act 
 conscientiously ; we are both justifiable in attacking 
 each other, “ if sincere ;” but truth will prevail. I he 
 
 ]> 
 
38 
 
 book is evidently a riddle, but it is easily unriddled by 
 a liberal mind. If you are free, you will hear the 
 truth ; and a sufficient reply to your view of the 
 fall of man is found in the reply of the gods, after man 
 had eaten : “ Now the man is became as one of us.*’ 
 If it was a fall, it was a fall upwards. 
 
 You say, “the evil is not in the system, but in the 
 heart.” Every man who studies nature must know 
 that the heart and the system re-act upon each other. 
 The system is produced by man, no doubt; but was 
 it not produced by ignorant man ? For the system of 
 competition is the first and only system which has 
 been established. Then it must be a bad system, for 
 it is the first system, the system of ignorance. But 
 you say we must change the heart, before we change 
 the system. True, my friend, we must. We must 
 convince men that a bad system is bad ; for men’s 
 hearts are so depraved, so stupid, and so full of pre- 
 judice, that they call evil good, and good evil. But 
 why do you oppose yourself to the changing of the 
 heart? We have already convinced many, that the 
 system is bad ; and their hearts are so far changed as 
 to see the necessity of a new system ; and when it 
 comes, it will have a favourable re-action on the heart, 
 and the heart again on the system, and the system 
 again on the heart ; and thus, there will be a perpetual 
 and growing renovation both of heart and system. 
 But you say, no ; “ Let us stand still, and see the sal- 
 vation of God.” You have the stationary principle 
 of nature ; not that principle of which Paul speaks, 
 when he says, “ work out your own salvation.” If 
 men keep up old ways, how shall we ever get better 
 circumstances? You must have a very erroneous 
 notion both of God and nature, if you deny the simple 
 and natural action and re-action of the human heart 
 and the system of society on each other ; but the 
 people are the movement party, the voice of God — 
 the stream that will carry you down in spite of 
 all your oars. 
 
 What is it, that makes the son of a savage a sa 
 
39 
 
 vage ? — the circumstance of his birth. Why are you 
 a Christian, and not a Mahometan, or a Jew, or a pro- 
 fessed infidel ? You may find out that by reflecting 
 on past combinations of circumstances of birth, educa- 
 tion, circle of acquaintances, personal interests, ner- 
 vous affection, &c., all of which demonstrate that 
 man’s character and faith are the effect of circum- 
 stances, over which he has little or no power. Now, 
 were society moralized by a system of equality and 
 justice, so as to remove temptation to fraud and vio- 
 lence, would not the spirit of fraud and violence gra- 
 dually die ? If not, then why pray to God ‘‘ lead us 
 not into temptation ?” By thisj you acknowledge in 
 prayer what you deny in preaching, that temptation is 
 the cause of evil actions ; for you say, we cannot rege- 
 nerate nations, Vve cannot remove temptations, we can 
 only enable men to resist them. Good God^ what a 
 doctrine ! What a hell you would make the world, 
 if you had the making of it; but the world is not so 
 absurd as to be long deluded by such a doctrine, and 
 the Bible is not so foolish as to teach it; for it acknow- 
 ledges temptation to be the cause of crime, and this 
 temptation is the riches of one man, and the poverty of 
 another. “ Give me not poverty,” says Agur, “ lest 
 I put forth my hand and steal.” You say, no; let 
 poverty continue, but teach the people to resist the 
 temptation ; for “ an increase of wealth to the people, 
 must bring an increase of vice.” 
 
 You seem to go upon the presumption, that because 
 you are called a Christian, the Bible must defend you, 
 in preference to the infidels. It is a mere presump- 
 tion. “ God’s ways are not as man’s ways, nor his 
 thoughts as his.” “ The wisdom of this (old) world 
 is foolishness with God.” “ Publicans and harlots 
 shall go into the kingdom of God before the self- 
 righteous,” that is, those who call themselves right- 
 eous. Do not you know, that Jesus always con- 
 demned the religious world, because they made a 
 profession of virtue, without being virtuous ? He 
 therefore preferred the honest publicans and sinners ; 
 
 D 2 
 
40 
 
 and the Pharisees were astonished and offended at hfe 
 eating with the sinners. Who are the Pharisees of 
 modern times ? those who profess to be religious, or 
 those who do not ? I have sufficiently demonstrated 
 that those who do profess are false professors, and 
 have none of the true spirit of Christianity in them. 
 I defy you to produce a Christian. Then, pray, by 
 what right do you call yourselves Christians? By 
 the right of self-election and presumption. The intidek 
 are honest men ; but Christians, what are they ? 
 
 As I have already said, you go upon the supposi- 
 tion that the whole Bible supports you through thick 
 and thin : it supports you in nothing ; for it contains 
 the doctrines of the old world and the new, which are 
 opposed to each other. You pick out the former for 
 yourself, because you admire the old world ; but I 
 pick out the new, for I admire the new. In respect 
 to the formation of character, of course, you think it 
 in your favour ; and you say that man is the former of 
 his own character. Then why is he bad by nature, as 
 you teach, and unable to cure himself? “There is 
 none righteous, no not one.’’ “ They are all gone out 
 of the way.” True, very true ! for the whole systeni 
 is bad ; but what is the use of telling him so, if he can- 
 not change, and come into the way again, by creating 
 new circumstances to make favourable impressions on 
 his nature ? Man is not only the creature of circum- 
 stances, but the creator of circumstances, and thus 
 his character is formed for, and by himself;^ but in 
 the first instance, it is formed entirely for him at birth 
 and during infancy, as it depends on the character and 
 circumstances of his parents, and during life it is also 
 at the disposal of a foreign power ; and this your own 
 Bible says, when it teaches that God hath mercy on 
 whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he har- 
 
 * But even when we call man the creator of circum- 
 stances, we must remember that he creates by means, or as 
 the instrument, of a foreign power ; so that man is altogether 
 an effect, and not a first cause. By denying this doctrine^ 
 you make man equal to God Almighty. 
 
41 
 
 deneth, shutting their eyes and stopping their ears, as 
 he pleases. Our good or evil comes directly from his 
 will and power in the influence of circumstances ; but 
 when he wants to change these circumstances, how 
 will he act ? he will act by man, certainly. Man will 
 be moved upon to change them, that the heart may be 
 changed ; but when this movement takes place, you 
 oppose it; you adhere to the old system, and, conse- 
 quently, to the old heart which accompanies it. Per- 
 haps you imagine that, if God wants to change the 
 system, he will begin by the priests. What a pre- 
 sumption 1 and where can you find your authority for 
 it in the Bible? On the contrary, it is said, that the 
 new system will begin by publicans and harlots. For 
 God hath chosen the base things ; and things that are 
 despised hath God chosen but you think otherwise, 
 for you say you would not even have alluded to the 
 subject of the New System, had it not been for the 
 mention of a certain respectable name connected with 
 it ; a clergyman, you mean, I suppose ; not one of the 
 base things, the infidels — the things that are despised. 
 Oh, Bedford, Bedford 1 this Bible of yours cuts you 
 to the marrow. I seek no other book but the Bible to 
 turn the priesthood inside out. I acknowledge its in- 
 spiration even to a letter. 
 
 Again ; in respect to responsibility, you have been 
 grasping at a shadow. We do not deny the responsi* 
 bility of nature, any more than you ; folly will always 
 be accompanied by its rod of chastisement; punish- 
 ment attends every species of evil : drunkenness, de- 
 bauchery, ignorance, falsehood, and every species of 
 vice, will be followed by their corresponding punish- 
 ment. 1 1 is evident that you either know not the doc- 
 trines which you impugn, or you willingly misrepre- 
 sent them. We do not oppose the punishment of 
 crime in old society for as long as the old system lasts, 
 its whole mechanism must last ; but we assert that 
 man may be cured without such punishment, by merely 
 doing him justice, by destroying individualism and 
 selfish competition, and putting men in a condition to 
 
 D 3 
 
42 
 
 keep the commandment — “ Love one another/’ which 
 all the eloquence of the priesthood has been unable 
 to effect. Will men steal from each other if they have 
 plenty of their own, and have their minds cultivated 
 with good education, moral and scientific ? Will they 
 fight duels, and quarrel about paltry family distinc- 
 tions and private rights, when families are equalized, 
 and hereditary privileges destroyed ? Will they fight 
 at all when individualism, the cause of war, is at an 
 end, — when war is publicly denounced as a curse, and 
 the weapons of war consigned to the furnace, and 
 stigmatized with public infamy ? No, Sir. But you 
 and your brethren encourage men to fight, by repro- 
 bating other men who are as good as yourselves, but 
 who merely differ upon some abstract speculations. 
 You nursle the spirit of division and rancour by blow^ 
 ing the coals of sectarianism, and for ever keeping out 
 of view the fundamental doctrine of all religions—^ 
 social equality — “ Love thy neighbour as thyself.” 
 
 “ The Bible condemns,” you say, “ those who do 
 not believe it all.” Then you must be condemned, for 
 you only believe one half of it, and that the worse 
 half. You say that man is responsible to God for his 
 actions. True ; 1 have already acknowledged it ; and 
 the effect invariably follows the cause. But you are 
 uot content with this just and immediate retribution ; 
 it is not sufficient for your gothic genius; you must 
 dig fearful pits, and fill them with brimstone, before 
 you can do justice to thieves, and liars, and infidels ; 
 and you believe that ail infidels and hypocrites shall be 
 tossed in these sulphuric flames for ever. Very well I 
 I admire your faith, and the amount qf it ; but let me 
 tell you, notwithstanding, that you are not following 
 your own counsel, “ not to select passages here and 
 there, and say, 1 believe these ; for the Bible condemns 
 all those who do not believe the whole.” Does 
 not the Bible say, “that God is the saviour of all 
 men ; that all flesh shall see the salvation of God ; that 
 the free gift hath passed upon all men to justification 
 of life ; that, as in Adam ail died, so in Christ shall 
 
43 
 
 all be made alive”? You do not believe these pas- 
 sages, of course. You believe the threats, but not the 
 promises. You cannot do without a hell : the church 
 could have no foundation to stand upon. And 
 though you are told that “ mercy shall finally triumpli 
 over judgment,” you stoutly deny it, for otherwise 
 men would have no fear of God, and fear is a most 
 important part of your system, although your text- 
 book says that “ perfect love casteth out fear.” The 
 fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, but love 
 is the end of it; for fear is the old world, and love is 
 the new. No wonder you stand up for fear, for you 
 are the minister of the God of this world. 
 
 But this hell, this redoubted hell, with which you 
 frighten the people, is but a bugbear, as your own 
 book will tell you ; it is a place of consolation and 
 good cheer. Ezekiel (xxxi. 10) says that the people, 
 after being cast into hell, are comforted in the 
 nether parts of the earth. And the Prophet Isaiah 
 describes the burning pitch, which smoketh for ever 
 and ever, as a place of comfort for living creatures. 
 According to the oriental and prophetic style of speech, 
 these creatures, owls, satyrs, cormorants, &c., are 
 men, who, in the old world, are the wildest of all ani- 
 mals, the fiercest of ail satyrs. In hell they shall enjoy 
 all the pleasures of love ; and there the wilderness and 
 the solitary place shall be glad for them, and the desart 
 rejoice and blossom as the rose. Compare the thirty- 
 fourth and thirty-fifth chapters, and you will find that 
 hell is a place of happiness. 'I'he translators have 
 disjoined the two chapters^ and thus deceived the 
 people ; but the meaning of the whole description is 
 evident ; namely, that hell is nothing else but a philo- 
 sophical metonymy for the electric fire of nature, in 
 which man always lives, and must live for ever. 
 “ Ahy Lord God, they say of me, doth he not speak 
 parables? f But you do not believe all this. No ; it 
 
 t The doctrine of eternal punishment is a beautiful spiri 
 tual doctrine, and means the eternal destruction of evil. 
 
44 
 
 is too merciful for a parson to credit. It is not doing 
 justice to thieves and hypocrites, and covetous, and 
 slanderers, and backbiters, to give them such a lucky 
 escape. They must have a broiling. You would not 
 think so, if you were handed over to the Devil, even 
 for six months, for refusing to keep Jesus Christ’s 
 commandment — “ Give unto every one that asketh ; 
 and from him that would borrow of thee, turn not 
 thou away.” Yet “ he that breaketh the least of his 
 commandments, is guilty of them all.” What hope 
 hast thou then, my brother? Thou hast a back door 
 to get out, I know. 1 also am trained in the school of 
 old divinity, and know all the highways and byways 
 that lead to Paradise. Thou hast faith, if thou hast 
 not works ; thou acknowledgest that an infidel’s moral 
 character may be as good as thine ; but thou hast 
 faith, and he has none. Thou hast faith, hast thou ? 
 And so has the Devil ; he believes in God, and quotes 
 the Scriptures, and puts on the appearance of an angel 
 of light. And Paul says, hxs ministers do the same. 
 But how much faith have you got ; and how much is 
 necessary to your admittance? Have you got so 
 
 There are two great principles in nature, which we denomi- 
 nate evil and good. Paul calls the one the old man, the 
 other the new man ; and he says, the old man is to be de- 
 stroyed, the new man to be saved. And thus it curiously 
 happens that all men are damned, and all men saved ; for 
 the degradation of the old man is the deliverance of the new 
 man ; and the curse is thus transformed into a blessing. 
 
 Satan is transformed into an angel of light.'" To deny this 
 doctrine of eternal punishment of evil, is to deny the possi- 
 bility of man's redemption ; but to give it a cruel individual 
 meaning, is monstrous, and contrary to the text book, which 
 says, Mercy shall triumph over judgment;" that is, the 
 good meaning shall triumph over the bad meaning: the 
 good meaning is the grain, the bad meaning is the chaffy 
 which covers the grain until it is ripe, and ready to come out. 
 The promises, therefore, are literal ; the curses are figurative 
 and deceptive, of temporary use in the infancy and igno- 
 rance of society, but monstrous to an enlightened mind, and 
 cast off when man comes to discretion. 
 
45 
 
 much that you can eat poison, or heal the sick ? 
 Christ says that “ these signs shall follow them that 
 believe : they shall cast out devils, speak with new 
 tongues, take up serpents, and if they drink any 
 deadly thing it shall not hurt them ; they shall lay 
 hands on the sick, and they shall recover.” Can you 
 do any of these things ? Oh ! you say this is not for 
 the present age ! I understand you. Whenever you 
 are brought to any practical test of your faith, you 
 retreat ; but as long as you can pass it off with mere 
 declamation and assumption, you are very positive 
 that you are a Christian. I say you are very pre- 
 sumptuous indeed to call yourself by the name of 
 Christ, when you neither do the things which he bids, 
 nor can give a demonstration of your faith. You are 
 an inffdel in disguise. By what authority, I de- 
 mand, do you call yourself a Christian ? 
 
 A little more of responsibility before I go to your 
 next heresy. The Bible has more sense than you are 
 willing to accord to it. You bring forth all the chaff*, 
 and leave the grain behind ; for, recollect, when God 
 makes grain, he always makes chaff* and straw at the 
 same time, to preserve and conceal the grain ; and 
 the Bible is a production of a similar sort. There is 
 grain, straw, and chaff* in it; and you, like the Pro- 
 digal Son, have been eating the husks, and filling the 
 people with the same, and leaving the grain, as the 
 governor did the best wine, to the last. Now, the 
 Bible says many horrible things about helUfire and 
 brimstone, and of God’s being angry with men, and 
 actually repenting that he had made men. This is 
 chaff, and to be used as chaff, at last, when the 
 wheat is ripe. But it also says, that the hearts of all 
 men are in the Lord’s hands, and he turneth them 
 whithersoever he will ; (that is, their characters are 
 formed for them, not by them ;) that he opens the 
 eyes and ears of the mind, and shuts them at his plea- 
 sure ; that he softens and hardens the heart. “ I create 
 the fruit of the lips,” he says. Peace, peace, to 
 him that is afar off, and to him that is nigh; for 1 will 
 
46 
 
 not contend for ever ; neither will 1 be always wroth, 
 for the spirit would fail before me, and the souls which 
 I have made.’^ “ 1 make peace, and create evil/^ He 
 is the author of all things : of unity and division, of 
 individualism and universalism. Even when Absalom 
 was guilty of the most unnatural crime, God attributes 
 the crime to himself. “ I,” says he, ‘‘ will do this 
 thing before all Israel, and before the sun.’’ (2 Sam. 
 xii. 12.) This is wheat, the pure grain, which you 
 will not give the people ; and this pure grain is the 
 doctrine of 7^o/^-responsibility, or justification ; for it 
 lays all the burden of our sins upon God, or Nature. 
 Are you not a prodigal son, then, to feed your belly 
 with the husks that the very swine have left? for 
 I suppose you consider the infidels as a species of 
 swine. Do, 1 beseech you, as Christ says he will 
 do, when he comes the second time, gather the 
 wheat into the garner, and cast the chaff away. 
 
 1 have still somewhat against thee, my brother ; 
 and that is, that thou hast too much of the old leaven 
 of Moses about thee. You seem to have a particular 
 predilection for Sunday, and to consider the consecra- 
 tion of the Sabbath as an indefinable sort of worship, 
 with the neglect of which Heaven must be sadly of- 
 fended. Now, I also love a day of rest for man and 
 beast, and hope it shall never be abrogated ; but 
 yours is not a day of rest, but of gloomy dejection 
 and melancholy ; and a day, also, which you have no 
 authority, even from your own text-book, to impose 
 upon the people ^s a day of church-going sanctity and 
 mortification. The old Jewish Sabbath was abolished 
 by Christianity. “Ye observe days, and months, 
 and years,” says St. Paul; “ I am afraid of you, 
 lest 1 have bestowed upon you labour in vain. Let 
 no man judge you in meats or in drinks, or in respect 
 of a holiday, or the new moon, or the Sabbath day, 
 which are a shadow of things to come, but the body 
 is Christ.” If, then, the Sabbath is still a yoke, Christ 
 is not yet come, for it was only a ty pe of his kingdom. 
 St. Paul stoutly opposes it; but at last, admitting 
 
47 
 
 a principle of toleration from the resistance he met, he 
 says, “ He that regardeth theday, regardeth it to the 
 Lord ; and he that regardeth not the day to the Lord 
 he doth not regard it i let every man be persuaded in 
 his own mind.” But you are of a different opinion, 
 and seem to think the observance of the Sabbath the 
 most important of all duties. The clergy have always 
 taught this doctrine ; it is their own day. But you 
 have no authority whatsoever for enforcing the sancti- 
 monious observance of any day ; your Sabbath is an 
 imposition, and will be succeeded by another, in 
 which mirth and song shall resound — in which “ the 
 virgin shall rejoice in the dance, the young men and 
 the old together ; for their mourning shall be changed 
 into joy, and they shall not feel sorrow any more; 
 corn shall make the young men cheerful, and new 
 wine the maids.” 
 
 There are two important questions which you put 
 at the end of your discourse ; namely, Suppose the 
 Bible be all false, how stand the Christian and the 
 infidel?” “ Upon equal grounds,” is your answer. 
 “ The Christian is not the worse off for believing the 
 Bible to be true.” Indeed ! not the worse off for be- 
 lieving a lie, and continuing to act upon it for ever ? 
 Do you really study the Scriptures, or do you merely 
 preach the patent Christianity ? Does not your text- 
 book say, that, “ if you know the truth the truth shall 
 make you free”?* Gross error enslaves the mind and 
 the body, and it is the ignorance of the priests and 
 the people which at present resists the full develop- 
 ment of liberty. How, then, can you say that they 
 are on equal terms, since liberty is coming by the in- 
 
 * And if free, ye are no more the servants of sin,” says 
 an apostle ; hence error or ignorance is the cause of sin — 
 the Devil — the Prince of Darkness — physical, intellectual, 
 and moral. If ignorance he the only devil,” you ask, how 
 can Satan he transformed into an angel of light ?” Two 
 ways : first, hy ignorance assuming the false air of wisdom, 
 like the priests of the old world ; and secondly, by igno- 
 rance being enlightened to create the new. 
 
48 
 
 fidel party, and slavery is supported by the old faith? 
 ‘‘ But suppose the contrary to be the case, you say, 
 “ How stand the parties then ? The infidel is con- 
 demned, and becomes subject to the fearful denuncia- 
 tions,’’ And are none but the intidels condemned, 
 my son ? Are not the hypocrites sent to hell also? 
 and liars? and even those that lust? and those that 
 are fond of money ? and those who call themselves 
 Christians, are All go down to the pit; 
 
 and these include all mankind ; there is no escape. 
 “ The wicked shall go down to hell, and all the na- 
 tions that forget God and, as you yourself very 
 justly observe, “ There is none righteous, no not 
 one how, then, shall you escape ? By faith ? 
 You have got none ; and though you had, the Devil 
 could escape by the same hole, for he, also, believes, 
 and trembles with the fear of the Lord. 
 
 The book is true, when unriddled, for it is merely 
 a riddle ; but your interpretation is a hideous 
 absurdity. The book is quite as favourable to the in- 
 fidel as to those who presume to call themselves be- 
 lievers; both parties are equally in fault in calling 
 themselves any thing, We are all nothing ; less than 
 nothing and vanity — effects and not causes ; hence 
 infidel is a more suitable epithet for human nature, inas- 
 much as it is the negative; but man is, in truth, a 
 mixture of both. A sectarian name always presup- 
 poses a fixity of dogmatical opinion, and an insus- 
 ceptibility of movement or conversion. Man is, or 
 ought to be, a pupil of Nature, always ready to hear 
 and to forgive diversity of opinion, but resolved to 
 oppose all practical and personal injustice. Both 
 names are creative of bigotry, we should call ourselves 
 men and women. To call ourselves by a positive prin- 
 ciple (faith), or a negative principle (infidelity), is 
 absurd and false, because we have all, more or less, a 
 portion of the positive and negative principles of Na- 
 ture; we are not exclusively either of the one or the 
 other. But the Bible says that faith gets the victory ? 
 True; because it is the movement principle of man’s 
 
49 
 
 nature. When a man does not believe he shall attain 
 an object, he does not exert himself ; but give him a 
 little faith that he shall attain it , he it ever so little y 
 and, if the prize be worth having, he will move in- 
 stantly. I'hus the Scriptures give the victory to faith, 
 for it is the active principle. But what sort of mith is 
 it? Not faith in any particular scholastic dogma, but 
 faith in something future. The principal taith they 
 treat of is that of the millennium ; and now the infidels 
 have more faith in the millennium than the Christians 
 themselves; therefore, according to the Scriptures, the 
 infidels must conquer, for they have the victorious 
 principle — the faith of the Christ universal. But, oh ! 
 you reply, they do not believe that God will bring it 
 about; but they believe that Nature will, and that is 
 the same thing, for God is ‘‘ all and in all,” or Na- 
 ture. But then, you say, it is faith in Christ only that 
 can save. What is Christ ? I say it is a titular term, 
 that applies to a principle or system of justice and 
 equality not yet come, but has been engrossed by an 
 individual who has gone; it is good Nature, or the 
 new God. “ Unto us a child is born, unto us a son 
 is given, and the government shall be upon his shoul- 
 ders, and his name shall be called the Prince of 
 Peace.” That is the New System — Nature, or God, 
 or Christ, or love ; and the infidels have as much faith 
 in Christ as you have. Y ours is the Christ of the past ; 
 theirs is the Christ of the future. Theirs is the better 
 of the two; but it is much better to join both together, 
 and not tear Nature asunder. She is past, present, 
 and future — an everlasting trinity — the same yester- 
 day, to-day, and lor ever. Y ou are not able to make 
 the book condemn an infidel, without condemning 
 yourself. I defy you. As for me, I belong to neither 
 division of nature exclusively ; I belong to both ; I 
 am both positive and negative, like a magnet; for 
 which reason, I suppose, you will condemn me, as 
 being neither cold nor hot ; well, I shall bear the con- 
 demnation very patiently, for in condemning me you 
 will condemn yourself. 
 
 E 
 
50 
 
 I have now demonstrated, if not to you, at least to the 
 greater proportion of my readers, that you are not Chris- 
 tians ; that the infidels have as good a right to the title as 
 you have ; and that their negative title is less hypocritical 
 (if there is any difference)^ by assuming less of the cha- 
 racter of virtue, whilst they really possess as much. And 
 now I shall merely address a few friendly words upon the 
 proposed change of system in the government of society. 
 It is evident to every good man that the present system is 
 iniquitously unjust : that the rewards and punishments of 
 life are revolting for their cruelty ; for the rich man is 
 rewarded with honour, and respect, and luxury, and ease ; 
 whilst the poor man is punished with hard labour and 
 pining hunger. You say that this labour is a punishment 
 for sin ; for why, say you, if man had not sinned, make 
 him toil and eat in sorrow? From which it appears that 
 the poor are actually bearing the sins of the rich, and 
 enduring the curse of heaven, like so many saviours, in 
 their stead. This is most unmerciful, according to the 
 laws of justice amongst men. But no doubt you think 
 they deserve it for their sins : if so, I am sorry for the 
 hardness of your heart. But in vain will you preach any 
 longer to convince men that they must be patient under 
 the burdens of poverty. These exhortations now dissolve 
 into thin air, without taking any effect, except upon a few 
 old relics of puritanic times, who, having lost all nerve to 
 act, are, very luckily for their own comfort, for I know it 
 is a comfort, consoled for their temporal bereavements, 
 which they cannot supply, by spiritual reflections peculiarly 
 suited to their minds and circumstances. But the young 
 and the active are now beyond your reach. The spirit of 
 the age has summoned them to the field : she has need of 
 their exertions. The day of deliverance is approaching. 
 Old Babel is tottering. Superstition is groaning at the 
 dawn of the eternal morning. The state and the church 
 are now both called to account, and desperate shall the 
 struggle be before you resign. But you shall resign ; you 
 shall fall; the whole tower shall be ruined ; every brick 
 and every straw that you have reared the building withal 
 shall be levelled with the ground, and a new church and a 
 
51 
 
 new priestliood shall supplant your place, “ and satisfy 
 the POOR with bread.” We are aiming at the deliverance 
 of the poor ; we are striving to procure more food, more 
 and better clothing and shelter, and more time for reading 
 and education, and we shall obtain it. And what are you 
 doing with your faith ? Merely saying, “ Be ye warmed, 
 be ye clothed, and we pray God you may be fed,” but 
 employing no means to produce the effect ! This is your 
 virtue, the virtue of old faith ; you expect bread to come 
 down the chimney, or leap in at the window, or be doled 
 out by the charitable in morsels ; but your love of your 
 neighbour goes no further than charity-fare, which, as an 
 eminent reformer, much abused by a vicious world, has 
 observed, is always bad fare. 
 
 There is no occasion for answering your accusations 
 respecting the cruel treatment of the aged, and the over- 
 throw of all order and happiness, which you say are to be 
 the effect of the Social System. This is too absurd to be 
 seriously answered; but it may be very easily retorted upon 
 you, that you uphold a system of cruelty to the aged, and 
 one that is preventive of order and happiness. There is 
 no order and happiness to overthrow. The state and the 
 churoh are merely a Babel of opinion, a scene of selfish 
 competition. This selfish competition and misery you 
 call order — your master called it division, and he came to 
 $end it. 
 
 It is quite as absurd for yon to say that the new doc- 
 trines are subversive of the Holy Scriptures. I defy you 
 to the proof, either in respect to faith or works ; on the 
 contrary, they are in more strict accordance with the Scrip- 
 tures than any doctrines which are taught in your or any 
 other church. The clergy and the whole Christian world 
 are apostates from Christianity, and in this respect they 
 literally fulfil the words of the Apostle of the Gentiles, 
 that there must be a falling away in the church before the 
 end come. This falling away no doubt you say refers to 
 the Roman Catholics : self-righteousness will always find 
 a ’scape-goat. But if you do not belong to the falling-away, 
 why are the people miserable? for true Christianity would 
 bring social equality — by teaching and causing each to do 
 
 E 2 
 
52 
 
 unto another as he would be done by. But the CatholicSr 
 bad as they are, have this one advantage over all the Pro-' 
 testants, that they maintain the supremacy of the spiritual 
 or moral power. The Protestants give the supremacy to 
 physical power, and thus become pure materialists; and 
 the Dissenters, useful as they are at present, would have 
 the physical and moral power disunited — as if nature was 
 so imperfect, that the two could not act in accordance. 
 By this declaration they acknowledge Christianity to be 
 perfectly useless to man in his present state, a very curse 
 when associated with the government of society, and 
 deserving of no better treatment than being kicked out of 
 doors. Now, Sir, 1 admire Christianity more than you 
 do, for I think it ought to be made the law of the land ; 
 and no other law than a moral law is necessary. Let the 
 law of the land be social equality ^ “ do unto each other 
 as you would be done unto,” £lnd we want no other laws. 
 Let society be so organized, that every man shall be active, 
 and no accumulation of private wealth take place to the 
 disparagement of others. Then, Sir, do you think we 
 should require a physical government at all? No, indeed, 
 we should not; we should have a moral government — 
 and that you know is a divine government, and the govern- 
 ment promised to the world. This is the church, a church 
 established by justice and equality, and maintained in ex- 
 istence by public approbation, and thorough contentment ; 
 not a disunion of church and state, such a§ the Dissenters 
 would rend and insult nature withal, but a swallowing up 
 of the physical power by the moral power, and the re- 
 subjection of the state, not to mere mysticism, as in Catholic 
 times, but to morality and social feeling. The Catholics 
 had a glimpse of the truth by subjecting the sword ; but 
 they used, instead of destroying the sword. The Protestants 
 have widely departed from the truth, and are the final 
 apostacy, who have voluntarily resigned the power unto 
 the sword, which the Dissenters affirm ought to have been 
 the sole management, whilst the Establishment claims only 
 a secondary authority along with it. Both apostates! for 
 if the church be a moral power, it ought to have the 
 management ; but both the Dissenters and Establishment, 
 especially the former, acknowledge its inefficacy. 
 
There are only two species of* government, the military 
 and the moral; the first the old world, the second the new. 
 Jesus said, “ My kingdom is not of this world, else would 
 my servants Jight^ That is not the military, but the 
 moral government, which is established when the military 
 is put down. Do you try to introduce Christ’s kingdom 
 by introducing the moral discipline, feeding and treating 
 men well to make them good, instead of flogging them 
 into virtue ? In other words, are you a Christian ? 
 
 Thus you see that we aim no blow at true Christianity, 
 as you allege, but merely at the Christianity of priests, 
 which is false to the very core. The priests are the greatest 
 enemies of religion. The meaning of the word religion is 
 union, from the Latin word “ religo,*’ to bind together; 
 it is therefore a uniting principle — a social feeling ; and 
 there is no other religion but a Social System. But you 
 say Christianity is opposed to combinations and unions. 
 Is it a religion ? No, and Christ never called your Chris- 
 tianity a religion; he called it division; he said he must 
 come again to establish the “ religion;” and that second 
 coming is the spirit of liberty and union which you oppose 
 — it is universalism. True religion is unity. That is the 
 real meaning of the word ; but nothing can be farther 
 from religion than the doctrines of priests, and nothing 
 farther from the true meaning of the Scriptures. Then I 
 say, using your own words, if you believe the Bible, as 
 you profess to believe it, the first thing you ought to do is 
 to repent of your sins ; not so much to pray God to forgive 
 the past, as to remodel your conduct, and make it accord 
 with your professed principles. Remember that example 
 is better than precept ; that “ the end of the law is charity 
 out of a pure heart, and faith unfeigned but you treat 
 with contempt all innovators and remodellers, and repre- 
 sent them as actuated by mean, low selfishness.” This 
 is a fair specimen of the value you set upon repentance, 
 and a pretty good proof that religion with you consists 
 merely in preaching and praying, building churches, and 
 making proselytes to their useless creeds. I should like 
 to know how men can repent of their past sins without 
 becoming innovators and remodellers. If you had lived in 
 
 E 3 
 
54 
 
 the time of Jesus Christ, do you think you would not have 
 joined the priesthood against him, and called him con- 
 temptuously an innovator and remodeller? As for his 
 miracles, you could easily have got over them, for the 
 devils, we are told, work miracles ; and the Lord himself 
 both works miracles and sends prophets to deceive the 
 people (Deut. xiii. 3, Ezek. xiv. 9). You would have 
 found a back-door to get out at, and join the friends of the 
 good old way. Wherever there is a will there is a way, 
 and therefore it is evident you are a friend of this world ; 
 otherwise you would not be so zealous in upholding it, and 
 advising your disciples to resist all attempts to change the 
 system. 
 
 It is not a little amusing to see the clergy, in their zeal 
 for priesthood, actually attacking their own text-book every 
 sentence they write or utter. The doctrine of the forma- 
 tion of character is a very good example of all the rest. 
 If the character is formed for us, and not by us, you say, 
 then we cannot reproach the drunkard for bis intemperance. 
 “ Nay,” you say, “ I must not even discharge my ser- 
 vant if he robs me.” Indeed ! is this your mode of rea- 
 soning ? This shows to what class you belong, and that 
 you would have vehemently opposed the Apostle of the 
 Gentiles, who says that “ it is not of him that runneth, 
 nor of him that willeth, but of God that showeth mercy ; 
 for before Jacob and Esau were born, before they had done 
 good or evil, that the purpose of God in regard to election 
 might stand, God preferred the younger to the elder.” — 
 And what made Paul a Christian ? Was it his inquiring 
 mind, or the vision he saw ? And what made the disciples 
 follow Christ; did he choose them, or they him ? “Ye 
 have not chosen me,” he says, “ but I have chosen you.” 
 And he chose one with a devil too, for he wanted a devil 
 to betray him, or to perfect the drama ; but poor Judas 
 would never have done the deed, if Satan had not first 
 entered into him. When Paul taught the doctrine of the 
 formation of character ybr the individual, the people railed 
 against him as you do ; but he still proceeded, and even 
 carried it to its utmost limits, saying, “ It is not I that 
 sin, but sin that dwelleth in me;” thus attributing all the 
 
55 
 
 evil to a combination of circumstances within him ; whilst, 
 in like manner, he ascribes all good thoughts and good 
 actions to God. Is it not as reasonable to deny demerit as 
 to deny merit to man — and is it not unjust to ascribe 
 demerit when merit is denied ? 
 
 Evil must always be punished wherever it appears, but 
 it is better to prevent it from making its appearance. It is 
 the duty of every man to rid himself and society of its 
 presence ; but what is the best method — is it preaching 
 and praying, or is it doing justly, and loving mercy, and 
 walking humbly in fraternal sympathy and equality ? 
 Human nature is becoming so good as to despise preaching 
 which does not tend to practical good ; and no practical 
 good, but much evil, has resulted from the doctrines of the 
 pulpits; and no good ever can result from such doctrine as 
 is now taught in any church in Christendom. Even the 
 Quakers are but spurious Christians, The love of self 
 predominates over the love of their neighbour. They 
 amass fortunes for themselves, and that, too, with all the 
 keenness and devotion of men whose whole soul is en- 
 grossed by the love of gain. Yet a nearer approximation 
 to Christianism is not to be found amongst us How then 
 ought the Christian world to be ashamed when the infidels 
 are actually proposing to establish the morals of Christi- 
 anity, by doing unto every one as they would be done unto, 
 by modelling society in such a way that the rich shall not 
 amass enormous wealth to preserve them in idleness, to the 
 prejudice of the industrious; that master shall not strive 
 with master in invidious and jealous competition ; that the 
 scattered elements of society be gathered together ; that 
 men act collectively and socially, instead of individually ; 
 that man may, for the first time since his creation, divest 
 himself of his purely selfish nature, and being free from 
 poverty and the fear of want, and actuated only by the 
 moral restraints and stimulants of shame, honour, and 
 good faith, may develop the hidden virtues of his na- 
 ture, which is said to be created in the image of God, but 
 has as yet only exhibited the attributes ascribed to the 
 devil ! 
 
 There cannot be a more beautiful idea, or a more bene- 
 
56 
 
 ▼olent design, than that of binding human beings together 
 by the ties of social affection and reciprocal interest; we 
 have good reason to maintain that none but a wicked heart 
 could oppose such a scheme. Surely we have seen enough 
 to convince us that the present system is bad. It has 
 brought mankind to the brink of perdition. Every coun- 
 tenance is sad with vexation, and harassing cares. Even 
 the rich themselves are in trouble, and the poor in utter 
 destitution, suffering under present evil, and foreboding 
 every day some new disaster. Yet Christians (as they call 
 themselves, for I won't acknowledge their title to the 
 name,) sit calmly by, and contemplate the misery of man- 
 kind with unimpassioned coolness ; instead of eagerly 
 addressing themselves to the task of redemption, which is 
 their profession, their whole strength is expended in 
 enabling the corruption to stand out a little longer. — “ Let 
 us have no innovation ; changes are always dangerous ; 
 redemption has come already, Jesus Christ has died for 
 the poor. What more would they have than the precious 
 blood of Christ?’' This is the Christianity of the Man 
 who came not to send peace, but a sword, and very charac- 
 teristically it is still kept up ; but the priests and ministers 
 of such ungenerous and unsocial principles will soon be 
 shamed out of countenance, and they must very soon be 
 brought to the bar of public opinion to give an account of 
 their conduct ; and they shall all be tried by their own 
 test. You have challenged the world to refute or accuse 
 you. I have acrepted the challenge, and I trust that soon 
 the great battle of opinion shall begin, which shall finish 
 the reign of spiritualism and division, and gather the dis- 
 persed of Israel into one. I shall not attack you as Paine, 
 Voltaire, and others have done, though they also are useful 
 men to put you to the test. I am no destructive; I am 
 merely a reformer, but such a reformer as will search to 
 the very marrow of your doctrines, and demonstrate to the 
 world that there is no such thing as Christianity in exist- 
 ence; that the whole church, including every single dis- 
 senting sect, is hypocritical and apostate; that in fact it is 
 all in a lump “ the Antichrist,” the man of sin, and the 
 son of perdition, whom the Lord, the spirit of liberty. 
 
57 
 
 shall consume by the spirit of his mouth, and destroy by 
 the brightness of his coming. 
 
 Then shall the sword be removed ; then shall the bloody 
 garments of the church be washed ; then shall the scat- 
 tered elements of society he united; then war shall cease 
 among nations, and private competition and strife amongst 
 individuals; then shall poverty disappear from our land, 
 all the filthy abodes of wretchedness and disease be de- 
 stroyed, and the atmosphere purified of its corruption and 
 its deadly contagion; then shall the soil be cultivated, the 
 marshes drained, the working man be fed, and rejoice in 
 health and leisure, and abundance of rational and amusing 
 recreation ; then shall all the children be educated, their 
 tender minds be trained to relish principles of justice, 
 mercy, and good faith, and their tastes be refined by the 
 choicest specimens of art, and the experiments of science ; 
 then every man shall contribute his share to the produc- 
 tion of wealth, and none shall seek to hoard in his strong 
 coffer heaps of gold that he may gain an advantage over 
 his brother ; for being free from the fear or the possibility 
 of want, and reared in the principles of social equality, 
 the idea of power or supremacy will become hateful, as it 
 is to every good and virtuous mind. Such a state may be 
 realized in this world with great ease, without any other 
 change of nature than what arises from the new circum- 
 stances. At all events, we have a right to demand an 
 experiment. The experiment has already been made on 
 the lower animals, and has succeeded. At this day, in 
 London, there is a social family of rats, cats, mice, owl, 
 dove, rabbit, hawk, and small birds, &c., all living in 
 perfect harmony. This would have been esteemed impos- 
 sible till it was attempted, but it is now an acknowledged 
 fact. The same may be done with human nature, but 
 Antichrist must oppose it ; this is his doom ; he is the 
 enemy of unions and combinations ; he is the man of the 
 sword and division ; he would rather send tracts and 
 preach sermons to the hungry, than give them bread ; he 
 prefers the good old way ; he hates innovators and remo- 
 dellers ; he does not think that truth will do much good, 
 or that man can ever be made better than he is, for 
 
58 
 
 Antichrist has got an old creed to slick by, and to preach, 
 and he cannot advance a step beyond the old dogma which 
 was made for him by a set of military divines, with Bibles 
 in one hand, and swords dyed with the blood of heretics 
 in the other. But, as you say, the word of God must be 
 fulfilled: true, my brother, it must, and in being fulfilled 
 it will scatter all the sibyUleaves of sectarianism to the 
 wind, and establish in full glory and beauty that very Social 
 System which you regard as “ subversive of order, virtue, 
 and happiness.” The Bible is the greatest enemy to the 
 priesthood, and that they shall soon experience to their 
 cost. They shall be summoned to the bar of the Book, 
 and the Book only ; and it is but just that they should be 
 tried by the Book only, for they profess to follow the 
 Book. Let every man be tried by his profession. 
 
 I am. Reverend Sir, 
 
 Your Friend and Brother, 
 
 J. E. SMITH. 
 
 London, January 17, 1834. 
 
 TO THE READER. 
 
 In this reply 1 have acted solely as the Representa- 
 tive of the Catechism of the Reytneraiion Society, 
 and not as the organ of any individual sect or party* 
 That Catechism was drawn up by Robert Owen, and 
 supported by Scripture references by a Clergyman of 
 the Church of England, and other Christians, At 
 the same time, I have spoken from my heart. 
 
 J. E. S. 
 
 — — ^ ^ 
 
 Printed by B. D, Cousins, Duke-street, Lincoln sAnn~fields. 
 
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