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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Superstition Unveiled, by Charles Southwell
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
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+Title: Superstition Unveiled
+
+Author: Charles Southwell
+
+Release Date: April 24, 2005 [EBook #15696]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SUPERSTITION UNVEILED ***
+
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+Produced by Freethought Archives, www.freethought.vze.com
+
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+
+SUPERSTITION UNVEILED.
+
+BY
+
+CHARLES SOUTHWELL,
+AUTHOR OF "SUPERNATURALISM EXPLODED;" "IMPOSSIBILITY OF ATHEISM
+DEMONSTRATED," ETC.
+
+
+Abridged by the Author from his
+"APOLOGY FOR ATHEISM."
+
+
+
+     "Not one of you reflects that you ought to
+     know your Gods before you worship them."
+
+
+
+LONDON:
+EDWARD TRUELOVE, 240, STRAND,
+THREE DOORS FROM TEMPLE BAR,
+AND ALL BOOKSELLERS
+
+1854.
+
+
+
+
+
+SUPERSTITION UNVEILED.
+
+
+Religion has an important bearing on all the relations and conditions of
+life. The connexion between religious faith and political practice is,
+in truth, far closer than is generally thought. Public opinion has not
+yet ripened into a knowledge that religious error is the intangible but
+real substratum of all political injustice. Though the 'Schoolmaster'
+has done much, there still remain among us, many honest and energetic
+assertors of 'the rights of man,' who have to learn that a people in the
+fetters of superstition cannot, secure political freedom. These
+reformers admit the vast influence of Mohammedanism on the politics of
+Constantinople, and yet persist in acting as if Christianity had little
+or nothing to do with the politics of England.
+
+At a recent meeting of the Anti-State Church Association it was remarked
+that _throw what we would into the political cauldron, out it came in an
+ecclesiastical shape_. If the newspaper report may be relied on, there
+was much laughing among the hearers of those words, the deep meaning of
+which, it may safely be affirmed, only a select few of them could
+fathom.
+
+Hostility to state churches by no means implies a knowledge of the close
+and important connection between ecclesiastical and political questions.
+Men may appreciate the justice of voluntaryism in religion, and yet have
+rather cloudy conceptions with respect to the influence of opinions and
+things ecclesiastical on the condition of nations. They may clearly see
+that he who needs the priest, should disdain to saddle others with the
+cost of him, while blind to the fact that no people having faith in the
+supernatural ever failed to mix up such faith with political affairs.
+Even leading members of the 'Fourth Estate' are constantly declaring
+their disinclination for religious criticism, and express particular
+anxiety to keep their journals free of everything 'strictly
+theological.' Their notion is, that newspaper writers should endeavour
+to keep clear of so 'awful' a topic. And yet seldom does a day pass in
+which this self-imposed editorial rule is not violated--a fact
+significant, as any fact can be of _connection_ between religion and
+politics.
+
+It is quite possible the editors of newspapers have weighty reasons for
+their repugnance to agitate the much vexed question of religion; but it
+seems they cannot help doing so. In a leading article of this days'
+_Post_, [Endnote 4:1] we are told--_The stain and reproach of Romanism
+in Ireland is, that it is a political system, and a wicked political
+system, for it regards only the exercise of power_, and neglects utterly
+the duty of improvement. In journals supported by Romanists, and of
+course devoted to the interests of their church, the very same charge is
+made against English Protestantism. To denounce each other's 'holy
+apostolic religion' may be incompatible with the taste of 'gentlemen of
+the press,' but certainly they do it with a brisk and hearty vehemence
+that inclines one to think it a 'labour of love.' What men do _con
+amore_ they usually do well, and no one can deny the wonderful talent
+for denunciation exhibited by journalists when writing down each other's
+'true Christianity.' The unsparing invective quoted above from the
+_Post_ is a good specimen. If just, Irish Romanism _ought_ to be
+destroyed, and newspaper writers cannot be better employed than in
+helping on the work of its destruction, or the destruction of any other
+religion to which the same 'stain and reproach' may be fairly attached.
+
+I have no spite or ill-will towards Roman Catholics though opposed to
+their religion, and a willing subscriber to the opinion of Romanism in
+Ireland expressed by the _Post_. The past and present condition of that
+country is a deep disgrace to its priests, the bulk of whom, Protestant
+as well as Romanist, can justly be charged with 'regarding only the
+exercise of power, while neglecting utterly the duty of improvement.'
+
+The intriguing and essentially political character of Romanism it would
+be idle to deny. No one at all acquainted with its cunningly contrived
+'system' will hesitate to characterise it as 'wickedly political,'
+productive of nothing but mischief--a system through whose accursed
+instrumentality millions are cheated of their sanity as well as
+substance, and trained dog-like to lick the hand that smites them. So
+perfect is their degradation that literally they 'take no thought for
+to-morrow,' it being their practice to wait 'till starvation stares them
+in the face,' [4:2] and _then_ make an effort against it.
+
+The _Globe_ of Thursday, October 30th, 1845, contains an article on the
+damage sustained by the potatoe crop here and in Ireland, full of matter
+calculated to enlighten our first-rate reformers who seem profoundly
+ignorant that superstition is the bane of intellect, and most formidable
+of all the obstacles which stand between the people and their rights.
+One paragraph is so peculiarly significant of the miserable condition to
+which Romanism _and_ Protestantism have reduced a peasantry said to be
+'the finest in the world,' that I here subjoin it.
+
+_The best means to arrest the progress of the pestilence in the people's
+food have occupied the attention of scientific men. The commission
+appointed by government, consisting of three of the must celebrated
+practical chemists, has published a preliminary report, in which several
+suggestions, rather than ascertained results, are communicated, by which
+the sound portions of the root may, it is hoped, be preserved from the
+epidemic, and possibly, the tainted be rendered innoxious, and even
+partially nutritious. Followed implicitly, their directions might
+mitigate the calamity. But the care, the diligence, the persevering
+industry which the various forms of process require, in order to
+effecting the purpose which might result if they were promptly adopted
+and properly carried out, are the very qualities in which the Irish
+peasantry are most deficient. In the present crisis, the people are more
+disposed to regard the extensive destruction of their crops in the light
+of an extraordinary visitation of Heaven, with which it is vain for
+human efforts to contend, than to employ counteracting, or remedial
+applications. "Sure the Almighty sent the potatoe-plague and we must
+bear it as wall us we can," is the remark of many; while, in other
+places, the copious sprinklings of holy water on the potatoe gardens,
+and on the produce, as it lies upon the surface, are more depended on
+for disinfecting the potatoes than those suggestions of science which
+require the application of patient industry._
+
+Daniel O'Connell boasted about Irish morale and Irish intellect--the
+handsome women, and stalwart men of his 'beloved country,' but no
+sensible persons paid the least attention to him. It is, at all events,
+too late in the day for we 'Saxons' to be either cajoled or amused by
+such nonsense. An overwhelming majority of the Irish people have been
+proved indolent beyond all parallel, and not much more provident than
+those unhappy savages who sell their beds in the morning, not being able
+to foresee they shall again require them at night. A want of forethought
+so remarkable and indolence so abominable, are results of superstitious
+education. Does any one suppose the religion of the Irish has little, if
+anything, to do with their political condition? Or can it be believed
+they will be fit for, much less achieve, political emancipation, while
+priests and priests alone, are their instructors? We may rely upon it
+that intellectual freedom is the natural and necessary precursor of
+political freedom. _Education_, said Lord Brougham, _makes men easy to
+lead but difficult to drive; easy to govern but impossible to enslave_.
+The Irish peasantry clamoured for 'Repeal,' never considering that did
+they get it, no essential change would be made in their social, moral,
+or, to say all in one word, _political_ condition. They would still be
+the tool of unprincipled political mountebanks--themselves the tool of
+priests.
+
+Great was the outcry raised against the 'godless colleges' that Sir
+Robert Peel had the courageous good sense to _inflict_ on Ireland.
+Protestant, as well as Romanist priests, were terribly alarmed lest
+these colleges should spoil the craft by which they live. Sagacious
+enough to perceive that whatever influence they possess must vanish with
+the ignorance on which it rests, they moved heaven and earth to disgust
+the Irish people with an educational measure of which superstition
+formed no part. Their fury, like 'empty space,' is boundless. They
+cannot endure the thought that our minister should so far play the game
+of 'infidelity' as to take from them the delightful task of teaching
+Ireland's young idea 'how to shoot.' Sir Robert Inglis _christened_ this
+odious measure, a 'gigantic scheme of godless education,' and a large
+majority of Irish Roman Catholic Prelates have solemnly pronounced it
+'dangerous to faith and morals.' Neither ministerial allurements, nor
+ministerial threats can subdue the cantankerous spirit of these bigots.
+They are all but frantic and certainly not without reason, for the Irish
+Colleges' Bill is the fine point of that wedge which, driven home, will
+shiver to pieces their 'wicked political system.' Whatever improves
+Irish intellect will play the mischief with its 'faith,' though not at
+all likely to deteriorate its 'morals.' Let the people of Ireland be
+well employed as a preliminary to being well educated, and speedily they
+may _deserve_ to be singled out as 'the most moral people on the face of
+the earth.'
+
+An educated nation will never tamely submit to be priest-ridden, and
+well do Ireland's enslavers know it. The most stupid of her priests,
+equally with the shrewdest of her 'patriots,' are quite alive to the
+expediency of teaching as fact the fraudulent fables of the 'dark ages.'
+To keep the people ignorant, or what is worse, to teach them only what
+is false, is the great end of _their_ training; and if a British
+ministry propose anything better than the merest mockery of education,
+they call it 'dangerous to faith and morals.'
+
+Superstition is the curse of Ireland. To the rival churches of that
+country may be traced ALL the oppressions suffered by its people who
+never can be materially improved till purged of their faith in priests.
+When that salutary work shall be accomplished, Ireland will indeed be 'a
+nation' in the secure enjoyment of political liberty. The priest-ridden
+may talk of freedom, but can never secure it.
+
+What then can be thought of the first-rate reformers, before alluded to,
+who are going to emancipate every body without the least offence to any
+body's superstition? It should be borne in memory that other people are
+superstitious as well as the Irish, and that the churches of all
+countries are as much parts of 'a wicked political system' as are the
+churches of Ireland.
+
+The judges of _our_ country frequently remind us that its laws have a
+religious sanction; nay, they assure us Christianity is part and parcel
+of those laws. Do we not know that orthodox Christianity means
+Christianity as by law established? And can any one fail to perceive
+that such a religion must needs be political? The cunning few, who
+esteem nothing apart from their own aggrandisement, are quite aware that
+the civil and criminal law of England is intimately associated with
+Christianity--they publicly proclaim their separation impossible, except
+at the cost of destruction to both. They are sagacious enough to
+perceive that a people totally untrammelled by the fears, the
+prejudices, and the wickedness of superstition would never consent to
+remain in bondage.
+
+Hence the pains taken by priests to perpetuate the dominion of that
+ignorance which proverbially is 'the mother of devotion.' What care they
+for universal emancipation? Free themselves, their grand object is to
+rivet the chains of others. So that those they defraud of their hard
+earned substance be kept down, they are not over scrupulous with respect
+to means. Among the most potent of their helps in the 'good work' are
+churches, various in name and character but in principle the very same.
+All are pronounced true by priests who profit by them, and false by
+priests who do not. Every thing connected with them bears the stamp of
+despotism. Whether we look at churches foreign or domestic, Popish or
+Protestant, 'that mark of the beast' appears in characters as legible
+as, it is fabled, the handwriting on the wall did to a tyrant of old. In
+connection with each is a hierarchy of intellect stultifiers, who
+explain doctrines without understanding them, or intending they should
+be understood by others; and true to their 'sacred trust,' throw every
+available impediment in the way of improvement. Knowledge is their
+accuser. To diffuse the 'truth' that 'will set men free' is no part of
+their 'wicked political system.' On the contrary, they labour to excite
+a general disgust of truth, and in defence of bad governments preach
+fine sermons from some one of the many congenial texts to be gathered in
+their 'Holy Scripture.' Non-established priesthoods are but little more
+disposed to emancipate 'mind' and oil the wheels of political
+progression than those kept in state pay. The air of conventicles is not
+of the freest or most bracing description. The Methodist preacher, who
+has the foolish effrontery to tell his congregation 'the flush lusteth
+always contrary to the spirit, and, _therefore_, every person born into
+the world deserveth God's wrath and damnation,' may be a liberal
+politician, one well fitted to pilot his flock into the haven of true
+republicanism; but I am extremely suspicious of such, and would not on
+any account place my liberty in their keeping.
+
+I possess little faith in political fanaticism, especially when in
+alliance with the frightful doctrines enunciated from conventicle
+pulpits, and have no hesitation in saying that Anti-State Church
+Associations do not touch the root of political evils. Their usefulness
+is great, because they give currency to a sound principle, but that
+principle though important, is not all-important--though powerful, is
+not all-powerful. If universally adopted, it is questionable that any
+useful change of a lasting character would be worked in the economy of
+politics.
+
+Wise men put no trust in doctrine which involves or assumes supernatural
+existence. Believing that supernaturalism reduced to 'system' cannot be
+other than 'wickedly political,' they see no hope for 'slave classes,'
+apart from a general diffusion of anti-superstitious ideas. They cannot
+reconcile the wisdom of theologians with undoubted facts, and though
+willing to admit that some 'modes of faith' are less absurd than others,
+are convinced they are all essentially alike, because all fundamentally
+erroneous.
+
+Speculative thinkers of so radical a temper are not numerous. If
+esteemed, as happens to certain commodities, in proportion to their
+scarcity they would enjoy a large share of public respect. Indeed, they
+are so few and far between, or at least so seldom make their presence
+visible, that William Gillespie is convinced they are an anomalous
+species of animal produced by our common parent 'in a moment of
+madness.' Other grave Christian writers, though horrified at
+Universal--nicknamed Athe-ism--though persuaded its professors, 'of all
+earth's madmen, most deserve a chain;' and, though constantly abusing
+them, are still unable to believe in the reality of such persons. These,
+among all the opponents of Sense and Wisdom may fairly claim to be
+considered most mysterious; for, while lavishing on deniers of their
+idols every kind of sharp invective and opprobrious epithet, they cannot
+assure themselves the 'monsters' did, or do, actually exist. With
+characteristic humour David Hume observed, 'There are not a greater
+number of philosophical reasonings displayed upon any subject than those
+which prove the existence of Deity, and refute the fallacies of
+Atheists, and yet the most religious philosophers still dispute whether
+any man can be so blinded as to be a speculative Atheist;' 'how
+(continues he) shall we reconcile these contradictions? The
+Knight-errants who wandered about to clear the world of dragons and of
+giants, never entertained the least doubt with regard to the existence
+of these monsters.' [8:1]
+
+The same Hume who thus pleasantly rebuked 'most religious philosophers,'
+was himself a true Universalist. That he lacked faith in the
+supernatural must be apparent to every student of his writings, which
+abound with reflections far from flattering to the self-love of
+superstitionists, and little calculated to advance their cause. Hume
+astonished religious fanatics by declaring that _while we argue from the
+course of nature and infer a particular intelligent cause, which first
+bestowed, and still preserves order in the universe, we embrace a
+principle which is both uncertain and useless. It is uncertain, because
+the subject lies entirely beyond the reach of human experience. It is
+useless, because our knowledge of this cause being derived entirely from
+the course of nature, we can never, according to the rules of just
+reasoning, return back from the cause with any new inference, or making
+additions to the common and experienced course of nature, establish any
+principles of conduct and behaviour_. [9:1]
+
+Nor did Hume affect to consider popular Christianity less repugnant to
+reason than any other theory or system of supernaturalism. Though
+confessedly fast in friendship, generous in disposition, and blameless
+in all the relations of life, few sincere Divines can forgive his
+hostility to their faith. And, without doubt, it was hostility eminently
+calculated to exhaust their stock of patience, because eminently
+calculated to damage their superstition, which has nothing to fear from
+the assaults of ignorant and immoral opponents; but when assailed by men
+of unblemished reputation, who know well how to wield the weapons of
+wit, sarcasm, and solid argumentation, its priests are not without
+reason alarmed lest their house should be set _out_ of order.
+
+It would be difficult to name a philosopher at once so subtle, so
+profound, so bold, and so _good_ as Hume. Notwithstanding his heterodox
+reputation, many learned and excellent Christians openly enjoyed his
+friendship. A contemporary critic recently presented the public with 'a
+curious instance of contrast and of parallel,' between Robertson and
+Hume. 'Flourishing (says he) in the same walk of literature, living in
+the same society at the same time; similar in their habits and generous
+dispositions; equally pure in their morals, and blameless in all the
+relations of private life: the one was a devout believer, the other a
+most absolute Atheist, and both from deep conviction, founded upon
+inquiries, carefully and anxiously conducted. The close and warm
+friendship which subsisted between these two men, may, after what we
+have said, be a matter of surprise to some; but Robertson's Christianity
+was enlarged and tolerant, and David Hume's principles were liberal and
+philosophical in a remarkable degree.' [9:2]
+
+This testimony needs no comment. It clearly tells its own tale, and
+ought to have the effect of throwing discredit upon the vulgar notion
+that disgust of superstition is incompatible with talents and virtues of
+the highest order; for, in the person of David Hume, the world saw
+absolute Universalism co-existent with genius, learning, and moral
+excellence, rarely, if ever, surpassed.
+
+The unpopularity of that grand conception it would be vain to deny. A
+vast majority of mankind associate with the idea of disbelief in their
+Gods, everything stupid, monstrous, absurd and atrocious. Absolute
+Universalism is thought by them the inseparable ally of most shocking
+wickedness, involving 'blasphemy against the Holy Ghost,' which we are
+assured shall not be forgiven unto men 'neither in this world nor in
+that which is to come.' Educated to consider it 'an inhuman, bloody,
+ferocious system, equally hostile to every restraint and to every
+virtuous affection,' the majority of all countries detest and shun its
+apostles. Their horror of them may be likened to that it is presumed the
+horse feels towards the camel, upon whom (so travellers tell us) he
+cannot look without _shuddering_.
+
+To keep alive and make the most of this superstitious feeling has ever
+been the object of Christian priests, who rarely hesitate to make
+charges of Atheism, not only against opponents, but each other; not only
+against disbelievers but believers. The Jesuit Lafiteau, in a Preface to
+his 'Histoire des Sauvages Americanes,' [10:1] endeavours to prove that
+only Atheists will dare assert that God created the Americans. Not a
+metaphysical writer of eminence has escaped the 'imputation' of Atheism.
+The great Clarke and his antagonist the greater Leibnitz were called
+Atheists. Even Newton was put in the same category. No sooner did
+sharp-sighted Divines catch a glimpse of an 'Essay on the Human
+Understanding' than they loudly proclaimed the Atheism of its author.
+Julian Hibbert, in his learned account 'Of Persons Falsely Entitled
+Atheists,' says, 'the existence of some sort of a Deity has usually been
+considered undeniable, so the imputation of Atheism and the title of
+Atheist have usually been considered as insulting.' This author, after
+giving no fewer than thirty and two names of 'individuals among the
+Pagans who (with more or less injustice) have been accused of Atheism,'
+says, 'the list shews, I think, that almost all the most celebrated
+Grecian metaphysicians have been, either in their own or in following
+ages, considered, with more or less reason, to be Atheistically
+inclined. For though the word Atheist was probably not often used till
+about a hundred years before Christ, yet the imputation of _impiety_ was
+no doubt as easily and commonly bestowed, before that period, as it has
+been since.' [11:1]
+
+Voltaire relates, in the eighteenth chapter of his 'Philosophie de
+L'Histoire,' [11:2] that a Frenchman named Maigrot, Bishop of Conon, who
+knew not a word of Chinese, was deputed by the then Pope to go and pass
+judgment on the opinions of certain Chinese philosophers; _he treated
+Confucius as Atheist, because that sage had said, 'the sky has given me
+virtue, and man can do me no hurt.'_
+
+On grounds no more solid than this, charges of Atheism are often erected
+by 'surpliced sophists.' Rather ridiculous have been the mistakes
+committed by some of them in their hurry to affix on objects of their
+hate the brand of Impiety. Those persons, no doubt, supposed themselves
+privileged to write or talk any amount of nonsense and contradiction.
+Men who fancy themselves commissioned by Deity to interpret his
+'mysteries,' or announce his 'will,' are apt to make blunders without
+being sensible of it; as did those worthy Jesuits who declared, in
+opposition to Bayle, that a society of Atheists was impossible, and at
+the same time assured the world that the government of China was a
+society of Atheists. So difficult it is for men inflamed by prejudices,
+interests, and animosities, to keep clear of sophisms, which can impose
+on none but themselves.
+
+Many Universalists conceal their sentiments on account of the odium
+which would certainly be their reward did they avow them. But the
+unpopularity of those sentiments cannot, by persons of sense and
+candour, be allowed, in itself, a sufficient reason for their rejection.
+The fact of an opinion being unpopular is no proof it is false. The
+argument from general consent is at best a suspicious one for the truth
+of any opinion or the validity of any practice. History proves that the
+generality of men are the slaves of prejudice, the sport of custom, and
+foes most bigoted to such opinions concerning religion as have not been
+drawn in from their sucking-bottles, or 'hatched within the narrow
+fences of their own conceit.'
+
+Every day experience demonstrates the fallibility of majorities. It
+palpably exhibits, too, the danger as well as folly of presuming the
+unpopularity of certain speculative opinions an evidence of their
+untruth. A public intellect, untainted by gross superstition, can
+nowhere be appealed to. Even in this favoured country, 'the envy of
+surrounding nations and admiration of the world,' the multitude are
+anything but patterns of moral purity and intellectual excellence. They
+who assure us _vox populi_ 'is the voice of God,' are fairly open to the
+charge of ascribing to Him what orthodox pietists inform us exclusively
+belongs to the Father of Evil. If by 'voice of God' is meant something
+different from noisy ebullitions of anger, intemperance, and fanaticism,
+they who would have us regulate our opinions in conformity therewith are
+respectfully requested to reconcile mob philosophy with the sober
+dictates of experience, and mob law with the law of reason.
+
+A writer in the _Edinburgh Review_ [12:1] assures us _the majority of
+every nation consists of rude uneducated masses, ignorant, intolerant,
+suspicious, unjust, and uncandid, without the sagacity which discovers
+what is right, or the intelligence which comprehends it when pointed
+out, or the morality which requires it to be done._ And yet religious
+philosophers are fond of quoting the all but universal horror of
+Universalism as a formidable argument against that much misunderstood
+creed!
+
+The least reflection will suffice to satisfy any reasonable man that the
+speculative notions of rude, uneducated masses, so faithfully described
+by the Scotch Reviewer, are, for the most part, grossly absurd and
+consequently the reverse of true. If the masses of all nations are
+ignorant, intolerant, suspicious, unjust, and uncandid, without the
+sagacity which discovers what is right, or the intelligence which
+comprehends it when pointed out, or the morality which requires it to be
+done, who with the least shadow of claim to be accounted _reasonable_
+will assert that a speculative heresy is the worse for being unpopular,
+or that an opinion is false, and _must_ be demoralising in its
+influence, because the majority of mankind declare it so.
+
+I would not have it inferred from the foregoing remarks that horror of
+Universalism, and detestation of its apostles, is _confined_ to the low,
+the vulgar, the base, or the illiterate. Any such inference would be
+wrong, for it is certainly true that learned, benevolent, and very able
+Christian writers, have signalised themselves in the work of obstructing
+the progress of Universalism by denouncing its principles, and imputing
+all manner of wickedness to its defenders. It must, indeed, be admitted
+that their conduct in this particular amply justifies pious Matthew
+Henry's confession that 'of all the Christian graces, zeal is most apt
+to turn sour.'
+
+One John Ryland, A.M., of Northampton, published a 'Preceptor, or
+General Repository of useful information, very necessary for the various
+ages and departments of life,' in which 'pride and lust, a corrupt pride
+of heart, and a furious filthy lust of body,' are announced as the
+Atheist's 'springs of action,' 'desire to act the beast without control,
+and live like a devil without a check of conscience,' his only 'reasons
+for opposing the existence of God,' in which he is told 'a world of
+creatures are up in arms against him to kill him as they would a
+venomous mad dog,' in which, among other hard names, he is called
+'absurd fool,' 'beast,' 'dirty monster,' 'brute,' 'gloomy dark animal,'
+'enemy of mankind,' 'wolf to civil society,' 'butcher and murderer of
+the human race,' in which, moreover, he is _cursed_ in the following
+hearty terms;--'Let the glorious mass of fire burn him, let the moon
+light him to the gallows, let the stars in their courses fight against
+the Atheist, let the force of the comets dash him to pieces, let the
+roar of thunders strike him deaf, let red lightnings blast his guilty
+soul, let the sea lift up her mighty waves to bury him, let the lion
+tear him to pieces, let dogs devour him, let the air poison him, let the
+next crumb of bread choke him, nay, let the dull ass spurn him to
+death.'
+
+This is a notable specimen of zeal turned sour.
+
+Bishop Hall was a Divine of solid learning and unquestionable piety,
+whose memory is reverenced by a large and most respectable part of the
+Christian world. He ranked amongst the best of his class, and, generally
+speaking, was so little disposed to persecute his opponents because of
+their heterodox opinions, that he wrote and published a "Treatise on
+Moderation," in the course of which he eloquently condemns the practice
+of regulating, or, rather, attempting to regulate opinion by act of
+parliament; yet, incredible as it may appear, in that very Treatise he
+applauds Calvin on account of his conduct towards Servetus. Our
+authority for this statement is not 'Infidel' but Christian--the
+authority of Evans, who, after noticing the Treatise in question, says,
+'he (Bishop Hall) has discussed the subject with that ability which is
+peculiar to all his writings. But this great and good man, towards the
+close of the same Treatise, forgetting the principles which he had been
+inculcating, devotes one solitary page to the cause of intolerance: this
+page he concludes with these remarkable expressions: "Master Calvin did
+well approve himself to God's Church in bringing Servetus to the stake
+in Geneva."
+
+Remarkable, indeed! and what is the moral that they point? To me they
+are indicative of the startling truth, that neither eloquence nor
+learning, nor faith in God and his Scripture, nor all three combined,
+are incompatible with the cruelest spirit of persecution. The Treatise
+on Moderation will stand an everlasting memorial against its author,
+whose fine intellect, spoiled by superstitious education, urged him to
+approve a deed, the bare remembrance of which ought to excite in every
+breast, feelings of horror and indignation. That such a man should
+declare the aim of Universalists is 'to dethrone God and destroy man,'
+is not surprising. From genuine bigots they have no right to expect
+mercy. He who applauded the bringing of Servetus to the stake must have
+deemed their utter extermination a religious duty.
+
+That our street and field preaching Christians, with very few
+exceptions, heartily sympathise with the fire and faggot sentiments of
+Bishop Hall, is well known, but happily, their absurd ravings are
+attended to by none save eminently pious people, whose brains are
+_unclogged_ by any conceivable quantity of useful knowledge. In point of
+intellect they are utterly contemptible. Their ignorance, however, is
+fully matched by their impudence, which never forsake, them. They claim
+to be considered God's right-hand men, and of course duly qualified
+preachers of his 'word,' though unable to speak five minutes without
+taking the same number of liberties with the Queen's English. Swift was
+provoked by the prototypes of these pestiferous people, to declare that,
+'formerly the apostles received the gift of speaking several languages,
+a knowledge so remote from our dealers in the art of enthusiasm, that
+they neither understand propriety of speech nor phrases of their own,
+much less the gift of tongues.'
+
+The millions of Christian people who have been trained up in the way
+they should _not_ go, by this active class of fanatics, are naturally
+either opposed to reason or impervious to it. They are convinced not
+only that the wisdom of the world is foolishness with God, but that
+wisdom with God is foolishness with the world; nor will any one affirm
+their 'moderation' in respect to unbelievers one tittle more moderate
+than Bishop Hall's; or that they are one tittle less disposed than 'that
+good and great man,' to think those who bring heretics to the stake at
+Geneva or elsewhere, 'do well approve themselves to God's Church.'
+Educated, that is to say _duped_ as they are, they cannot but think
+disbelief highly criminal, and when practicable, or convenient, deal
+with it as such.
+
+It is, nevertheless, true, that Universalists have been helped to some
+of their best arguments by adversaries. Bishop Watson, to wit, has
+suggested objections to belief in the Christian's Deity, which they who
+hold no such belief consider unanswerable. In his famous 'Apology' he
+desired to know what Paine thought 'of an uncaused cause of everything,
+and a Being who has no relation to time, not being older to day than he
+was yesterday, nor younger to day than he will be to-morrow--who has no
+relation to space, not being a part here and a part there, or a whole
+anywhere? of an omniscient Being who cannot know the future actions of
+man, or if his omniscience enables him to know them, of the contingency
+of human actions? of the distinction between vice and virtue, crime and
+innocence, sin and duty? of the infinite goodness of a Being who existed
+through eternity without any emanation of his goodness manifested in the
+creation of sensitive beings? or, if it be contended that there was an
+eternal creation, of an effect coeval with its cause, of matter not
+posterior to its maker? of the existence of evil, moral and natural, in
+the work of an Infinite Being, powerful, wise, and good? finally, of the
+gift of freedom of will, when the abuse of freedom becomes the cause of
+general misery?' [15:1]
+
+These questions imply much. That they flowed from the pen of a Bishop,
+is one of many extraordinary facts which have grown out of theological
+controversy. They are questions strongly suggestive of another. Is it
+possible to have experience of, or even to imagine, a Being with
+attributes so strange, anomalous, and contradictory? It is plain that
+Bishop Watson was convinced 'no man by searching can find out God.' The
+case is, that he, in the hope of converting Deists, ventured to
+insinuate arguments highly favourable to Atheism, whose professors
+consider an admission of utter ignorance of God, tantamount to a denial
+of His existence. Many Christians, with more candour, perhaps, than
+prudence, have avowed the same opinion. Minutius Felix, for example,
+said to the Heathen, 'Not one of you reflects that you ought to know
+your Gods before you worship them.' [15:2] As if he felt the absurdity
+of pretending to love and honour an unknown 'Perhaps.' That he did
+himself what he ridiculed in them proves nothing but his own
+inconsistency.
+
+The Christian, equally with the Heathen, is open to the reproach of
+worshipping HE KNOWS NOT WHAT. Yes, to idol-hating 'enlightened
+Christians,' may be fairly applied the severe sarcasm Minutius Felix so
+triumphantly levelled against idol-loving 'benighted Heathens.' Will any
+one say the Christian absolutely knows more about Jehovah than the
+Heathen did about Jupiter? I believe that few, if any, who have
+attentively considered Bishop Watson's queries, will say the 'dim
+Unknown,' they so darkly shadow forth, is conceivable by any effort
+either of sense or imagination.
+
+Under cover, then, of what reason can Christians escape the imputation
+of pretending to adore what they have no conception of? The very 'book
+of books,' to which they so boldly appeal, is conclusive _against_ them.
+In its pages they stand convicted of idolatry. Without doubt a God is
+revealed by Revelation; but not _their_ God, not a supernatural Being,
+infinite in power, in wisdom, and in goodness. The Bible Deity is
+superhuman in nothing; all that His adorers have ascribed to Him being
+mere amplification of human powers, human ideas, and human passions. The
+Bible Deity 'has mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he
+hardeneth;' is 'jealous,' especially of other Gods; changeful,
+vindictive, partial, cruel, unjust, 'angry with the wicked every day;'
+and altogether a Being far from respectable, or worthy to be considered
+infinite in wisdom, power, and goodness. Is it credible that a Being
+supernaturally wise and good, proclaimed the murderous adulterer David,
+a man after his own heart, and commanded the wholesale butchery of
+Canaanites? Or that a God of boundless power, 'whose tender mercies are
+over all his works,' decreed the extermination of entire nations for
+being what he made them? Jehovah did all three. Confessedly a God of
+Armies and Lord of Hosts; confessedly, too, a hardener of men's, hearts
+that he might destroy them, he authorised acts at which human nature
+shudders, and of which it is ashamed: yet to _reverence_ Him we are
+commanded by the self-styled 'stewards of his mysteries,' on peril of
+our 'immortal souls.' Verily, these pious anathematisers task our
+credulity a little too much. In their zeal for the God of Israel, they
+are apt to forget that only Himself can compass impossibilities, and
+altogether lose sight of the fact that where, who, or what Jehovah is,
+no man knoweth. Revelation (so-called) reveals nothing about 'the
+creator of heaven and earth,' on which a cultivated intellect can repose
+with satisfaction. Men naturally desire positive information concerning
+the superhuman Deity, belief in whom is the _sine qua non_ of all
+superstition. But the Bible furnishes no such information concerning
+Jehovah. On the contrary, He is there pronounced 'past finding out,'
+incomprehensible, and the like. 'Canst thou by searching find out God?
+Canst thou find out the Almighty to perfection?' are questions put by an
+'inspired writer,' who felt the cloudy and unsatisfactory nature of all
+human conceit concerning Deity.
+
+Now, a Revelation from God might reasonably be expected to make the mode
+and nature of His existence manifest. But the Christian Bible falls
+infinitely short in this particular. It teaches there is a God; but
+throws no light on the dark question _What is God?_ Numerous and various
+as are Scripture texts, none can be cited in explanation of a Deity no
+older to-day than he was yesterday, nor younger to-day than he will be
+to-morrow; of a Deity who has no relation to space, not being a part
+here and a part there, or a whole any where: in short, of that Deity
+written about by Bishop Watson, who, like every other sincere Christian,
+made the mistake of resting his religious faith on 'words without
+knowledge.'
+
+It is to this description of faith Universalists object. They think it
+the root of superstition, that greatest of all the plagues by which poor
+humanity is afflicted. Are they to blame for thus thinking? The
+Christian has no mercy on the superstition of the Heathen, and should
+scorn to complain when the bitter chalice is returned to his own lips.
+Universalists believe the God of Bishop Watson a supernatural chimera,
+and to its worshippers have a perfect right to say, _Not one of you
+reflects that you ought to know your Gods before you worship them_.
+These remarkable words, originally addressed to the Heathen, lose none
+of their force when directed against the Christian.
+
+No one can conceive a supernatural Being, and what none can conceive
+none ought to worship, or even assert the existence of. Who worships a
+something of which he knows nothing is an idolater. To talk of, or bow
+down to it, is nonsensical; to pretend affection for it, is worse than
+nonsensical. Such conduct, however pious, involves the rankest
+hypocrisy; the meanest and most odious species of idolatry; for
+labouring to destroy which the Universalist is called 'murderer of the
+human soul,' 'blasphemer,' and other foolish names, too numerous to
+mention.
+
+It would be well for all parties, if those who raise against us the cry
+of 'blasphemy,' were made to perceive that 'godless' unbelievers cannot
+be blasphemers; for, as contended by Lord Brougham in his Life of
+Voltaire, blasphemy implies belief; and, therefore, Universalists cannot
+logically or justly be said to blaspheme him. The blasphemer, properly
+so called, is he who imagines Deity, an ascribes to the idol of his own
+brain all manner of folly, contradiction, inconsistency, and wickedness.
+
+Superstition is universally abhorred, but no one believes _himself_
+superstitious. There never was a religionist who believed his own
+religion mere superstition. All shrink indignantly from the charge of
+being superstitious; while all raise temples to, and bow down, before
+'thingless names.' The 'masses' of every nation erect chimera into
+substantial reality, and woe to these who follow not the insane example.
+The consequences--the fatal consequences--are everywhere apparent. In
+our own country we see social disunion on the grandest possible scale.
+Society is split up into an almost infinite variety of sects whose
+members imagine themselves patented to think truth and never to be wrong
+in the enunciation of it.
+
+_Sanders' News Letter and Daily Advertiser_ of Feb. 18, 1845, among
+other curiosities, contains an 'Address of the Dublin Protestant
+Operative Association, and Reformation Society,' one sentence of which
+is--_We have raised our voices against the spirit of compromise, which
+is the opprobrium of the age; we have unfurled the banner of Protestant
+truth, and placed ourselves beneath it; we have insisted upon Protestant
+ascendancy as just and equitable, because Protestant principles are true
+and undeniable_.
+
+Puseyite Protestants tell a tale the very reverse of that so modestly
+told by their nominal brethren of the Dublin Operative Association.
+They, as may be seen in Palmer's Letter to Golightly, _utterly reject
+and anathematise the principle of Protestantism, as a heresy with all
+its forms, sects, or denominations_. Nor is that all our 'Romeward
+Divines' do, for in addition to rejecting utterly and cursing bitterly,
+as well the name as the principle of Protestantism, they eulogise the
+Church of Rome, because forsooth _she yields_, says Newman in his letter
+to Jelf, _free scope to feelings of awe, mystery, tenderness, reverence,
+and devotedness_; while we have it on the authority of Tract 90, that
+the Church of England is _in bondage; working in chains, and _(tell it
+not in Dublin)_ teaching with the stammering lips of ambiguous
+formularies_. Fierce and burning is the hatred of Dublin Operative
+Association Christians to Popery, but exactly that style of hatred to
+Protestantism is avowed by Puseyites. Both sets of Christians are quite
+sure they are right: but (alas! for infallibility) a third set of
+Christians insist that they are both wrong. There are Papists, or Roman
+Catholics, who consider Protestant principles the very reverse of true
+and undeniable, and treat with derisive scorn the 'fictitious
+Catholicism' of Puseyite Divines.
+
+Count de Montalambert, in his recently published 'Letter to the Rev. Mr.
+Neale on the Architectural, Artistical, and Archaeological Movements of
+the Puseyites,' enters his 'protest' against the most unwarranted and
+unjustifiable assumption of the name of Catholic by people and things
+belonging to the actual Church of England. _'It is easy,'_ he observes,
+_'to take up a name, but it is not so easy to get it recognised by the
+world and by competent authority. Any man for example, may come out to
+Madeira and call himself a Montmorency, or a Howard, and even enjoy the
+honour and consideration belonging to such a name till the real
+Montmorencys or Howards hear something about it, and denounce him, and
+then such a man would be justly scouted from society, and fall down much
+lower than the lowness from which he attempted to rise. The attempt to
+steal away from us and appropriate to the use of a fraction of the
+Church of England that glorious title of Catholic is proved to be an
+usurpation by every monument of the past and present--by the coronation
+oath of your sovereigns--by all the laws which have established your
+Church--even by the recent answer of your University of Oxford to the
+lay address against Dr. Pusey, &c., where the Church of England is
+justly styled the Reformed Protestant Church. The question then is, have
+you, the Church of England, got the picture for your frame? have you got
+the truth, the one truth; the same truth as the men of the middle ages.
+The Camden Society says yes; but the whole Christian world, both
+Protestant and Catholic, says no; and the Catholic world adds that there
+is no truth but in unity, and this unity you most certainly have not.
+One more; every Catholic will repeat to you the words of Manzoni, as
+quoted by M. Faber: 'The greatest deviations are none if the main point
+be recognised; the smallest are damnable heresies, if it be denied. That
+main point is the infallibility of the Church, or rather of the Pope.'_
+
+No one desires to be eternally punished; and, therefore, if any one
+embrace a false faith, it is because he makes the mistake of supposing
+it the true one. The three sets of Christians, just adverted to, may all
+be equally sincere, but cannot all have the true faith. Protestant
+principles, as taught by the Dublin Operative Association, may be true.
+Anglo-Catholic principles, as taught by the Oxford Tractmen, may be
+true. Roman Catholic principles, as taught by the Count de Montalembert,
+may be true; but they cannot ALL be true. It is impossible to reconcile
+that orthodox Papists' 'main point,' _i.e._ the infallibility of the
+(Romish) Church, or rather of the Pope, with the 'main point' of
+orthodox Protestants, who denounce 'the great harlot of Babylon,' that
+'scarlet lady who sitteth upon the seven hills,' in the most unmeasured
+and virulent terms. Anti-Christ is the name they 'blasphemously' apply
+to the actual 'old chimera of a Pope.' Puseyite Divines treat his
+Holiness with more tenderness, but even _they_ boggle at his
+infallibility, and seem to occupy a position between the rival churches
+of Rome and England analogous to that of Captain Macheath when singing
+between two favourite doxies--
+
+          How happy could I be with either,
+           Were t'other dear charmer away;
+          But while you thus teaze me together,
+           The devil a word will I say.
+
+Infallibility of Popes is the doctrine insisted upon by Count De
+Montalembert as essential--as doctrine the smallest deviation from which
+is damnable heresy. Believe and admit Antichrist is _not_ Antichrist,
+but God's accredited viceregent upon earth, infinite is the mercy in
+store for you; but woe to those who either cannot or will not believe
+and admit anything of the kind. On them every sincere Roman Catholic is
+sure that God will empty the vials of his wrath.
+
+Priests ascribe to Deity the low, grovelling, vindictive, feelings which
+agitate and disgrace themselves. If Roman Catholic principles are true
+and undeniable, none but Roman Catholics will be saved from the wrath to
+come. If Anglo-Catholic principles are true and undeniable, none but
+Anglo-Catholics will be saved from the wrath to come. If orthodox
+Protestant principles are true and undeniable, none but orthodox
+Protestants will be saved from the wrath to come.
+
+Thus superstitionists
+
+                            Grunt and groan,
+          Cursing all systems but their own.
+
+Agreeing in little else save disagreement, the 'main point' of this
+class of believers is a matter of little consequence to that class of
+believers, and no matter at all to a third class of believers. Look at
+the thousand-and-one sects into which the Christian world is divided.
+'Some reject Scripture; others admit no other writings but Scripture.
+Some say the Devils shall be saved, others that they shall be damned;
+others that there are no Devils at all. Some hold that it is lawful to
+dissemble in religion, others the contrary. Some say that Antichrist is
+come, some say not; others that he is a particular man, others that he
+is not a man, but the Devil; and others that by Antichrist is meant a
+succession of men. Some will have him to be Nero, some Caligula, some
+Mohammed, some the Pope, some Luther, some the Turk, some of the Tribe
+of Dan; and so each man according to his fancy will make an Antichrist.
+Some only will observe the Lord's day, some only the Sabbath; some both,
+and some neither. Some will have all things in common, some not. Some
+will have Christ's body only in Heaven, some everywhere; some in the
+bread, others with the bread, others about the bread, others under the
+bread, and others that Christ's body is the bread, or the bread his
+body. And others that his body is transformed into his divinity. Some
+will have the Eucharist administered in both kinds, some in one, some
+not at all. Some will have Christ descend to hell in respect of his
+soul, some only in his power, some in his divinity, some in his body,
+some not at all. Some by hell understand the place of the damned, some
+_limbus patrum_, others the wrath of God, others the grave. Some will
+make Christ two persons, some give him but one nature and one will; some
+affirming him to be only God, some only man, some made up of both, some
+altogether deny him. Some will have his body come from Heaven, some from
+the Virgin, some from the elements. Some will have our souls mortal,
+some immortal; some bring them into the body by Infusion, some by
+traduction. Some will have souls created before the world, some after;
+some will have them created altogether, others severally; some will have
+them corporeal, some incorporeal; some of the substance of God, some of
+the substance of the body. So infinitely are men's conceits distracted
+with a variety of opinions, whereas _there is but one Truth_, which
+every man aims at, but few attain it; every man thinks he hath it, and
+yet few enjoy it.' [20:1]
+
+Chiefs of these sects are, for the most part, ridiculously intolerant;
+so many small Popes, who fancy that whomsoever they bind on earth shall
+be bound in Heaven; and whomsoever they loose on earth shall be loosed
+in Heaven. They remorselessly cobble the true faith, without which, to
+their 'sole exclusive Heaven,' none can be admitted.
+
+          As if religion were intended,
+          For nothing else but to be mended.
+
+And never seem so happy as when promising eternal misery to those who
+reject their chimeras.
+
+But wisdom, we read, is justified by her children; and to the wise of
+every nation the Universalist confidently appeals. He rejects popular
+religion, because such religion is based on principles of imaginative
+ignorance. Bailly defines it as 'the worship of the unknown, piety,
+godliness, humility, before the _unknown_.' Lavater as 'Faith in the
+supernatural, invisible, _unknown_'. Vauvenargus as 'the duties of men
+towards the _unknown_.' Dr. Johnson as 'Virtue founded upon reverence of
+the _unknown_, and expectation of future rewards and punishments.'
+Rivarol as 'the science of serving the _unknown_.' La Bruyere as 'the
+respectful fear of the _unknown_.' Du Marsais, as 'the worship of the
+_unknown_, and the practice of all the virtues.' Walker as 'Virtue
+founded upon reverence of the _unknown_, and expectation of rewards or
+punishments; a system of divine faith and worship as opposed to other
+systems.' De Bonald as 'social intercourse between man and the
+_unknown_.' Rees as 'the worship or homage that is due to the _unknown_
+as creator, preserver, and, with Christians, as redeemer of the world,'
+Lord Brougham as 'the subject of the science called Theology:' a science
+he defines as 'the knowledge and attributes of the _unknown_' which
+definitions agree in making the essential principle of religion a
+principle of ignorance. That they are sufficiently correct definitions
+will not be disputed, and upon them the Universalist is satisfied to
+rest his case. To him the worship or adoration of what is confessedly
+unknown is mere superstition; and to him professors of theology are
+'artists in words,' who pretend to teach what nobody has any conception
+of. Now, such persons may be well-intentioned; but their wisdom is by no
+means apparent. They must be wonderfully deficient of the invaluable
+sense so falsely called 'common.' Idolizers of 'thingless names,' they
+set at naught the admirable dictum of Locke that it is 'unphilosophic to
+suppose names in books signify real entities in nature, unless we can
+frame clear and distinct ideas of those entities.'
+
+Theists of every class would do well to calmly and fully consider this
+rule of philosophising, for it involves nothing less than the
+destruction of belief in the supernatural. The Jupiter of Mythologic
+History, the Allah of Alkoran, and the Jehovah of 'Holy Scripture,' if
+entities at all, are assuredly entities that baffle human conception. To
+'frame clear and distinct ideas of them' is impossible. In respect to
+the attribute of _unknown ability_ all Gods are alike.
+
+Books have been written to exhibit the difficulties of (what priests
+choose to call) Infidelity, and without doubt unbelief has its
+difficulties. But, according to a universally recognised rule of
+philosophising, of two difficulties we are in all cases to choose the
+least. From a rule so palpably just no one can reasonably depart, and
+the Universalist, while freely admitting a great difficulty on his own
+side, is satisfied there can be demonstrated an infinitely greater
+difficulty on the side of his opponents. The Universalist labours to
+convince mankind they are not warranted by the general course of Nature
+in assigning to it a Cause; inasmuch as it is more in accordance with
+experience to suppose Nature the uncaused cause, than to imagine, as
+errorists do, that there is an uncaused cause of Nature.
+
+Theologians ask, who created Nature? without adducing satisfactory
+evidence that Nature _was_ created, and without reflecting that if it is
+difficult to believe Nature self-existent, it is much more difficult to
+believe some self-existent Super-nature, capable of producing it. In
+their anxiety to get rid of a natural difficulty, they invent a
+supernatural one, and accuse Universalists of 'wilful blindness,' and
+'obstinate deafness,' for not choosing so unphilosophic a mode of
+explaining universal mystery.
+
+The rule of philosophising just adverted to--that rule which forbids us,
+in any case, to chose the greater of two difficulties--is of immense
+importance, and should be carefully considered by every one anxious to
+arrive at correct conclusions with respect to theology. For if believers
+in God do depart from that rule--if their belief necessarily involve its
+violation--to persist in such belief is to persist in what is clearly
+opposed to pure reason. Now, it has been demonstrated, so far as words
+can demonstrate any truth whatever, that the difficulty of him who
+believes Nature never had an author, is infinitely less than the
+difficulty of him who believes it had a cause itself uncaused.
+
+In the 'Elements of Materialism,' an unequal, but still admirable work
+by Dr. Knowlton, a well-known American writer, this question of
+comparative difficulty is well handled.
+
+'The sentiment,' says the Doctor, 'that a being exists which never
+commenced existence, or what is the same thing, that a being exists
+which has existed from all eternity, appears to us to favour Atheism,
+for if one Being exist which never commenced existence--why not
+another--why not the universe? It weighs nothing, says the Atheist, in
+the eye of reason, to say the universe appears to man as though it were
+organised by an Almighty Designer, for the maker of a thing must be
+superior to the thing made; and if there be a maker of the universe
+there can be no doubt, but that if such maker were minutely examined by
+man, man would discover such indications of wisdom and design that it
+would be more difficult for him to admit that such maker was not caused
+or constructed by a pre-existing Designer, than to admit that the
+universe was not caused or constructed by a Designer. But no one will
+contend for an infinite series of Makers; and if, continues the Atheist,
+what would, if viewed, be indications of design, are no proofs of a
+designer in the one case, they are not in the other; and as such
+indications are the only evidence we have of the existence of a Designer
+of the universe, we, as rational beings, contend there is no God. We do
+not suppose the existence of any being, of which there is no evidence,
+when such supposition, it admitted, so far from diminishing would only
+increase a difficulty, which, at best, is sufficiently great. Surely, if
+a superior being may have existed from all eternity, an inferior may
+have existed from all eternity; if a great God sufficiently mighty to
+make a world may have existed from all eternity, of course without
+beginning and without cause, such world may have existed from all
+eternity, without beginning, and without cause.' [23:1]
+
+These are 'strong reasons' for Universalism. They prove that Theists set
+at nought the rule of philosophising which forbids us to choose the
+greater of two difficulties. Their system compels them to do so; for
+having no other groundwork than the strange hypotheses that time was
+when there was no time--something existed when there was nothing, which
+something created everything; its advocates would be tongue-tied and
+lost if reduced to the hard necessity of appealing to facts, or rigidly
+regarding rules of philosophising which have only their reasonableness
+to recommend them. They profess ability to account for Nature, and are
+of course exceeding eager to justify a profession so presumptuous. This
+eagerness betrays them into courses, of which no one bent on rejecting
+whatever is either opposed to, or unsanctioned by, experience, can
+possibly approve. It is plain that of the God they tell us to believe
+'created the worlds,' no man has any experience. This granted, it
+follows that worship of such fancied Being is mere superstition. Until
+it be shown by reference to the general course of things, that things
+had an author, Himself uncreated or unauthorized, religious philosophers
+have no right to expect Universalists to abandon their Universalism. The
+duty of priests is to reconcile religion with reason, _if they can_, and
+admit their inability to do so, _if they cannot_.
+
+Romanists will have nothing to do with reason whenever it appears at
+issue with their faith. All sects, as sects, play fast and loose with
+reason. Many members of all sects are forward enough to boast about
+being able to give a reason for the faith that is in them; but an
+overwhelming majority love to exalt faith above reason. Philosophy they
+call 'vain,' and some have been found so filled with contempt for it, as
+to openly maintain that what is theologically true, is philosophically
+false; or, in other terms, that the truths of religion and the truths of
+philosophy have nothing in common. According to them, religious truths
+are independent of, and superior to, all other truths. Our faith, say
+they, if not agreeable to _mere_ reason is infinitely superior to it.
+Priests are 'at one' on the point. Dissenting and Protestant, as well as
+Romanising priests, find it convenient to abuse reason and extol faith.
+As priests, they can scarcely be expected to do otherwise; for reason is
+a stern and upright judge whose decrees have hitherto been unfavourable
+to superstition. Its professors, who appeal to that judge, play a part
+most inconsistent and dangerous, as is evident in the case of Origen
+Bachelor, who more zealous and candid than prudent, declared the real
+and only question between Atheism and Theism a question of fact;
+reducing it to these terms--'Is there reason, all things considered, for
+believing that there is a God, an intelligent cause of things, infinite
+and perfect in all his attributes and moral qualities?' [24:1]
+
+Now, the reader has seen that the hypothesis of 'an intelligent cause of
+things' involves difficulties, greater, infinitely greater than the one
+difficulty involved in the hypothesis that things always existed. He has
+seen the folly of explaining natural, by the invention of supernatural
+mystery, because it manifestly violates a rule of philosophising, the
+justness of which it would be ridiculous to dispute. Having clearly
+perceived thus much, he will perhaps think it rather 'too bad' as well
+as absurd, to call Universalists 'madmen' for lacking faith in the
+monstrous dogma that Nature was caused by 'something amounting to
+nothing' itself uncaused.
+
+There is something. That truth admits not of being evidenced. It is,
+nevertheless, accepted. It is accepted by men of all religious opinions,
+equally with men of no religious opinions. If any truth be self-evident
+and eternal, here is that truth. To call it in question would be worse
+than idle. We may doubt the reality of an external world, we may be
+sceptical as to the reality of our own bodies, but we cannot doubt that
+there is something. The proposition falls not within the domain of
+scepticism. It must be true. To suppose it false is literally
+impossible. Its falsehood would involve contradiction, and all
+contradiction involves Impossibility. But, if proof of this were needed,
+we have it in the fact that no man, sage or simple, ever pretended to
+deny there is something. Whatever men could doubt or deny they have
+doubted or denied, but in no country of the world, in no age, has the
+dogma--there is something--been denied or even treated as doubtful. Here
+then Universalists, Theists, and Polytheists agree. They agree of
+necessity. There is no escape from the conclusion that something is,
+except we adopt the unintelligible dogma--there is nothing--which no
+human being can, as nothing amounts to nothing, and of what amounts to
+nothing no one can have an idea. To define the word something by any
+other word would be labour in vain. There is no other word in any
+language whoso meaning is better understood, and they who do not
+understand what it means, if such persons there be, are not likely to
+understand the meaning of any word or words whatever. Ideas of nothing
+none have. That there is something, we repeat, must be true, all dogmas
+or propositions being necessarily true whose denial involves an
+impossibility. What the nature of that something may be is a secondary
+question, and however determined cannot affect the primary dogma--things
+are things whatever may be their individual or their aggregate nature.
+Nor is it of the least consequence what name or names we may see fit to
+give things, so that each word has its fixed and true meaning. Whether,
+for example, we use for the sign of that something which is, the word
+Universe, or God, or Substance, or Spirit, or Matter, or the letter X,
+is of no importance, if we understand the word or letter used to be
+merely the sign of that something. Words are seldom useful except when
+they are the sign of true ideas; evidently therefore, their legitimate
+function is to convey such ideas; and words which convey no ideas at
+all, or what is worse, only those which are false, should at once be
+expunged from the vocabularies of nations. Something is. The
+Universalist calls it matter. Other persons may choose to call it other
+names: let them. He chooses to call it this one--and no other.
+
+There ever has been something. Here, again, is a point of unity. All are
+equally assured there ever has been something. Something is, something
+must always have been, cry the religious, and the cry is echoed by the
+irreligious. This last dogma, like the first, admits not of being
+evidenced. As nothing is inconceivable, we cannot even imagine a time
+when there was nothing. Universalists say, something ever was, which
+something is matter. Theists say, something has been from all eternity,
+which something is not matter but God. They boldly affirm that matter
+began to be. They affirm its creation from nothing, by a something,
+which was before the universe. Indeed, the notion of universal creation
+involves first, that of universal annihilation, and secondly, that of
+something prior to everything. What creates everything must be before
+everything, in the same way that he who manufactures a watch must exist
+before the watch. As already remarked, Universalists agree with Theists,
+that something ever has been, but the point of difference lies here. The
+Universalist says, matter is the eternal something, and asks proof of
+its beginning to be. The Theist insists that matter is not the eternal
+something, but that God is; and when pushed for an account of what he
+means by God, he coolly answers, a Being, having nothing in common with
+anything, who nevertheless, by his Almighty will, created everything. It
+may without injustice be affirmed, that the sincerest and strongest
+believers in this mysterious Deity are often tormented by doubts, and,
+if candid, must own they believe in the existence of many things with a
+feeling much closer allied to certainty than they do in the reality of
+their 'Great First Cause, least understood.' No man's faith in the
+inconceivable is ever half so strong as his belief in the visible and
+tangible.
+
+But few among professional mystifiers will admit this, obviously true as
+it is. Some have done so. Baxter, of pious memory, to wit, who said, _I
+am not so foolish as to pretend my certainty be greater than it is,
+because it is dishonour to be less certain; nor will I by shame be kept
+from confessing those infirmities which those have as much as I, who
+hypocritically reproach with them._ MY CERTAINTY THAT I AM A MAN IS
+BEFORE MY CERTAINTY THAT THERE IS A GOD.
+
+So candid was Richard Baxter, and so candid are _not_ the most part of
+our priests, who would fain have us think them altogether _un_sceptical.
+Nevertheless, they write abundance of books to convince us 'God is,'
+though they never penned a line in order to convince us, we actually
+are, and that to disbelieve we are is a 'deadly sin.'
+
+Could God be known, could his existence be made 'palpable to feeling as
+to sight,' as unquestionably is the existence of matter, there would be
+no need of 'Demonstrations of the existence of God', no need of
+arguments _a priori_ or _a posteriori_ to establish that existence.
+Saint John was right; 'No man hath seen God at any time', to which 'open
+confession' he might truly have added, 'none ever will,' for the unreal
+is alway unseeable. Yet have 'mystery men' with shameless and most
+insolent pertinacity asserted the existence of God while denying the
+existence of matter.
+
+_The incomprehensible is not to be defined._ It is difficult to give
+_intelligible_ account of an Immense Being confessedly mysterious and
+about whom his worshippers admit they only know, they know nothing,
+except that
+
+                             'He is good,
+          And that themselves are blind.'
+
+Spinoza said, _of things which have nothing in common, one cannot be the
+cause of the other_; and to me it seems eminently unphilosophic to
+believe a Being having nothing in common with anything, capable of
+creating or causing everything. 'Only matter can be touched or touch;'
+and as the Christian's God is not material, his adorers are fairly open
+to the charge of superstition. An unknown Deity, without body, parts or
+passions, is of all idols the least tangible; and they who pretend to
+know and reverence him, are deceived or deceivers.
+
+In this Christian country, where men are expected to believe and called
+'Infidel' if they _cannot_ believe in a 'crucified Saviour,' it seems
+strange so much fuss should be made about his immateriality. All but
+Unitarian Christians hold as an essential article of faith, that in him
+dwelt the fulness of the Godhead bodily; in other words, that our
+Redeemer and our Creator, though two persons, are but one God. It is
+true that Divines of our 'Reformed Protestant Church,' call everything
+but gentlemen those who lay claim to the equivocal privilege of feasting
+periodically upon the body and blood of Omnipotence. The pains taken by
+Protestants to show from Scripture, Reason and Nature, that Priests
+cannot change lumps of dough into the body, and bumpers of wine into the
+blood, of their God, are well known and appreciated. But the Roman
+Catholics are neither to be argued nor laughed out of their 'awful
+doctrine' of the real presence, to which they cling with desperate
+earnestness.
+
+Locke wrote rather disparagingly of 'many among us,' who will be found
+upon Inquiry, to fancy God in the shape of a man fitting in heaven, and
+have other absurd and unfit conceptions of him.' As though it were
+possible to think of shapeless Being, or as though it were criminal in
+the superstitious to believe 'God made man after his own image.'
+
+That Christians as well as Turks 'really have had whole sects earnestly
+contending that the Deity was corporeal and of human shape', is a fact,
+so firmly established as to defy contradiction. And though every sincere
+subscriber to the Thirty Nine Articles must believe, or at least must
+believe he believes in Deity without body, parts, or passions, it is
+well known that 'whole sects' of Christians do even now 'fancy God in
+the shape of a man sitting in heaven, and entertain other absurd and
+unfit conceptions of him.'
+
+Mr. Collibeer, who is considered by Christian writers 'a most ingenious
+gentleman', has told the world in his Treatise entitled 'The Knowledge
+of God,' that Deity must have some form, and intimates it may probably
+be the spherical; an intimation which has grievously offended many
+learned Theists who considered going so far an abuse of reason, and warn
+us that 'its extension beyond the assigned boundaries, has proved an
+ample source of error.' But what the 'assigned boundaries' of reason
+are, they don't state, nor by whom 'assigned.' That if there is a God he
+must have _some_ form is self-evident and why Mr. Collibeer should be
+ostracized by his less daringly imaginative brethren, for preferring a
+spherical to a square or otherwise shaped Deity, is to my understanding
+what God's grace is to their's.
+
+But admitting the unfitness, and absurdity, and 'blasphemy' of such
+conceptions, it is by no means clear that any other conceptions of the
+'inconceiveable' would be an improvement upon them. Undoubtedly, the
+matter-God-system has its difficulties, but they are trifles in
+comparison with those by which the spirit-God system is encompassed;
+for, one obvious consequence of faith in bodiless Divinity is an utter
+confusion of ideas in those who preach it, as regards possibilities and
+impossibilities.
+
+The universe is an uncaused existence, or it was caused by something
+before it. By universe we mean matter, the sum total of things, whence
+all proceeds, and whither all returns. No truth is more obviously true
+than the truth that matter, or something not matter, exists of itself,
+and consequently is not an effect, but an uncaused cause of all effects.
+
+From such conviction, repugnant though it be to vulgar ideas, there is
+no rational way of escape; for however much we may desire, however much
+we may struggle to believe there was a time when there was nothing, we
+cannot so believe. Human nature is constituted intuitively or
+instinctively to feel the eternity of something. To rid oneself of that
+feeling is impossible. Nature or something not Nature must ever have
+been, is a conclusion to which what poets call Fate--
+
+          Leads the willing and drags the unwilling.
+
+But does this undeniable truth make against Universalism? Far from
+it--so far, indeed, as to make for it. The reason is no mystery. Of
+matter we have ideas clear, precise, and indispensable, whereas of
+something not matter we cannot have any idea whatever, good, bad, or
+indifferent. The Universe is extraordinary, no doubt, but so much of it
+as acts upon us is perfectly conceivable, whereas, any thing within,
+without, or apart from the Universe, is perfectly inconceivably.
+
+The notion of necessarily existing matter seems fatal to belief in God;
+that is, if by the word God be understood something not matter, for 'tis
+precisely because priests were unable to reconcile such belief with the
+idea of matter's self-existence or eternity, that they took to imagining
+a 'First cause.'
+
+In the 'forlorn hope' of vanquishing the difficulty of necessarily
+existing _Matter_, they assent to a necessarily existing _Spirit_, and
+when the nature of spirit is demanded from these assertors of its
+existence, they are constrained to avow that it is material or nothing.
+
+Yes, they are constrained to make directly or indirectly one or other of
+these admissions; for, as between truth and falsehood, there is no
+middle passage; so between something and nothing, there is no
+intermediate existence. Hence the serious dilemma of Spiritualists, who
+gravely tell us their God is a spirit, and that a spirit is not any
+thing, which not any thing or nothing (for the life of us we cannot
+distinguish between them) 'framed the worlds' nay, _created_ as well as
+framed them.
+
+If it be granted, for the mere purpose of explanation, that spirit is an
+entity, we can frame 'clear distinct ideas of'--a real though not
+material existence, surely no man will pretend to say an uncreated
+Spirit, is less inexplicable than uncreated Matter. All could not have
+been caused or created unless nothing can be a Cause, the very notion of
+which involves the grossest of absurdities.
+
+_Whatever is produced, without any cause, is produced by nothing; or, in
+other words, has nothing for its cause. But nothing never can be a cause
+no more than it can be something or equal to two right angles. By the
+same intuition that we perceive nothing not to be equal to two right
+angles, or not to be something, we perceive that it can never be a
+cause, and consequently must perceive that every object has a real cause
+of its existence. When we exclude all causes we really do exclude them,
+and neither suppose nothing nor the object itself to be the causes of
+the existence, and consequently can draw no argument from the absurdity
+of these suppositions except to prove the absurdity of that exclusion.
+If everything must have a cause, it follows that upon the exclusion of
+other causes, we must accept of the object itself or nothing as causes.
+But it is the very point in question whether everything must have a
+cause or not, and therefore, according to all just reasoning ought not
+to be taken for granted_. [29:1]
+
+This reasoning amounts to logical demonstration (if logical
+demonstration there can be) of a most essential truth, which in all ages
+has been obstinately set at nought by dabblers in the supernatural. It
+demonstrates that something never was, never can be, caused by nothing,
+which can no more be a cause, properly so called, than it can be
+something, or equal to two right angles; and therefore that everything
+could not have had a cause, which, the reader has seen, is the very
+point assumed by Theists--the very point on which as a pivot they so
+merrily and successfully turn their fine metaphysical theories and
+immaterial systems.
+
+The universe, quoth they, must have had a cause, and that cause must
+have been First Cause, or cause number one, because nothing can exist of
+itself. Oh, most lame and impotent conclusion! How, in consistency, can
+they declare nothing can exist without a cause in the teeth of their oft
+repeated dogma that God is uncaused. If God never commenced to be, _He_
+is an uncaused existence, that is to say, exists without a cause. [29:2]
+The difference on this point between Theists and Universalists is very
+palpable. The former say, Spirit can exist without a cause, the latter
+say Matter can exist without a cause. Whole libraries of theologic dogma
+would be dearly purchased by Hume's profound remark--_if everything must
+have a cause, it follows that upon the exclusion of other causes we must
+accept of the object itself or of nothing as causes._
+
+Saint Augustine, more candid than modern theologians, said 'God is a
+being whom we speak of but whom we cannot describe and who is superior
+to all definitions.' Universalists, on the other hand, as candidly deny
+there is any such being. To them it seems that the name God stands for
+nothing, is the archetype of nothing, explains nothing, and contributes
+to nothing but the perpetuation of human imbecility, ignorance and
+error. To them it represents neither shadow nor substance, neither
+phenomenon nor thing, neither what is ideal nor what is real; yet is it
+the name without senseless faith in which there could be no
+superstition.
+
+If Nature is all, and all is Nature, nothing but itself could ever have
+existed, and of course nothing but itself can be supposed ever to have
+been capable of causing. To cause is to act, and though body without
+notion is conceivable, action without body is not. Neither can two
+Infinites be supposed to tenant one Universe. Only 'most religious
+philosophers' can pretend to acknowledge the being of an infinite God
+co-existent with an infinite Universe.
+
+Universalists are frequently asked--What moves matter? to which question
+_nothing_ is the true and sufficient answer. Matter moves matter. If
+asked how we know it does, our answer is, because we see it do so, which
+is more than mind imaginers can say of their 'prime mover.' They tell us
+mind moves matter; but none save the _third sighted_ among them ever saw
+mind, and if they never saw mind, they never could have seen matter
+pushed about by it. They babble about mind, but nowhere does mind exist
+save in their mind; that is to say, nowhere but nowhere. Ask these
+broad-day dreamers where mind is _minus_ body? and very cutely they
+answer, body is the mind, and mind is the body.
+
+That this is neither joke nor slander, we will show by reference to No.
+25 of 'The Shepherd,' a clever and well known periodical, whose editor,
+[30:1] in reply to a correspondent of the 'chaotic' tribe, said 'As to
+the question--where is magnetism without the magnet? We answer,
+magnetism is the magnet, and the magnet is magnetism.' If so, body is
+the mind and the mind is body; and our Shepherd, if asked, 'Where is
+mind without the body?' to be consistent, should answer, body is the
+mind and the mind is the body. Both these answers are true, or both are
+false; and it must be allowed--
+
+          Each lends to each a borrowed charm,
+          Like pearls upon an Ethiop's arm.
+
+Ask the 'Shepherd' where is mind without the body? and, if not at issue
+with himself, he _must_ reply, mind is the man and man is the mind.
+
+If this be so,--if the mind is the man and the man is the mind, which
+none can deny who say magnetism is the magnet and the magnet
+magnetism--how, in Reason's name, can they be different, or how can the
+'Shepherd' consistently pretend to distinguish between them; yet he does
+so. He writes about the spiritual part of man as though he really
+believed there is such a part. Not satisfied, it would seem, with body,
+like Nonentitarians of vulgar mould, he tenants it with Soul or Spirit,
+or Mind, which Soul, or Spirit, or Mind, according to his own showing,
+is nothing but body in action; in other terms, organised matter
+performing vital functions. Idle declamation against 'facts mongers'
+well becomes such self-stultifying dealers in fiction. Abuse of
+'experimentarians' is quite in keeping with the philosophy of those who
+maintain the reality of mind in face of their own strange statement,
+that magnetism is the magnet and the magnet magnetism.
+
+But we deny that magnetism is the magnet. These words magnetism and
+magnet do not, it is true, stand for two things, but one thing: that one
+and only thing called matter. The magnet is an existence, _i.e._, that
+which moves. Magnetism is not an existence, but phenomenon, or, if you
+please, phenomena. It is the effect of which magnetic body is the
+immediate and obvious cause.
+
+To evade the charge of Materialism, said Dr. Engledue, we
+(Phrenologists) content ourselves with stating that the immaterial makes
+use of the material to show forth its powers. What is the result of
+this? We have the man of theory and believer in supernaturalism
+quarrelling with the man of fact and supporter of Materialism. We have
+two parties; the one asserting that man possesses a _spirit_ superadded
+to, but not inherent in, the brain--added to it, yet having no necessary
+connection with it--producing material changes, yet
+immaterial--destitute of any of the known properties of matter--in fact
+an _immaterial something_ which in one word means _nothing_, producing
+all the cerebral functions of man, yet not localised-not susceptible of
+proof; the other party contending that the belief in spiritualism
+fetters and ties down physiological investigation--that man's intellect
+is prostrated by the domination of metaphysical speculation--that we
+have no evidence of the existence of an _essence_, and that organised
+mutter is all that is requisite to produce the multitudinous
+manifestations of human and brute cerebration.
+
+We rank ourselves with the second party, and conceive that we must cease
+speaking of 'the mind,' and discontinue enlisting in our investigations
+a spiritual essence, the existence of which cannot be proved, but which
+tends to mystify and perplex a question sufficiently clear if we confine
+ourselves to the consideration of organised matter--its forms--its
+changes--and its aberrations from normal structure. [31:1]
+
+The eccentric Count de Caylus, when on his death-bed, was visited by
+some near relation and a pious Bishop, who hoped that under such trying
+circumstance he would manifest some concern respecting those 'spiritual'
+blessings which, while in health, he had uniformly treated with
+contempt. After a long pause he broke silence by saying, _'Ah, my
+friends, I see you are anxious about my soul;'_ whereupon they pricked
+up their ears with delight; before, however, any reply could be made the
+Count added, _'but the fact is I have not got one, and really my good
+friends you must allow me to know best.'_
+
+If people in general had one tenth the good sense of this _impious_
+Count, the fooleries of Spiritualism would at once give place to the
+philosophy of Materialism, and none would waste time in talking or
+writing about non-entities. All would know that what theologians call
+sometimes spirit, sometimes soul, and sometimes mind, is an imaginary
+existence. All would know that the terms _immaterial something_ do in
+very truth mean _nothing_. Count de Caylus died as became a man
+convinced that soul is not an entity, and that upon the dissolution of
+our 'earthly tabernacle', the particles composing it cease to perform
+vital functions, and return to the shoreless ocean of Eternal Being.
+Pietists may be shocked by such _nonchalance_ in the face of their 'grim
+monster;' but philosophers will admire an indifference to inevitable
+consequences resulting from profoundest love of truth and contempt of
+superstition. Count de Caylus was a Materialist, and no Materialist can
+consistently feel the least alarm at the approach of what
+superstitionists have every reason to consider the 'king of terrors.'
+Believers in the reality of immaterial existence cannot be 'proper'
+Materialists. Obviously, therefore, no believers in the reality of God
+can be _bona fide_ Materialists; for 'God' is a name signifying
+something or nothing; in other terms matter or that which is not matter.
+If the latter, to Materialists the name is meaningless--sound without
+sense. If the former, they at once pronounce it a name too many; because
+it expresses nothing that their word MATTER does not express better.
+
+Dr. Young held in horror the Materialist's 'universe of dust.' But there
+is nothing either bad or contemptible in dust--man is dust--all will be
+dust. A _dusty_ universe, however, _shocked_ the poetic Doctor, whose
+writings analogise with--
+
+          Rich windows that exclude the light,
+          And passages that lead to nothing.
+
+A universe of nothing was more to his taste than a universe of dust, and
+he accordingly amused himself with the 'spiritual' work of imagining
+one, and called its builder 'God.'
+
+The somewhat ungentle 'Shepherd' cordially sympathises with Dr. Young in
+his detestation of the Materialist's universe of dust, and is sorely
+puzzled to know how mere dust contrives to move without the assistance
+of 'an immaterial power between the particles;' as if he supposed
+anything could be between everything--or nothing be able to move
+something. Verily this gentleman is as clever a hand at 'darkening
+counsel by words without knowledge' as the cleverest of those he rates
+so soundly.
+
+The names of Newton and Clarke are held in great esteem by all who are
+familiar with the history of mechanical and metaphysical philosophy. As
+a man of science, there is no individual, ancient, or modern, who would
+not suffer by comparison with Sir Isaac Newton; while common consent has
+assigned to Dr. Samuel Clarke the first place among religious
+metaphysicians. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to cite any
+other Theists of better approved reputation than these two, and
+therefore we introduce them to the reader's notice in this place; for as
+they ranked among the most philosophic of Theists, it might be expected
+that their conceptions of Deity, would be clear, satisfactory, and
+definite.--Let us see, then, _in their own writings_, what those
+conceptions were.
+
+Newton conceived God to be one and the same for ever, and everywhere,
+not only by his own virtue or energy, but also in virtue of his
+substance.--Again, 'All things are contained in him and move in him, but
+without reciprocal action' (_sed sine muta passione_) God feels nothing
+from the movements of bodies; nor do they experience any resistance from
+his universal presence. [33:1]
+
+Pause, reader, and demand of yourself whether such a conception of Deity
+is either clear, satisfactory, or definite,--God is _one_. Very
+good--but one _what?_ From the information, 'He is the same for ever and
+everywhere,' we conclude that Newton thought him a Being. Here, however,
+matter stops the way; for the idea of Being is in all of us inseparably
+associated with the idea of substance. When told that God is an 'Immense
+Being,' without parts, and consequently unsubstantial, we try to think
+of such a Being; but in vain. Reason puts itself in a _quandary_, the
+moment it labours to realise an idea of absolute nothingness; yet
+marvellous to relate, Newton did distinctly declare his Deity 'totally
+destitute of body,' and urged that _fact_ as a _reason_ why He cannot be
+either seen, touched, or understood, and also as a _reason_ why he ought
+not to be adored under any corporeal figure!
+
+The proper function of 'Supernaturality or Wonder,' according to
+Phrenologists, is to create belief in the reality of supernatural
+beings, and begets fondness for news, particularly if extravagant. Most
+likely then, such readers of this book as have that organ 'large' will
+be delighted with Newton's rhodomontade about a God who resists nothing,
+feels nothing, and yet with condescension truly divine, not only
+contains all things, but permits them to move in His motionless and
+'universal presence;' for 'news' more extravagant, never fell from the
+lips of an idiot, or adorned the pages of a prayer-book.
+
+By the same great _savan_ we are taught that God governs all, not as the
+soul of the world, but as the Lord and sovereign of all things: that it
+is in consequence of His sovereignty He is called the Lord God, the
+Universal Emperor--that the word God is relative, and relates itself
+with slaves--and that the Deity is the dominion or the sovereignty of
+God, not over his own body, as those think who look upon God as the soul
+of the world, but over slaves--from all which _slavish_ reasoning, a
+plain man who had not been informed it was concocted by Europe's pet
+philosopher, would infallibly conclude some unfortunate lunatic had
+given birth to it. That there is no creature now tenanting Bedlam who
+would or could scribble purer nonsense about God than this of Newton's,
+we are well convinced--for how could the most frenzied of brains imagine
+anything more repugnant to every principle of good sense than a
+self-existent, eternal, omnipotent, omnipresent Being, creator of all
+the worlds, who acts the part of 'universal emperor,' and plays upon an
+infinitely larger scale, the same sort of game as Nicholas of Russia, or
+Mohammed of Egypt, plays upon a small scale. There cannot be slavery
+where there is no tyranny, and to say, as Newton did, that we stand in
+the name relation to a universal God, as a slave does to his earthly
+master, is practically to accuse such God, at reason's bar of _tyranny_.
+If the word God is relative, and relate itself with slaves, it
+incontestably follows that all human beings are slaves, and Deity is by
+such reasoners degraded into the character of universal slave-driver.
+Really, theologians and others who declaim so bitterly against
+'blasphemers,' and take such very stringent measures to punish
+'infidels', who speaks or write of their God, should seriously consider
+whether the worst, that is, the least superstitious of infidel writers,
+ever penned a paragraph so disparaging to the character of that God they
+effect to adore, as the last quoted paragraph of Newton's.
+
+If even it could be demonstrated that there is a super-human Being, it
+cannot be proper to clothe Him in the noblest human attributes--still
+less can it be justifiable in pigmies, such as we are, to invest Him
+with odious attributes belonging only to despots ruling over slaves.
+Besides, how can we imagine a God, who is 'totally destitute of body and
+of corporeal figure,' to have any kind of substance? Earthly emperors we
+know to be substantial and common-place sort of beings enough, but is it
+not sheer abuse of reason to argue as though the character of God were
+at all analogous to theirs; or rather, is it not shocking abuse of our
+reasoning facilities to employ them at all about a Being whose
+existence, if we really have an existence, is perfectly enigmatical, and
+allowed to be so by those very men who pretend to explain its character
+and attributes? We find no less a sage than Newton explicitly declaring
+as incontestible truth, that God exists necessarily--that the same
+necessity obliges him to exist always and everywhere--that he is all
+eyes, all ears, all brains, all arms, all feeling, all intelligence, all
+action--that he exists in a mode by no means corporeal, an yet this same
+sage, in the self-same paragraph, acknowledges God is _totally unknown
+to us_.
+
+Now, we should like to be informed by what _reasonable_ right Newton
+could pen a long string of 'incontestible truths,' such as are here
+selected from his writings, with respect to a Being of whom, by his own
+confession, he had not a particle of knowledge. Surely it is not the
+part of a wise man to write about that which is 'totally unknown' to
+him, and yet that is precisely what Newton did, when he wrote concerning
+God.
+
+So much for the Theism of Europe's chief religious philosopher. Turn we
+now to the Theism of Dr. Samuel Clarke.
+
+He wrote a book about the being and attributes of God, in which he
+endeavoured to establish, first, that 'something has existed from all
+eternity;' second, that 'there has existed from eternity some one
+unchangeable and independent Being;' third, that 'such unchangeable and
+independent Being, which has existed from all eternity, without any
+external cause of its existence, must be necessarily existent;' fourth,
+that 'what is the substance or essence of that Being, which is
+necessarily existing, or self-existent, we have no idea--neither is it
+possible for us to comprehend it;' fifth, that 'the self-existent Being
+must of necessity be eternal as well as infinite and omnipresent;'
+sixth, that 'He must be one, and as he is the self-existent and original
+cause of all things, must be intelligent;' seventh, that 'God is not a
+necessary agent, but a Being endowed with liberty and choice;' eighth,
+that 'God is infinite in power, infinite in wisdom, and, as He is
+supreme cause of all things, must of necessity be a Being infinitely
+just, truthful, and good--thus comprising within himself all such moral
+perfections as becomes the supreme governor and judge of the world.'
+
+These are the leading dogma contained in Clarke's book--and as they are
+deemed invincible by a respectable, though not very numerous, section of
+Theists, we will briefly examine the more important important of them.
+
+The dogma that _something has existed from all eternity_, as already
+shown, is perfectly intelligible, and may defy contradiction--but the
+real difficulty is to satisfactorily determine _what that something is_.
+Matter exists, and as no one can even imagine its non-existence or
+annihilation, the Materialist infers _that_ must be the eternal
+something. Newton as well as Clark thought the everlasting Being
+destitute of body, and consequently without parts, figure, motion,
+divisibility, or any other such properties as we find in matter--_ergo_,
+they did not believe matter to be the eternal something; but if not
+matter, again we ask, what can it be? Of bodilessness or incorporiety no
+one, even among those who say their God is incorporeal, pretend to have
+an idea. Abady insisted that _the question is not what incorporiety is,
+but whether it be?_ Well, we have no objection to parties taking that
+position, because there is nothing more easy than to dislodge those who
+think fit to do so--for this reason: the advocates of nothing, or
+incorporiety, can no more establish by arguments drawn from unquestioned
+facts, that incorporiety _is_ than they can clearly show _what_ it is.
+It has always struck the author as remarkable that men should so
+obstinately refuse to admit the possibility of matter's necessary
+existence, while they readily embrace, not only as possibly, but
+certainly, true, the paradoxical proposition that a something, having
+nothing in common with anything, is necessarily existent. Matter is
+everywhere around and about us. We ourselves are matter--all our ideas
+are derived _from_ matter--and yet such is the singularly perverse
+character of human intellect that, while resolutely denying the
+possibility of matter's eternity, an immense number of our race embrace
+the incredible proposition that matter was created in time by a
+necessarily existing Being, who is without body, parts, passions, or
+positive nature!
+
+The second dogma informs us that this always-existing Being is
+unchangeable and independent. One unavoidable inference from which is
+that Deity is itself immoveable, as well as unconnected with the
+universe--for a moveable Being must be a changeable Being, by the very
+fact of its motion; while an independent Being must be motiveless, as it
+is evident all motives result from our relationship to things eternal;
+but an independent Being can have no relations, and consequently must
+act without motives. Now, as no intelligent _human_ action can be
+imagined without necessary precursors in the shape of motives, reasoning
+from analogy, it seems impossible that the unchangeable and independent
+Being, Clarke was so sure must ever have existed, could have created the
+universe, seeing he could have had no _motive_ or _inducement_ to create
+it.
+
+The third dogma may be rated a truism--it being evidently true that a
+thing or Being, which has existed from eternity without any eternal
+cause of its existence, must be self-existent: but of course that dogma
+leaves the disputed question, namely, whether matter, or something _not_
+matter, is self-existent, just where it found it.
+
+The fourth dogma is not questioned by Universalists, as they are quite
+convinced that it is not possible for us to comprehend the substance or
+essence of an immaterial Being.
+
+The other dogmas we need not enlarge upon, as they are little more than
+repetition or expansion of the preceding one. Indeed, much of the
+foregoing would be superfluous, were it not that it serves to
+illustrate, so completely and clearly theistical absurdities. The only
+dogma worth overturning, of the eight here noticed, is the _first_, for
+if that fall, the rest must fall with it. If, for example, the reader is
+convinced that it is more probable matter is mutable as regards _form_
+but eternal as regards _essence_, than that it was willed into existence
+by a Being said to be eternal and immutable, he at once becomes a
+Universalist--for if matter always was, no Being could have been before
+it, nor can any exist after it. It is because men in general are shocked
+at the idea of matter without beginning and without end, that they do
+readily embrace the idea of a God, forgetting that if the idea of
+eternal matter shock our sense of the _probable_, the idea of an eternal
+Being who existed _before_ matter, _if well considered_, is sufficient
+to shock all sense of the _possible_.
+
+The man who is contented with the universe, who stops at _that_ has at
+least the satisfaction of dealing with something tangible--but he who
+don't find the universe large enough for him to expatiate in, and whirls
+his brains into a belief that there is a necessarily existing something
+beyond the limits of a world _unlimited_, is in a mental condition no
+reasonable man need envy.
+
+Of the universe, or at least so much of it as our senses have been
+operated upon by, we have conceptions clear, vivid, and distinct; but
+when Dr. Clarke tell us of an intelligent Being, not _part_ but
+_creator_ of that universe, we can form no clear, vivid, distinct, or,
+in point of fact, _any_ conception of such Being. When he explains that
+it is infinite and omnipresent, like poor Paddy's famed ale, the
+explanation 'thickens as it clears;' for being ourselves _finite_, and
+necessarily present on one small spot of our very small planet, the
+words _infinite_ and _omnipresent_ do not suggest to us either positive
+or practical ideas--of course, therefore, we have neither positive nor
+practical ideas of an infinite and omnipresent Being.
+
+We can as easily understand that the universe ever did exist, as we now
+understand that it does exist--but we cannot conceive its absence for
+the millionth part of an instant--and really it puzzles one to conceive
+what those people can be dreaming of who talk as familiarly about the
+extinction of a universe as the chemist does of extinguishing the flame
+of his spirit-lamp. The unsatisfactory character of all speculations
+having for their object 'nonentities with formidable names,' should long
+ere this have opened men's eyes to the folly of _multiplying causes
+without necessity_--another rule of philosophising, for which we are
+indebted to Newton, but to which no superstitious philosophiser pays due
+attention. Newton himself in his theistical character, wrote and talked
+as though most blissfully ignorant of that rule.
+
+The passages given above from his 'Principia' palpably violate it. But
+Theists, however learned, pay little regard to any rules of
+philosophising, which put in peril their fundamental crotchet.
+
+A distinguished modern Fabulist [38:1] has introduced to us a
+philosophical mouse who praised beneficent Deity because of his great
+regard for mice: for one half of us, quoth he, received the gift of
+wings, so that if they who have none, should by cats happen to be
+exterminated, how easily could our 'Heavenly Father,' out of the bats
+re-establish our exterminated species.
+
+Voltaire had no objection to fable if it were symbolic of truth; and
+here is fable, which, according to its author, is symbolic of the little
+regarded truth, that our pride rests mainly on our ignorance, for, as he
+sagely says, 'the good mouse knew not that there are also winged cats.'
+If she had her speculations concerning the beneficence of Deity would
+have been less orthodox, mayhap, but decidedly more rational. The wisdom
+of this pious mouse is very similar to that of the Theologian who knew
+not how sufficiently to admire God's goodness in causing large rivers
+almost always to flow in the neighbourhood of large towns.
+
+To jump at conclusions on no other authority than their own ignorant
+assumption, and to Deify errors on no other authority than their own
+heated imagination, has in all ages been the practice of Theologians. Of
+that practice they are proud, as was the mouse of our Fabulist. Clothed
+in no other panoply than their own conceits they deem themselves
+invulnerable. While uttering the wildest incoherencies their
+self-complacency remains undisturbed. They remind one of that ambitious
+crow who, thinking more highly of himself than was quite proper,
+strutted so proudly about with the Peacock's feathers in which he had
+bedecked himself.--Like him, they plume themselves upon their own
+egregious folly, and like him should get well _plucked_ for their pains.
+
+Let any one patiently examine their much talked of argument from design,
+and he will be satisfied that these are no idle charges. That argument
+has for its ground-work beggarly assumption, and for its main pillar,
+reasoning no less beggarly. Nature must have had a cause, because it
+evidently is an effect. The cause of Nature must have been one God,
+because two Gods, or two million Gods, could not have agreed to cause
+it. That cause must be omnipotent, wise, and good, because all things
+are double one against another, and He has left nothing imperfect. Men
+make watches, build ships or houses, out of pre-existing metals, wood,
+hemp, bricks, mortar, and other materials, therefore God made nature out
+of no material at all. Unassisted nature cannot produce the phenomena we
+behold, therefore such phenomena clearly prove there is something
+unnatural. Not to believe in a God who designed Nature, is to close both
+ears and eyes against evidence, therefore Universalists are wilfully
+deaf and obstinately blind.
+
+These are samples of the flimsy stuff, our teachers of what nobody
+knows, would palm upon us as demonstration of the Being and Attributes
+of God.
+
+By artfully taking for granted what no Universalist can admit, and
+assuming cases altogether dissimilar to be perfectly analogous, our
+natural theologians find no difficulty in proving that God is, was, and
+ever will be; that after contemplating His own perfections, a period
+sufficiently long for 'eternity to begin and end in,' He said, let there
+be matter, and there was matter; that with Him all things are possible,
+and He, of course, might easily have kept, as well as made, man upright
+and happy, but could not consistently with his own wisdom, or with due
+regard to his own glorification. Wise in their generation, these 'blind
+leaders of the blind' ascribe to this Deity of their own invention
+powers impossible, acts inconceivable, and qualities incompatible; thus
+erecting doctrinal systems on no sounder basis than their own ignorance;
+deifying their own monstrous errors, and filling the earth with misery,
+madness, and crime.
+
+The writer who declared theology _ignorance of natural causes reduced to
+system_, did not strike wide of the true mark. It is plain that the
+argument from design, so vastly favoured by theologians, amounts to
+neither more nor less than ignorance of natural causes reduced to
+system. An argument to be sound must be soundly premised. But here is an
+argument whose primary premise is a false premise--a mere begging of the
+very question in dispute. Did Universalists _admit_ the universe was
+contrived, designed, or adapted, they could not _deny_ there must have
+been at least one Being to contrive, design, or adapt; but they see no
+analogy between a watch made with hands out of something, and a universe
+made without hands out of nothing. Universalists are unable to perceive
+the least resemblance between the circumstance of one intelligent body
+re-forming or changing the condition of some other body, intelligent or
+non-intelligent, and the circumstance of a bodiless Being creating all
+bodies; of a partless Being acting upon all parts; and of a passionless
+Being generating and regulating all passions. Universalists consider the
+general course of nature, though strangely unheeded, does proclaim with
+'most miraculous organ,' that dogmatisers about any such 'figment of
+imagination' would, in a rational community, be viewed with the same
+feelings of compassion, which, even in these irrational days, are
+exhibited towards confirmed lunatics.
+
+The author, while passing an evening with some pleasant people in
+Ashton-under-Lyne, heard one of them relate that before the schoolmaster
+had made much progress in that _devil-dusted_ neighbourhood, a labouring
+man walking out one fine night, saw on the ground a watch, whose ticking
+was distinctly audible; but never before having seen anything of the
+kind, he thought it a living creature, and full of fear ran back among
+his neighbours, exclaiming that he had seen a most marvellous thing, for
+which he could conceive of no better name than CLICKMITOAD. After
+recovering from their surprise and terror, this 'bold peasant' and his
+neighbours, all armed with pokers and other formidable weapons, crept up
+to the ill-starred ticker, and smashed it to pieces.
+
+The moral of this anecdote is no mystery. Our clickmitoadist had never
+seen watches, knew nothing about watches, and hearing as well as seeing
+one for the first time, naturally judged it must be an animal. Readers
+who may feel inclined to laugh at his simplicity, should ask themselves
+whether, if accustomed to see watches growing upon watch trees, they
+would feel more astonished than they usually do when observing crystals
+in process of formation, or cocoa-nuts growing upon cocoa-nut trees; and
+if as inexperienced with respect to watches, or works of art, more or
+less analogous to watches, they would not under his circumstances have
+acted very much as he did.
+
+Supposing, however, that theologians were to succeed in establishing an
+analogy between 'the contrivances of human art and the various
+existences of the universe,' is it not evident that Spinoza's axiom--of
+things which having nothing in common one cannot be the cause of the
+others--is incompatible with belief in the Deity of our Thirty-Nine
+Articles, or, indeed, belief in _any_ unnatural Designer or Causer of
+Material Nature. Only existence can have anything in common with
+existence.
+
+Now, an existence, properly so called, must have at least two
+attributes, and whatever exhibits two or more attributes is matter. The
+two attributes necessary to existence are solidity and extension. Take
+from matter these attributes and matter itself vanishes. That fact was
+specially testified to by Priestley, who acknowledged the primary truths
+of Materialism though averse to the legitimate consequences flowing from
+their recognition.
+
+According to this argument, nothing exists which has not solidity and
+extension, and nothing is extended and solid but matter, which in one
+state forms a crystal, in another a blade of grass, in a third a
+butterfly, and in other states other forms. The _essence_ of grass, or
+the _essence_ of crystal, in other words, those native energies of their
+several forms constituting and keeping them what they are, can no more
+be explained than can the _essentiality_ of _human_ nature.
+
+But the Universalist, because he finds it impossible to explain the
+action of matter, because unable to state why it exhibits such vast and
+various energies as it is seen to exhibit, is none the less assured it
+_naturally_ and therefore _necessarily_ acts thus energetically. No
+Universalist pretends to understand how bread nourishes his frame, but
+of the _fact_ that bread does nourish it he is well assured. He
+understands not how or why two beings should, by conjunction, give
+vitality to a third being more or less analogous to themselves, but the
+_fact_ stares him in the face.
+
+Our 'sophists in surplices,' who can no otherwise bolster up their
+supernatural system than by outraging all such rules of philosophising
+as forbid us to choose the greater of two difficulties, or to multiply
+causes without necessity, are precisely the men to explain everything.
+But unfortunately their explanations do, for the most part, stand more
+in need of explanation than the thing explained. Thus, they explain the
+origin of matter by reference to an occult, immense, and immensely
+mysterious phantasm without body, parts or passions, who sees though not
+to be seen, hears though not to be heard, feels though not to be felt,
+moves though not to be moved, knows though not to be known, and, in
+short, does everything, though not to be _done_ by anything. Well might
+Godwin say _the rage of accounting for what is obviously unaccountable,
+so common among philosophers of this stamp, has brought philosophy
+itself into discredit_.
+
+There is an argument against the notion of a Supernatural Causer which
+the author does not remember to have met with, but which he considers an
+argument of great force--it is this. Cause means change, and as there
+manifestly could not be change before there was anything to change, to
+conceive the universe caused is impossible.
+
+That the sense here attached to the word cause is not a novel one every
+reader knows who has seen an elaborate and ably written article by Mr.
+G.H. Lewes, on 'Spinoza's Life and Works,' where effect is defined as
+cause realised; the _natura naturans_ conceived as _natura naturata_;
+and cause or causation is define as simply change. When, says Mr. Lewes,
+the change is completed, we name the result effect. It is only a matter
+of naming.
+
+These definitions conceded accurate, the conclusion that neither cause
+nor effect _exist_, seems inevitable, for change of being is not being
+itself any more than attraction is the thing attracted. One might as
+philosophically erect attraction into reality and fall down and worship
+_it_ as change which is in very truth a mere "matter of naming." Not so
+the things changing or changed; _they_ are real, the prolific parent of
+all appearance we behold, of all sensation we experience, of all ideas
+we receive, in short, of all causes and of all effects, which causes and
+effects, as shown by Mr. Lewis, are merely notional, for "we call the
+antecedent cause, and the sequent effect; but these are merely relative
+conceptions; the sequence itself is antecedent to some subsequent
+change, and the former antecedent was once only a sequent to its cause,
+and so on."
+
+Ancient Simonides, when asked by Dionysius to explain the nature of
+Deity, demanded a day to "see about it," then an additional two days,
+and then four days more, thus wisely intimating to his silly pupil, that
+the more men think about Gods, the less competent they are to give any
+rational account of them.
+
+Cicero was sensible and candid enough to acknowledge that he found it
+much easier to say what God was not, than what he was. Like Simonides,
+he was _mere_ Pagan, and like him, arguing from the known course of
+nature, was unable, with all his mastery of talk, to convey positive
+ideas of Deity. But how should he convey to others what he did not,
+could not, himself possess? To him no revolution had been vouchsafed,
+and though my Lord Brougham is quite sure, without the proof of natural
+Theology, revelation has no other basis than mere tradition; we have
+even better authority than his Lordship's for the staggering fact that
+natural Theology, without the prop of revelation, is a 'rhapsody of
+words,' mere jargon, analogous to the tale told by an idiot, so happily
+described by our great poet as 'full of sound and fury, signifying
+nothing.' We have a Rev. Hugh M'Neil 'convinced that, from external
+creation, no right conclusion can be drawn concerning the _moral_
+character of God,' and that 'creation is too deeply and disastrously
+blotted in consequence of man's sin, to admit of any satisfactory result
+from an adequate contemplation of nature.' [42:1] We have a Gillespie
+setting aside the Design Argument, on the ground that the reasonings by
+which it is supported are 'inapt' to show such attributes as infinity,
+omnipresence, free agency, omnipotency, eternality, or unity,' belong in
+any way to God. On this latter attribute he specially enlarges, and
+after allowing the contrivances we observe in nature, may establish a
+unity of _counsel_, desires to be told how they can establish a unity of
+_substance_. [42:2] We have Dr. Chalmors and Bishop Watson, whose
+capacities were not the meanest, contending that there is no natural
+proof of a God, and that we must trust solely to revelation. [42:3] We
+have the Rev. Mr. Faber in his 'Difficulties of Infidelity' boldly
+affirming that no one ever did, or ever will 'prove without the aid of
+revelation, that the universe was designed by a _single_ designer.'
+Obviously, then, there is a division in the religious camp with respect
+to the sufficiency of natural Theology, unhelped by revelation. By three
+of the four Christian authors just quoted, the design argument is
+treated with contempt. Faber says, 'evident design must needs imply a
+designer,' and that 'evident design shines out in every part of the
+universe.' But he also tells us 'we reason exclusively, if with the
+Deist we thence infer the existence of one and only one Supreme
+Designer.' By Gillespie and M'Neil, the same truth is told in other
+words. By Chalmers and Watson we are assured that, natural proof of a
+God there is none, and our trust must be placed solely in revelation;
+while Brougham, another Immense Being worshipper, declares that
+revelation derives its chief support from natural Theology, without
+which it has 'no other basis than vague tradition.'
+
+Now, Universalists agree with Lord Brougham as to the traditionary basis
+of Scripture; and as they also agree with Chalmers and Watson with
+respect to there being no natural proof of a God, they stand acquitted
+to their own consciences of 'wilful deafness' and 'obstinate blindness,'
+in rejecting as inadequate the evidence that 'God is,' drawn either from
+Nature, Revelation, or both.
+
+It was long a Protestant custom to taunt Roman Catholics with being
+divided among themselves as regards topics vitally important, and to
+draw from the fact of such division an argument for making Scripture the
+only 'rule of faith and manners.' Chillingworth said, _there are Popes
+against Popes, councils against councils, some fathers against others,
+the same fathers against themselves--a consent of fathers of one age
+against a consent of fathers of another age, the church of one age
+against the church of another age. Traditive interpretations of
+Scripture are pretended, but there are few or none to be found. No
+tradition but only of Scripture can derive itself from the fountain, but
+may be plainly proved, either to have been brought in in such an age
+after Christ, or that in such an age it was not in. In a word, there is
+no sufficient certainty but of Scripture only for any considering man to
+build on_. [43:1] And after reading this should 'any considering man'
+be anxious to know something about the Scripture on which alone he is to
+build, he cannot do better than dip into Dr. Watt's book on the right
+use of Reason, where we are told _every learned (Scripture) critic has
+his own hypothesis, and if the common text be not favourable to his
+views a various lection shall be made authentic. The text must be
+supposed to be defective or redundant, and the sense of it shall be
+literal or metaphorical according as it best supports his own scheme.
+Whole chapters or books shall be added or left out of the sacred canon,
+or be turned into parables by this influence. Luther knew not well how
+to reconcile the epistle of St. James to the doctrine of justification
+by faith alone, and so he could not allow it to be divine. The Papists
+bring all their Apocrypha into their Bible, and stamp divinity upon it,
+for they can fancy purgatory is there, and they find prayers for the
+dead. But they leave out the second commandment because it forbids the
+worship of images. Others suppose the Mosaic history of the creation,
+and the full of man, to be oriental ornaments, or a mere allegory,
+because the literal sense of those three chapters of Genesis do not
+agree with their theories._
+
+These remarks are certainly not calculated to make 'considering men' put
+their trust in Scripture. Coming from a Protestant Divine of such high
+talent and learning, they may rather be expected to breed in
+'considering men' very unorthodox opinions as well of the authenticity
+as the genuineness of _both_ Testaments, and a strong suspicion that
+Chillingworth was joking when he talked about their "sufficient
+certainty." The author has searched Scripture in vain for 'sufficient
+certainty,' with respect to the long catalogue of religious beliefs
+which agitate and distract society. Laying claim to the character of a
+'considering man,' he requires that Scripture to be proved the word of a
+God before appealed to, as His Revelation; a feat no man has yet
+accomplished. Priests, the cleverest, most industrious, and least
+scrupulous, have tried their hands at the pious work, but all have
+failed. Notwithstanding the mighty labours of our Lardner's and
+Tillemont's and Mosheim's, no case is made out for the divinity of
+either the Old or New Testament. 'Infidels' have shown the monstrous
+absurdity of supposing that any one book has an atom more divinity about
+it than any other book. These 'brutes' have completely succeeded in
+proving that Christianity is a superstition no less absurd than
+Mohammedanism, and to the full as mischievous.
+
+Christian practice is after all, the best answer to Christian theory.
+Men who think wisely, do not, it is true, always act wisely; but
+generally speaking, the moral, like the physical tree, is known by its
+fruit, and bitter, most bitter, is the fruit of that moral tree, the
+followers of Jesus planted. Notwithstanding their talk about the pure
+and benign influence of their religion, an opinion is fast gaining
+ground, that Bishop Kidder was right, when he said, _were a wise man to
+judge of religion by the lives of its professors, perhaps, Christianity
+is the last he would choose_.
+
+He who agrees with Milton that
+
+          To know what every day before us lies
+          Is the prime wisdom,
+
+will in all likelihood not object to cast his eyes around and about him,
+where proofs of modern priestly selfishness are in wonderful abundance.
+By way of example may be cited the cases of those right reverend Fathers
+in God the Bishops of London and Chester, prelates high in the church;
+disposers of enormous wealth with influence almost incalculable; the
+former more especially. And how stand they affected towards the poor? By
+reference to the _Times_ newspaper of September 27th, 1845, it will be
+seen that those very influential and wealthy Bishops are supporters _en
+chef_ of a Reformed Poor Law,' the virtual principle of which is 'to
+reduce the condition of those whose necessities oblige them to apply for
+relief, below that of the labourer of the _lowest class_.' A Reformed
+Poor Law, having for its 'object,' yes reader, its object, the
+restoration of the pauper to a position below that of the independent
+labourer.' This is their 'standard' of reference, by rigid attention to
+which they hope to fully carry out their 'vital principle,' and thus
+bring to a satisfactory conclusion the great work of placing 'the pauper
+in a worse condition than the 'independent labourer.' It appears, from
+the same journal, that in reply to complaints against their dietary, the
+Commissioners appointed to work the Reformed Poor Law, consider that
+twenty-one ounces of food daily 'is more than the hard working labourer
+with a family could accomplish for himself by his own exertions.' This,
+observes a writer in the _Times_, being the Commissioners' reading of
+their own 'standard,' it may be considered superfluous to refer to any
+other authority; but, as the Royal Agricultural Society of England have
+clubbed their general information on this subject in a compilation from
+a selection of essays submitted to them, we are bound to refer to such
+witnesses who give the most precise information on the actual condition
+of the _independent labourer_, with minute instructions for his general
+guidance, and the economical expenditure of his income. 'He should,'
+they say, 'toil early and late' to make himself 'perfect' in his
+calling. 'He should _pinch and screw_ the family, even in the _commonest
+necessaries_,' until he gets 'a week's wages to the fore.' He should
+drink in his work 'water mixed with some powdered ginger,' which warms
+the stomach, and is 'extremely cheap.' He should remember that 'from
+three to four pounds of potatoes are equal in point of nourishment to a
+pound of the best wheaten bread, besides having the great advantage of
+_filling_ the stomach. He is told that 'a lot of bones may always be got
+from the butchers for 2d., and they are never scraped so clean as not to
+have some scraps of meat adhering to them.' He is instructed to boil
+these two penny worth of bones, for the first day's family dinner, until
+the liquor 'tastes something like broth.' For the _second_ day, the
+bones are to be again boiled in the same manner, but for a _longer_
+time. Nor is this all, they say 'that the bones, if again boiled for a
+_still longer_ time, will _once more_ yield a nourishing broth, which
+may be made into pea soup.'
+
+This is the system and this is the schoolmastership expressly sanctioned
+by the Bishops of London and Chester. In piety nevertheless those
+prelates are not found wanting. They may starve the bodies but no one
+can charge them with neglecting the souls of our 'independent
+labourers.' Nothing can exceed their anxiety to feed and clothe the
+spiritually destitute. They raise their mitred fronts, even in palaces,
+to proclaim and lament over the spiritual destitution which so
+extensively prevails--but they seldom condescend to notice _physical_
+destitution. When the cry of famine rings throughout the land they
+coolly recommend rapid church extension, thus literally offering stones
+to those who ask them for bread. To got the substantial and give the
+spiritual is their practical Christianity. To spiritualise the poor into
+contentment with the 'nourishing broth' from thrice boiled bones, and to
+die of hunger rather than demand relief, are their darling objects.
+
+Did Universalists thus act, did they perpetrate, connive at, or tolerate
+such atrocities as were brought to light during the Andover inquiry,
+such cold blooded heartlessness would at once be laid to the account of
+their principles. Oh yes, Christians are forward to judge of every tree
+by its fruit, except the tree called Christianity.
+
+The vices of the universalist they ascribe to his creed. The vices of
+the Christian to anything but his creed. Let professors of Christianity
+be convicted of gross criminality, and lo its apologists say such
+professors are not Christian. Let fanatical Christians commit excesses
+which admit not of open justification, and the apologist of Christianity
+coolly assures us such conduct is _mere rust on the body of his
+religion--moss which grows on the stock of his piety._
+
+From age to age the wisest among men have abhorred and denounced
+superstition. It is true that only a small section of them treated
+religion as if _necessarily_ superstition, or went quite as far as John
+Adams, who said, _this would be the best of all possible worlds if there
+were no religion in it_. But an attentive reading of ancient and modern
+philosophical books has satisfied the author that through all recorded
+time, religion has been _tolerated_ rather than _loved_ by great
+thinkers, who had _will_, but not _power_ to wage successful war upon
+it. Gibbon speaks of Pagan priests who, 'under sacerdotal robes,
+concealed the heart of an Atheist.' Now, these priests were also the
+philosophers of Rome, and it is not impossible that some modern
+philosophical priests, like their Pagan prototypes, secretly despise the
+religion they openly profess. Avarice, and lust of power, are potent
+underminers of human virtue. The mighty genius of Bacon was not proof
+against then, and he who deserves to occupy a place among 'the wisest
+and greatest' has been 'damned to eternal fame' as the 'meanest of
+mankind.'
+
+Nor are avarice and lust of power the only base passions under the
+influence of which men, great in intellect, have given the lie to their
+own convictions, by calling that religion which they knew to be rank
+superstition. Fear of punishment for writing truth is the grand cause
+why their books contain so little of it. If Bacon had openly treated
+Christianity as mere superstition, will any one say that his life would
+have been worth twenty-four hours' purchase?
+
+There is an old story about a certain lady who said to her physician,
+'Doctor, what is your religion?' My religion, madame, replied the
+Doctor, 'is the religion of all sensible men.' 'What kind of religion is
+that?' said the lady. 'The religion, madame,' quoth the Doctor, 'that no
+sensible man will tell.'
+
+This doctor may be given as a type of the class of shrewd people who
+despise superstition, but will say nothing about it, lest by so doing
+they give a shock to prejudice, and thus put in peril certain
+professional or other emoluments. Too sensible to be pious, and too
+cautious to be honest, they must be extremely well paid ere they will
+incur the risk attendant upon a confession of anti-superstitious faith.
+
+Animated by a vile spirit of accommodation, their whole sum of practical
+wisdom can be told in four words--BE SILENT AND SAFE. They are amazed at
+the 'folly' of these who make sacrifices at the shrine of sincerity; and
+while sagacious enough to perceive that superstition is a clumsy
+political contrivance, are not wanting in the prudence which dictates at
+least a _seeming_ conformity to prevailing prejudices.
+
+None have done more to perpetrate error than these time-serving 'men of
+the world,' for instead of boldly attacking it, they preserve a prudent
+silence which bigots do not fail to interpret as consent. Mosheim says,
+[47:1] 'The simplicity and ignorance of the generality in those times
+(fifth century) furnished the most favourable occasion for the exercise
+of fraud; and the impudence of impostors, in contriving false miracles,
+was artfully proportioned to the credulity of the vulgar, while the
+sagacious and the wise, who perceived these cheats, were overawed into
+silence by the dangers that threatened their lives and fortunes, if they
+should expose the artifice. Thus,' continues this author, 'does it
+generally happen, when danger attends the discovery and the profession
+of truth, the prudent are _silent_, the multitude _believe_, and
+impostors _triumph_.'
+
+Beausobre, too, in his learned account of Manicheism reads a severe
+lesson to those who, under the influence of such passions as _fear_ and
+_avarice_, will do nothing to check the march of superstition, or
+relieve their less 'sensible,' but more honest, fellow-creatures from
+the weight of its fetters. After alluding to an epistle written by that
+'demi-philosopher,' Synesius, when offered by the Patriarch the
+Bishopric of Ptolemais, [48:1] Beausobre says, 'We see in the history
+that I have related a kind of hypocrisy, which, perhaps, has been far
+too common in all times. It is that of ecclesiastics, who not only do
+not say what they think, but the reverse of what they think.
+Philosophers in their closet, when out of them they are content with
+fables, though they know well they are fables. They do more; they
+deliver to the executioner the excellent men who have said it. How many
+Atheists and profane persons have brought holy men to the stake under
+the pretext of heresy? Every day, hypocrites consecrate the host and
+cause it to be adored, although firmly convinced as I am that it is
+nothing more than a piece of bread.'
+
+Whatever may be urged in defence of such execrable duplicity, there can
+be no question as to its anti-progressive tendency. The majority of men
+are fools, and if such 'sensible' politicians as our Doctor and the
+double doctrinising ecclesiastics, for whose portraits we are indebted
+to Mosheim and Beausobre, shall have the teaching of them, fools they
+are sure to remain. Men who dare not be 'mentally faithful' to
+themselves may obstruct, but cannot advance, the interests of truth. In
+legislation, in law, in all the relations of life, we want honesty _not_
+piety. There is plenty of piety, and to spare, but of honesty--sterling,
+bold, uncompromising honesty--even the best regulated societies can
+boast a very small stock. The men best qualified to raise the veil under
+which truth lies concealed from vulgar gaze, are precisely the men who
+fear to do it. Oh, shame upon ye self-styled philosophers, who in your
+closets laugh at 'our holy religion,' and in your churches do it
+reverence. Were your bosoms warmed by one spark of generous wisdom,
+_silence_ on the question of religion would be broken, the multitude
+cease to _believe_, and imposters to _triumph_.
+
+
+
+
+
+          London: Printed by Edward Truelove, 240, Strand.
+
+
+
+
+
+[ENDNOTES]
+
+
+[4:1] 25th November, 1845.
+
+[4:2] Vide 'Times' Commissioner's Letter on the Condition of Ireland,
+November 28, 1845.
+
+[8:1] 'Essay on Providence and a Future State.'
+
+[9:1] Essay of the Academical or Sceptical Philosophy. [9:2] Critical
+remarks on Lord Brougham's 'Lives of Men of Letters and Science, who
+flourished in the time of George III.'--The _Times_, Wednesday, October
+1, 1845.
+
+[10:1] History of American Savages.
+
+[11:1] Appendix the Second to 'Plutarchus and Theophrastus on
+Superstition.'
+
+[11:2] Philosophy of History.
+
+[12:1] See a Notice of Lord Brougham's Political Philosophy, in the
+number for April, 1845.
+
+[15:1] 'Apology for the Bible,' page 133.
+
+[15:2] Unusquisque vestrum non cogitat prius se debere Deos nosse quam
+colere.
+
+[20:1] See a curious 'Essay on Nature,' Printed for Badcock and Co., 2,
+Queen's Head Passage, Paternoster Row. 1807.
+
+[23:1] Elements of Materialism, chapter 1.
+
+[24:1] Discussion on the Existence of God, between Origen Bachelor and
+Robert Dale Owen.
+
+[29:1] Hume's Treastise on Human Nature.
+
+[29:2] This sexing is a stock receipt for mystification.--_Colonel
+Thompson._
+
+[30:1] The Rev. J.K. Smith.
+
+[31:1] 'An Address on Cerebral Physiology and Materialism,' delivered to
+the Phrenological Association In London, June 20, 1842.
+
+[33:1] Principia Mathematica, p. 528, Lond. edit., 1720.
+
+[38:1] Lessing.
+
+[42:1] Lecture by the Rev. Hugh M'Neil, Minister of St. Jude's Church,
+Liverpool, delivered about seven years since, in presence of some 400 of
+the Irish Protestant Clergy.
+
+[42:2] The necessary existence of Deity, by William Gillespie.
+
+[42:3] Page 106 of a Discussion on the Existence of God, between Origen
+Batchelor and R.D. Owen.
+
+[43:1] Quoted by Dr. Samuel Clarke, in his introduction to the Scripture
+Doctrine of the Trinity.
+
+[47:1] Ecclesiastical History, vol. ii, page 11.
+
+[48:1] Manicheisme, tome ii, p. 568.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Superstition Unveiled, by Charles Southwell
+
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