REMARKS

ON

"THE AGE OF REASON,"

ADDRESSED

To THOMAS PAINE.

A SHORT time since, an acquaintance of mine favoured me with a sight of your book, entitled, "The Age of Reason."

From the celebrity of its Author, the title which it bore, and the various reports which had been circulated respecting it, my expectations were greatly raised; and I began to read it, with that eagerness of curiosity, which such circumstances are calculated to excite.

I have now finished the perusal. I have investigated, with all the candour and attention of which I was capable, every observation which I conceived worthy of notice, in the first part of your book; and, to the utmost of my power, have examined the force

and tendency of your various arguments and objections against the principles of the Bible: and my Remarks are now presented for the inspection of yourself and others.

From the information which I had obtained of

your talents, as a Writer, I expected to find, in the "Age of Reason," much of that acuteness, and strength of reasoning, which its title indicated. But, because I will not be guilty of what you call mental lying, I will tell you frankly, that I was disappointed; and, without hesitation, will advert to the occasion of that disappointment, with all that freedom, with which, to use your own expression, "the mind of man communicates itself."

Upon what peculiar excellency, the popularity of your book is founded, I will not presume to determine; but, in the perusal of its pages, I could plainly discover, that, in many places, you had substituted ridicule in the room of argument; while epithets of abuse were introduced, to dazzle the mind with their superficial glare; as though your design were rather to excite contempt than to produce conviction. Instead of meeting with demonstrative evidence, I have seen idle declamations, calculated rather to delude than to inform;-I have met with premises of your own creation, which you have assumed, and from which you have argued conclusively: while,

in many places, from premises which would not be. disputed, your reasonings are inconclusive, and your inferences unjust.

You have blended together, in one common mass, the Heathen mythology, Mahometanism, Christianity, Popery, and Priestcraft, with all the errors, and all the vices, all the dissensions and all the cruelties, which, by a departure from the pure principles of Christianity, have disgraced the human character; and, with an effrontery hardly to be paralleled, have thrown the whole on Revelation.-Is this fair? You have made comparisons, which are as invidious as they are unjust; but it will be only in those, who are disposed to place in the scurrility of your language, that confidence, which nothing but legitimate proof has a right to claim, that those effects will be produced, for which your book seems calculated. To yourself you seem to have arrogated the exclusive appropriation of rationality; and, in the excess of triumph, you appear to tell the world, that the barbarism and mental shackles, in which it had been held for ages, have been reserved, to be torn away by the superior genius of Thomas Paine.

From this mode of procedure, it is easy to infer, in what estimation you hold the intellectual discernment, and the reasoning powers of others. With mankind at large, you must conceive the barometer

of these endowments to be exceedingly low; otherwise, even presumption itself could hardly have persuaded you, that all, which had been held sacred for ages, by millions of the human species, among whom are many of the most exalted genius and most splendid talents that have ever adorned our common nature, was to disappear, in a moment, before the production of your pen.

With thinking people, you have forfeited a considerable portion of your reputation, by the irreverent manner of writing which you have adopted, and, through a mode of reasoning as singular as your principles are daring, by inferring, from the sources of religion, the vices of its professors. Among those, in whom the unholy passions of human nature are predominant, there can be no doubt, that your book will find a favourable reception; but it is not to your literary advantage, to reflect, that the ferocity of those passions, to which you appeal, can never be subdued by any specific which the " Age of Reason" supplies; but that it may be found in another Book, which the "Age of Reason" was written to destroy.

The first observation, in your pamphlet, on which I shall make any remark, is in page 4, where you define "a church, whether Christian, Jewish, or Ma"hometan," to be "something set up to terrify and “enslave mankind." My chief reason for quoting

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this passage is, to compare it with what follows, in the same page, where you call the connexion between church and state "adulterous." On this I observe, religion must be either true or false; if true, your definition cannot be right; if false, the connexion between church and state cannot be adulterous. For if it be an institution invented "to monopolize power and profit," its design must be to promote that end. However it acts, or in what form soever it operates, it still preserves its proper place, provided it keeps that end in view. How then can any connexion, or alliance it may form, be adulterous, during the progress of its operation, and while it degenerates not from the first design of its institution. You say, "The adulterous "connexion between church and state, wherever it “had taken place, whether Jewish, Christian, or "Turkish, had effectually prohibited, by pains and "penalties, every discussion upon established creeds." How, Sir, does this affect Revelation? It is not because right principles have been violated, that they are to be abandoned. The evils you mention, originate in a departure from the principles of Revelation, and not an obedience to, nor an application of them.

What would you think, in a civil sense, if a mad revolutionist were to apply your principles, of the equality of man, to an indiscriminate system of