Library of
Emory University
A REFUTATION
Scatological 8® o x'It $
THOMAS PAINE,
NOT NOTICED BY BISHOP WATSON IN Hlf
"APOLOGY EOll THE BIBLE."
13Y TIIOS. 0. SUMMERS, D.D.
Natf^bUIt, :
PUBLISHING HOUSE OF THE METHODIST
EPISCOPAL CHURCH, SOUTH.
1870.
0 n t f n t s .
Preface, ------ 3
Section I. Outline of.Thomas Fame's Biogra¬
phy, ------ 7
Section II. Refutation of the First Part of the
Age of Reason, - - - 15
Section III. Observations on Bishop Watson's
Letters on the Second Part of the
Age of Reason, - - - - 21
Section IV. Refutation of Mr. Paine's Reply to
Bishop Watson's Letters, 24
Section Y. Refutation of Mr. Paine's further
Reply in his Letter to Erskine, - 56
Section VI. Refutation of Mr. Paine's Charges
against the Evangelists in regard
to their Messianic Construction of
some of the Prophecies, 63
Section VII. Concluding Observations on Mr
Paine and his Works, - - - 81
(iii)
PREFACE.
It is sometimes said tliat no great harm may
be expected to accrue from the Theological Works
of Thomas Paine, on account of the ignorance,
vulgarity, and profanity by which they are so
strongly marked. Those who think thus, ignore
the character of the masses of society and the
agencies by which they are influenced. Our own
observation leads to a different conclusion. We
are inclined to believe that the infidelity which
prevails in Great Britain and the United States
has resulted, directly or indirectly, more from Mr.
Paine's writings than from those of all others
who have employed their pens against the Bible.
We are not singular in this belief, as may be
seen in the numerous replies to the "Age of
Reason" which have been published during the
last half century. Their authors did not think
that Mr. Paine's works were too bad to do mis
chief: they did not think that in refuting them,
they were engaged in a work of supererogation.
(v)
vi
PREFACE.
The learned Bishop of Llandaff, for instance—■
a man peculiarly averse to controversy — did not
dream that he was employed in a bootless enter¬
prise in writing his "Apology;" and those who
have multiplied editions of it have certainly
thought that the exigencies of the case de¬
manded this service from the friends of Revela¬
tion. The recent demonstrations in honor of
Thomas Paine, and the industrious circulation
of his Theological Works, show the light in
which they are viewed by infidels themselves,
and suggest to us the necessity of displaying
equal zeal in our efforts to provide an antidote
for this virulent poison. Such an antidote — so
far as it is demanded by the Second Part of the
"Age of Reason"—is sufficiently and conveni¬
ently furnished in the Letters of Bishop Watson,
which constitute a standard sacred classic.
The following Refutation of the Theological
Works of Thomas Paine, not noticed by the
Bishop of Llandaff, may be viewed as a supple¬
ment to his immortal "Apology." And if only
one soul shall be saved from the damning influ¬
ence of infidelity, by its instrumentality, the
labor bestowed upon it will not be unrewarded.
Nashville, Tenn., March 29,1S55.
REFUTATION
OP
THOMAS PAINE'S THEOLOGICAL WORKS
Sntiflti: 1.
The unhappy author of the " Age of Reason" and
other infidel works, was born at Thetford, England,
January 29th, 1737. His father belonged to the
Society of Quakers, of whom Mr. Paine says, " They
are rather Deists than Christians; they do not be¬
lieve much about Jesus Christ, and they call the
Scriptures a dead letter." He tells us that when he
was only seven or eight years old, his mind revolted
at the doctrine of redemption by Christ. The aver¬
sion to the religion of the Bible, thus early con¬
ceived, was nourished and strengthened throughout
the whole course of his life.
As might be expected, his moral character cor¬
responded with his religious principles ; or, to speak
properly, his bitter opposition to all true religion.
By his brutal treatment, he occasioned the deatli of
(vii)
8
REFUTATION OF
one wife, and the divorce of another; and after
wards escaped to America, as a fugitive from justice
Being a zealous advocate for American Indepeua
ence, he was made, in 1777, Secretary to the Com
mittee of Congress on Foreign Relations. But, in
consequence of violating his oath of secrecy, in
1779, he was dismissed in disgrace, or resigned to
prevent dismissal, which amounts to the same.
After this he was an inferior officer in the Assem¬
bly of Pennsylvania. He also accompanied Colonel
Laurens to Europe to obtain a loan, for which ser¬
vice he took great credit to himself, and said that
without this loan Cornwallis would not have been
captured. Pennsylvania and New York voted him
money for his services, and three thousand dollars
was given him by the Continental Congress. Vir¬
ginia declined to make him any present, though re¬
commended by General Washington. This friendly
interposition in his behalf, by "the Father of his
Country," was repaid by the foulest ingratitude,
and the most diabolical malignity. He wrote a
letter from Paris, in 1796, in which he says to
G eneral Washington:
"As to you, treacherous in private friendship,
and a hypocrite in public life, the world would be
puzzled to decide, whether you have abandoned
good principles, or whether you ever had any."
We need not, however, be astonished at this
atrocious libel; for he who could slander patriarchs,
prophets, a,nd apostles, would not be " afraid to
THOMAS PAINK.
9
speak evil of dignities," such as heroes, patriots,
and statesmen,—of even the greatest among them.
Of course, a poisoned shaft from such a source could
not reach one so exalted in his moral, social, and
public position, as the immortal Washington.
While in France, Mr. Paine became a citizen of
the Republic under the Reign of Terror. He came
near sharing the fate of others who were conspicuous
in the French Revolution. In 1793, he was ex¬
cluded from the Convention, and afterwards im¬
prisoned in the Luxembourg, where he was seized
with a fever, which he thinks saved his life, as it
prevented the execution of a decree against him,
which was subsequently found among the papers of
Robespierre. Just six hours before his imprison¬
ment, as he says, he finished his hastily-written
essay, the First Part of the Age of Reason, winch
he committed to Joel Barlow, for publication in the
United States.
When Mr. Jefferson occupied the Presidential
Chair, in 1801, Mr. Paine returned to this country,
in a United States sloop of war; but he was per¬
mitted to end his days in obscurity and shame.
Notwithstanding the annual whining of infidels on
their St. Thomas's day, we cannot see that the case
of Mr. Paine furnishes any illustration of the pro¬
verbial ingratitude of republics. This country is
under no obligation of any sort to Mr. Paine; and
his admirers need not expect that it will ever decree
him " an apotheosis and rites divine." Our large
10
REFUTATION OF
cities, teeming with imported infidelity, may dis¬
grace themselves, or rather, may be disgraced, by
patriotic Paine processions, and other demonstra¬
tions in honor of a miserable creature, who could
betray his adopted'country, and traduced even its
most illustrious hero—whose name has become the
world's watch-word of liberty; but the American
people will never suffer the name of Thomas Paine
to take rank with the immortal names that em¬
blazon the Declaration of 1776. When Christians
shall enrol him a saint and martyr, Americans will
honor him as a statesman and patriot.
The friends of Mr. Paine—those who consider
him " one of the associate founders of the American
Republic"—think that his contemporaries had a
high opinion of his services, from the fact that
100,000 copies of his " Common Sense " obtained a
ready sale, when the Colonies scarcely numbered
3,000,000. It must, however, be borne in mind that
at that time Mr. Paine was acting the part of a con¬
summate hypocrite, pretending in all his writings
to be a sincere Christian, as well as a patriot. He
even quoted Scripture to show that " the will of the
Almighty expressly disapproves of the government
of kings." No wonder that his political tracts
were popular—his opposition to a regal form of
government was based on the Bible, which he called
" the Divine law, the Word of Cod." But when the
veil was lifted from his character—when the "Age
of Reason" disclosed his corrupt and ahonJual !o
1I10MAS PAINE.
11
principles, the American people abandoned him as
a monster of iniquity; and it will be difficult for
foreign infidels, who have drifted to our shores, to
show that in this, the Christian citizens of this
republic are chargeable with ingratitude.
The venerable Grant Thorburn, whose character
is unimpeachable, writing to the New York Ob¬
server, under date, "Winsted, Conn., Feb. 18th,
1855/' gives this melancholy picture of Thomas
Paine: " This day I enter on my eighty-third year.
Except that my hearing and seeing are not so acute,
I am not sensible of any material decay for the last
fifty years. During that period, I have been only
one day confined to the house by sickness! Good¬
ness and mercy have followed me all the days of my
life. I owe the Giver of all good a large debt of
gratitude. And as there is but a step between me
and death, I owe it to generations yet to come, to
tell what I saw and heard of Thomas Paine. Per¬
haps there lives not a man on earth, who traced
him from his cradle to his grave, except myself.
Carver and I were fellow-laborers in the same shop.
Paine and Carver were born in the same town in
England. Paine and I boarded with Carver. I
often heard Carver, his wife, and Paine, as we four
sat by the fire on a winter night, rehearse the items
of his life. I think he was the worst member of the
body politic I ever met in all my journey through
life. lie married a respectable lady, who died
eleven months thereafter, in consequence of brutal
12 REFUTATION OF
treatment. He then married a daughter of the
Collector of the Port of Lewis : after three years she
obtained a divorce for like treatment. In 1773,
while he held an office in the Custom House, (given
him by his father-in-law,) he was detected in taking
bribes from the smugglers, and fled to America,
lie was made Secretary to the private Committee
of Congress, and took an oath of office to keep their
secrets. He broke this oath by divulging the pro¬
ject of a secret mission to the Court of France by
Silas Dean. He was dismissed with disgrace. This
treachery was the cause of much trouble in Con¬
gress, and in the Court of Louis' XYI. We next
find him in Paris, helping Robespierre in his labors
of love to establish the freedom of the Press, and the
right of speech, by means of the guillotine. He
quarrelled with Robbie, and was chalked for the
guillotine. God, willing to make the wrath of Paine
to praise Him, sent an angel who delivered him out
of prison. [For particulars of this miracle, see the
life of Thorburn, 101st page.] In 1801, when King
Thomas the first ascended the throne of his king¬
dom, he instantly despatched a national frigate to
convey to our shores the venerated Thomas Paine.
He arrived early in the year 1802. I spoke with
him at the City Hotel, Rowery, a few hours after his
arrival. He found letters urging him on to Wash¬
ington, (then four days' journey.) He started next
morning. At Georgetown a messenger was sent
forward to announce his approach: a feast was got
THOMAS PAINE.
13
ready, and all those of like thinking were invited.
Paine entered late, his shirt unwashed, his heard
unshorn, and reeling like a drunken man, A look
of consternation shone forth from every facs: mirth
ceased; one by one they went out, leaving Paine
alone on his chair fast asleep. Next day he received
letters and instructions to return to New York.
When Aaron Burr returned from Europe, whither
he had fled after his duel with Hamilton, he kept
his office in Nassau street, near my seed-store.
From him I received the account as above stated.
Paine, on his return, was unable to find lodgings.
Carver took him in for old acquaintance' sake. He
died at Greenwich, of delirium tremens, in 1809."
Mr. Thorburn, on one occasion, said to Paine,
" Here you sit in an obscure uncomfortable dwell¬
ing, bedaubed with snuff and stupefied with brandy:
you, who were once the. companion of Washington,
Jay, and Hamilton, are now deserted by every good
man, and even respectable Heists cross the streets to
avoid you." Paine replied, " I care not a straw for
the opinions of the world." Mr. Thorburn says,
" He was the most disgusting human being you
could meet in the street. Through the effects of
intemperance, his countenance was bloated beyond
description—he looked as if the mark of Cain was
stamped upon his countenance. A few of his dis¬
ciples, to hide him from the gaze of men, conveyed
him to Greenwich, where they supplied him with
brandy till he died." And yet Mr. Painc's bio
14
REFUTATION OF
grapher attempts to prove that he was a very
sober, virtuous, and respectable man, and that he
died, if not in the odor of sanctity, yet just as a
patriot and philosopher ought to die. Mr. Thor-
burn's account of the closing scenes of Mr. Paine's
life was published in the midst of his friends, who
dared not contradict it, because hundreds of per¬
sons then living, and many still living, knew it
to be true. Mr. Paine's gardener, who was usually
sent by him for brandy, testified to his habits of
drunkenness, obscenity, and vulgar profanity. De¬
cent persons were absolutely ashamed to visit him :
and very feAV persons of any sort attended his
funeral. The only speech pronounced at his grave-
was by an old negro, and it ran on this wise :
" Tliia is Tom Paine—here he lies—
Nobody laughs and nobody cries:
Where he is gone, or how he fares,
Nobody knows and nobody cares."
tnnmas pa t n e.
15
Sutifftt %%,
Our knowledge of the character of Mr. Paine
will assist us in our investigation of his " Theolo¬
gical Works."
Their recent republication in this country, with
the zealous efforts put forth in their circulation, sug¬
gests the inquiry whether the replies to the "Age of
Reason" fairly met and answered the objections to
the Bible contained in that work ; and if so. whether
the replications of Mr. Paine contain any new mat¬
ter which deserves regard.
The First Part of the Age of Reason d/>es not ap¬
pear to have given much concern either fo friends or
foes. No one after reading it will be astonished at
this, /it contains scarcely any thing b*t ribald and
ignorant blasphemies, mingled with /audations of
nature and science as the only true /eligion. The
author's avowed object is to decry /he religion of
the Bible,—which, he says, is made *p of lying and
stupid Mysteries, Miracles, and Promecies,—by con¬
trasting it with the religion of nat/ire and science,
which involve none of those elements. lie does
not seem to know that nature has/mysteries as mi
merous and as inexplicable as reflation ; and that,
1G REFUTATION OF
if (here be any religion in nature, no one knows sc
much about it as the believer in the Bible. He
hauls the book of Job and the nineteenth Psalm as
subfime deistical productions, borrowed by the Jews
froiji the Persian Magi. But as he had no Bible by
bin] at the time, and as he could not quote the
Psa[m, he gives us the paraphrase of Mr. Addison,
whith only extends to the sixth verse—the remain¬
der !of the Psalm being a sublime eulogy of the
Mosaic Scriptures, ending with a prayer for deliver¬
ance from sin, and for acceptance with the Most
High, whom the psalmist styles, " My Strength and
my Redeemer \" Mr. Paine, it must be observed,
considers prayer a grand impertinence—the deisti¬
cal psaliiist it appears was of a different mind.
He tel^ us that he never studied the languages, a
knowledge of which he does not consider of any
importance. He seems to boast cf his ignorance of
Hebrew, tnd. yet dogmatizes concerning Hebrew
literature as if he were as learned as a Jewish Rab¬
bi. A fine critic of the Old testament truly, when
he supposed that the Greek astronomical names,
Pleiades, Orion, and Arcturus, were borrowed by the
Jews, who knew nothing about astronomy, and.
having no tnnslation of those names in Hebrew
adopted them as they found them in the Gentile
poem! We need not say the names used in the
Hebrew by Job are all different—Ash, Kesil, and
Kimah.
His ignorance of Hebrew literature crops out in
THOMAS PAIJSE.
17
the sage notion that the distinction between "the
greater and the lesser prophets" refers to degrees of
prophesying: a Sunday-school child could tell him
that it refers to the quantity and not to the quality
of their predictions—we suppose that is not as ab¬
surd as " the greater and the lesser god !"
He charges "the Christian mythologists" with
absurdity in their accounts of the death of Christ,
as if they affirmed the abstract necessity that it
should be brought about by the instrumentalities by
which it was effected—-which is nowhere intimated.
He charges them with quibbling in regard to the
effect of the death of Christ, inasmuch as men die
now as they did before that event. But where is
the quibble ? Who told him that the death of man
would not have been an eternal death if Christ had
not undertaken to die for him ? And Avhat quibble
is there in affirming that the death of the Son of
God, the second Adam, though he rose from the
dead, was a substitute for the death of the first
Adam, though he must needs die a temporal death ?
The death of Christ was not a mere " natural death,"
nor is the death of the believer in Jesus an eternal
death; yet without " quibble, subterfuge and pun,"
we may call both the one and the other death.
He asserts that the doctrine of redemption by the
blood of Christ is founded on a pecuniary idea,
fabricated as a basis for the selling of pardons, in¬
dulgences, etc.; and that it is inapplicable to the
case of criminals, where moral and not pecuniary
18
REFUTATION OF
justice is in demand. Such language betrays utter
ignorance of the system. The New Testament
speaks of redemption as a great governmental expe¬
dient, by means of which God can be just and yet
justify repenting sinners : it necessarily rises above
all earthly analogies, and only admits of partial and
imperfect illustration by reference to the affairs of
men—such as paying debts, redeeming inheritances,
ransoming captives, discharging criminals. It is
not a mere pecuniary idea, but " mo*ral justice,"
that is the basis of redemption—not however apart
from wisdom and benevolence. It does not follow
that because earthly governments cannot punish the
innocent for the guilty, therefore the voluntary suf¬
ferings of the Son of God cannot be regarded as a
meritorious consideration, in view of which God
might, without injuriously affecting the stability of
his government, and the interests of the universe,
extend pardon to his rebellious but repenting sub¬
jects. This is the grand essential fact of redemp¬
tion—something very different from Mr. Paine's
"ideas of pecuniary and moral justice."
It is very evident that when Mr. Paine did not
identify Christianity with Popery, priestcraft, and
the like, he confounded it with the " horrible de¬
cree" of John Calvin. Thus ho speaks of "Moloch
and modern Predestinarianism," and of preachers
who " tell their congregations that God predestin¬
ated and selected from all eternity a certain number
to be saved and a certain number to be damned
TIIOMAS PAINE. 10
eternally. If this were true," he continues, "the
day of judgment is past: their preaching is in vain,
and they had better work at some useful calling for
their livelihood. This doctrine hath a direct ten¬
dency to demoralize mankind. Can a bad man bo
reformed by telling him that if he is one of those
who was decreed to be damned before he was born,
his reformation will do him no good; and if he was
decreed to be saved, he will be saved whether he
believes it or not ? for this is the result of the doc¬
trine. Such preaching and such preachers do in¬
jury to the moral world. They had better be at the
plough." It is very obvious that if this doctrine be
identified with Christianity, Christianity cannot
stand in an age of reason.
Mr. Paine's aversion to Calvinists was strength¬
ened by the persecutions which they waged against
all who were under their power, particularly the
Quakers, in whose society he was brought up. Thus
in his Letter to Mr. Erskine, he says, " Catholics,
when they had the ascendency, burnt Protestants,
who in turn led Catholics to the stake, and both
united in exterminating Dissenters. The Dissenters
when they had the power pursued the same course.
The diabolical act of Calvin, in the burning of Dr.
Servetus, is an awful instance of this fact. The
Dissenters who escaped from England had scarcely
seated themselves in the wilds of America, before
they began to exterminate from the territory they
seized upon, all those who did not profess what they
20 REFUTATION OF
called the orthodox faith. Priests, Quakers, arid
Adamites were prohibited from entering the terri¬
tory oh pain of death." But before rejecting Chris¬
tianity because of the erroneous and persecuting
practices of some that bear the Christian name, he
ought to have candidly studied the system, and he
would have found that it is not responsible for the
one or the other, but as much opposed to both as
Mr. Paine himself. There is no more Calvinism in
the Bible than there is Popery—if there were, we
should not appear in its defence, though we should
not imitate the author of the Age of Reason, in his
vulgar denunciations of it. We are aware that
thousands have been made infidels by supposing
that Popery is Christianity, or that Calvinism is
contained in the Bible ; but surely the Bible is not
responsible for their mistakes, or for the blunders or
bad faith of its professed expounders.
thomas faine.
21
Set tin %%%.
There is nothing in the fi^st part of the Age of
Reason, besides what we have noticed, that is worthy
of regard ; and there is nothing in the second part
of any consequence, unnoticed by Bishop Watson.
When George the Third was informed that the
Bishop of Llandaff had written an Apology for the
Bible, the king replied, he did not know the Bible
needed any apology. Whether he intended this for
a pan on the word, or did not know its classical
meaning, is of no consequence: homas Paine knew,
and it was small wit in him to use the word as if
it meant the making of an excuse. He felt that
Bishop Watson's defence of the Bible was no excuse
for errors and imperfections. The masterly man¬
ner in which the learned prelate demonstrated the
genuineness and authenticity of the sacred books—
wiped off the foul aspersions which Mr. Paine had
cast upon the inspired writers—and defended the
God of the Bible from the blasphemous allegations
of the Age of Reason, was what might have been
expected from one so well fitted for the task.
Bishop Watson possessed an acute and vigorous
mind, richly endowed and strengthened by a close
22 REFUTATION OF
application to study through the whole course of
his life. On the death of Or. Rutherford, Regius
Professor of Divinity in the University of Cam¬
bridge, Dr. Watson was appointed to fill his place.
He tells us how he qualified himself for this impor¬
tant post: " I reduced the study of divinity into as
narrow a compass as possible, for I determined te
study nothing but my Bible, being much uncon¬
cerned about the opinions of councils, fathers,
churches, bishops, and other men, as little inspired
as myself. This mode of proceeding, being opposite
to the general one, and especially to that of the
master of Peterhouse, who was a great reader, he
used to call me the self-taught divine. My mind
was wholly unbiased: I had no prejudice against,
no predilection for, the Church of England ; but a
sincere regard for"the Church of Christ, and an in¬
superable objection to every degree of dogmatical
intolerance. Holding the New Testament in my
hand, I used to say, En sacrum codiccm ! There is
the fountain of truth, why do you follow the streams
derived from it by the sophistry, or polluted by the
passions of man? If you can bring proofs against
any thing delivered in this book, I shall think it my
duty to reply to you: articles of churches are not
of divine authority: have done with them ; for they
may be true, they-may be false ; and appeal to the
book itself."
Learned, laborious, and liberal, he was the very
man to cope with the adversaries of the Bible,
THOMAS PAINE.
23
whether they made their attacks in the covert, sin¬
ister, and insinuating manner of the serpentine and
slimy author of the Decline and Fall, or in the
scurrilous and abusive style of the wolfish author of
the Age of Reason. Some have thought he carried
his courtesy to an extreme. " It is well known,"
says one, " that the liberal and gentlemanly manner
in which Dr. Watson, in his Apology for Christian¬
ity, treated the infidel historians, displeased some
of the doughty polemics of the time. Mr. Gibbon
himself acknowledged the copy of that work, sent
to him by the author, in a strain of great politeness."
But the cause of truth never loses any thing by the
courteous manner in which it is defended. The
meekness and gentleness of Christ are well adapted
to disarm opposition to the Bible and secure a can¬
did attention to the arguments adduced in proof of
its divine original. And it is worthy of remark,
that Mr. Paine, in his Reply, writes in a subdued
tone, and speaks of the bishop almost in terms of
respect.
24
REFUTATION OP
In that Reply, he starts out with an attempt to
show that the hook of Genesis is not the first, or
most ancient book of the Old Testament, but the
most recent. He says: "If Genesis be, as the
bishop asserts, the oldest book in the world, and con¬
sequently the oldest and first written book of the
Bible, and if the extraordinary things related in it,
such as the creation of the world in six days, the
tree of life and of good and evil, the story of Eve
and of the talking serpent, the fall of man and his
being turned out of Paradise, were facts, or even
believed by the Jews to be facts, they would be re¬
ferred to as fundamental matters, and that very fre¬
quently, in the books of the Bible that were writ¬
ten by various authors afterwards; whereas there is
not a book, a chapter, or verse of the Bible, includ¬
ing a space of more than a thousand years, in which
there is any mention made of these things, or any
of them, nor are they so much as alluded to. How
will the bishop solve this difficulty, which stands as
a circumstantial contradiction to his assertion?
There are but two ways of solving it: First, that
the book of Genesis is not an ancient book ; that it
THOMAS PAINE.
25
lias Leon written by some (now) unknown person
after the return of the Jews from the Babylonian
captivity, about a thousand years after the time that
Moses is said to have lived, and put as a preface or
introduction to the other books, when they were
formed into a canon in the time of the second
temple, and therefore not having existed before that
time, none of these things mentioned in it could be
referred to in those books. Secondly, that, admitting
Genesis to have been written by Moses, the Jews did
not believe the things stated in it to be true, and,
therefore, as they could not refer to them as facts,
they would not refer to them as fables. The first
of these solutions goes against the antiquity of the
book, and the second against its authenticity, and
the bishop may take which he pleases."
We suppose "the bishop" would take neither the
one nor the other: he would be very foolish to do so.
No references to the book of Genesis in the other
books of the Old Testament! What a bold, un¬
scrupulous assertion ! The truth is, the events re¬
corded in Genesis are frequently referred to in the
succeeding books of the Bible.
Exodus begins with a continuation of the history
of the patriarchs, with which Genesis closed. It
frequently mentions " the God of Abraham, Isaac
and Jacob, the God of our fathers"—refers to the
grant of Canaan made to them, Gen. xv., xvii., and
to the account of the creation and the Sabbath, Gen.
1. ii.
26 REFUTATION OF
Leviticus makes a similar reference to the grant of
Canaan, recorded in Genesis. Lev. xiv. 34, xx. 24.
Numbers makes special mention of the sons of
Jacob, as the patriarchs of the twelve tribes. Gen.
xlvi.; Num. i.-iii., xxvi.; and of their descent into
Egypt, Num. xx. 15—it represents Balaam speaking
of Jacob as the cognomen of the children of Israel,
in reference to their origin recorded in Genesis.
Deuteronomy refers to the oath by which Canaan
was secured to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob, and to the grants spoken of, Gen. xiv. xv.
xvii. Deu. i. ii. vi. ix. xix. xxxi. xxxiv.—to Moab and
Ammon, sons of Lot, and their inheritance, Gen.
xix. Deu. ii.—to the descent into Egypt, Deu. x. xi.
xxvi. xxvii., to the Canaanitish nations specified,
Gen. xv. Deu. xx.—to the overthrow of Sodom, Go
morrah, Admah, and Zeboim, Gen. xix. Deu. xxix.
—to the division of the earth, Gen. xi. Deu. xxxii.
—to the history of Joseph and his brethren, Deu.
xxxiii.
Joshua takes' up the history where the Pentateuch
left it—alluding to " the book of the law of Moses,"
Josh. i. viii. xxxiii.—and to the events recorded
therein, including references to the Canaanitish na¬
tions and the signal fulfilment of the prediction in
Gen. xv—to circumcision, as practiced before the
Exodus, agreeably to Gen. xvii.—to the fathers of
the twelve tribes—to the call and exodus of Abra¬
ham from the birth-place of himself, Nahor, and
their father Terah, in Mesopotamia, recorded Gen
TIIOMAS PAINE.
27
xi. xii.—and even the burial of Joseph's hones in
the parcel of ground which Jacob bought of the
sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem, for a hundred
pieces of silver, and it became the inheritance of
the children of Joseph. Gen. xxxiii. 1.
Judges continues the history, referring to the oath
by which God promised Canaan to the forefathers
of Israel, and to persons and places mentioned in
Genesis. Gen. xvii. Judges ii.
Ruth alludes to Genesis xxix. xxx. xxxviii., spe¬
cifying " Rachel and Leah, which two did build the
house of Israel," and to " the house of Pharez whom
Tamar bare unto Judah." Ruth iv.
1 Samuel (x.) alludes to Rachel's sepulchre,
spoken of Gen. xxxv.—speaks of the Israelites as
Hebrews, according to Gen. xiv. 13—and makes fre¬
quent reference to localities first mentioned in Gen¬
esis.—Compare Gen. xxi. 21, xxv. 18, with 1 Sam.
xxvi. xxvii. 8.
2 Samuel alludes frequently to places mentioned
in Genesis: e. g.—Hebron, Mahanaim, and " the
king's vale."—Compare Gen. xiii. xiv. xxxii. with 2
Sam. ii. xviii. 18.
1 Kings frequently refers to places mei tioned in
Genesis, as Dan, Bcersheba, Bethel, and (xviii. 31)
makes a particular reference to Gen. xxxii. 28, in
these words, "Elijah took twelve stones, according
to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob,
unto whom the word of the Lord came, saying,
Israel shall be thy name."
28
REFUTATION OF
2 Kings continues the history in the same vein,
and (xiii. 23) particularly specifies the covenant with
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Gen. xvii.
1 Chronicles leads off with chronological tables
and historical notices, derived from Genesis and the
other books the Pentateuch, and so presented as
to make it simply ridiculous to say that the penta-
teuchal history was written after the Chronicles—
it also alludes (xxvii. 23) to the promise made tc
Abram, Gen. xv. 5, "because the Lord had said he
would increase Israel like to the stars of the hea¬
vens"—it represents David invoking the Most High
as the " Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and of Israel,
our fathers," whose history is given at large in Gen¬
esis, and nowhere else but there.
2 Chronicles (xx. 2) alludes to Hazazon-tamar,
first mentioned Gen. xiv. 7—represents Jehoshaphat
saying, "Art not thou our God, who didst drive out
the inhabitants of this land before thy people Israel,
and gavest it to the seed of Abraham thy friend for
ever?"—a passage utterly void of meaning unless
Genesis was then a recognized history—speaks of
" the law in the book of Moses," and of " the Lord
God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel." (xxv. 4; xxx.
15, 16 ; xxxiv. 14.)
Ezra uses the common formula, "as it is written
in the law of Moses, the man of God," (iii. 2,) and
particularly specifies (ix.) the nations mentioned.
Gen. xv.
Nehaniah (viii. xiii.) mentions " the book of the
TII05IAS PAINE. 29
lair of Mosos, which the Lord had commanded to
Israel"—and refers to the call of Abram, the change
of his name, his faith, the covenant grant of Canaan
to him and his seed, as recorded in Genesis, and to
other facts recorded in succeeding historical books ;
and Nehemiah does not appear to have been an
idiot, which he must have been if Genesis be not a
genuine book.
Esther treats of subjects which would scarcely
suggest any reference to the Mosaic writings; never¬
theless, the idioms of Genesis are found in Esther,
showing a familiar acquaintance with it. Compare
Gen. xxxvii. 14 ; xxxiv. 19 ; xxvii. 34; xxxv. 5 ; x.
5, with Esther ii. 11, 14; iv. 1; viii. 17 ; x. 1.
Job alludes to the land of Uz, mentioned Genesis
x. 23—to Teman, who appears to have been the son
of one Eliphaz, and the father of another, giving his
name to a part of Idumea which his posterity in¬
habited : compare Gen. xxxvi. 9-12; Job ii. 11;
Jer. xlix. 7—to Teman, Gen. xxv. 15 ; Job vi. 19—
The allusions to the rending of clothes and mourn¬
ing seven days and nights, (i. ii.,) the ten times, (xix.
3,) Gen. xxxi. 7, the references to the work of crea¬
tion, (xxvi. xxxviii., etc.,) the breath and Spirit of
God in the nostrils, (xxv. 3; xxxiii. 4,) Gen. ii. 7,
and numerous other incidental passages of a kindred
character, show that the book of Genesis was not
unknown to the author of the book of Job, if in¬
deed Moses was not the author of both.
Psalms abounds in allusions to the Peutateuclial
30 REFUTATION OF
history, including many pregnant references h
Genesis : e. g.—the dominion of man over the lowei
animals, (viii.,) Gen. i. ix.—creation, (xxxiii.,) Gen. i.
ii.—the covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,
the history of Joseph, the descent into Egypt, th«
plagues, the exodus, etc., are set forth in Ps. cv., and
the creation, miracles in Egypt, etc., in Ps. exxxvi.,
in language taken from Genesis. (Compare also
Gen. xix. 24, Ps. xi. 6.) This is just what might
have been expected. Tlxe^piousJHebrew would na¬
turally interweave the wonders of sacred history in
his songs of praise. .
Proverbs alludes to the tree of life (iii. 18) spoken
of Gen. ii. iii.—and to the creation (viii.) Gen. i.
Ecclesiastes refers (i. 13J to the curse pronounced
on the earth, Gen. iii. 19,—3ind (vii. 29) to the crea¬
tion and fall, Gen. i. iii._
Solomon's Song abouiras in the idioms of the book
of Genesis, and refers to places and things therein
mentioned, as Damascus, Gilead and Mahanaim, the
last place being,, suggested as a simile by the twe
hosts of angels that met Jacob on his return from
Padan-Aram. Compare Gen. xxxii. 2, with Song
vi. 13. " The mandrakes" (vii. 13) were perhaps
suggested by Gen. xxx. 1<L-16.
Isaiah (i. 9, 10 ; xiii. 19) refers to thej^yerthrow of
Sodom and Gomorrah, Gen. xix.—alludes to Abraham
(xxix. 22 ; xli. 8 ; li. 2:) " Thou Isrdel art my servant,
Jacob whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham,
my friend" Look unto Abraham, your father, and
THOMAS PAINE.
31
unto Sara that bare you, for I called him alone and
blessed him, and increased him "—it alludes also tc
the general deluge (liv. 9 :) "I have sworn that the
waters of Noah should no more go over the earth"
—also to Midian, Moab, Edom, Nebaioth, Kedar,
and other places and things, in terms utterly incom¬
prehensible without reference to the record in Gen¬
esis : compare Gen. x. xxv., Is. lx. lxvi.—and to Gen.
iii. 14, in lxv. 25: " Dust shall be the serpent's
meat."
Jeremiah refers to Gen. i. in iv. 23: "I beheld the
earth, and lo! it was without form and void; and
the heavens, and they had no light"—to Gen. viii.
22, in v. 24: " He reserveth unto us the appointed
weeks of the harvest;" and xxxii. 20: "my cove¬
nant of the day and my covenant of the night"—to
the "overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, and the
neighbor cities thereof," Glen, xix., in c. 1. 40—to
Gen. xxxvii. 35, in viij5"22, xlvi. 11: " balm in Gi-
lead"—to Gen. xlix^'K), in xxx. 21: "Their nobles
shall be of thepasmvbs, and their governor shall pro¬
ceed from thA midst of .them"—to the creation of
sun, moon^gfid stars, xxxi.„35—and the names of
nations, ^localities, etc., postulate an acquaintance
with 4he history in Genesis. " ,r ^
Lamentations (ii. iv.) speaks of Jacob &©d Judah
as the well-known progenitors of the Jewish nation,
of the punishment of the sin of Sodom, and of
"Edom in the land of Uz," of which subjects tin:
book of Genesis contains the original record.
32 REFUTATION OP
Ezelciel (xiv.) refers to tlic righteousness of Noab
by which he was delivered from the flood, Gen. vii
—to the sin of Sodom, (xvi.,) Gen. xix.—to Dedan
Kedron, Sheba, Ilaran (xxvii.) and Gomer, Magog.
Meshech, Tubal, and Tarshisli, (xsxviii ,) mentioned
Gen. x. xi. xv.—to " the trees of Eden in the gardeD
of God," (xxxi. xxxvii.,) Gen. ii. iii.—to Joseph,
Ephraim, Judah, and the twelve tribes in general,
(xxxvii. xlviii.,) Gen. xlviii. xlix.—to the oath by
which the grant of Canaan was confirmed to the
"fathers" of the Hebrew nation, (xlvii.,) Gen. xv.
xvii.
The prophecies of Daniel and the lesser prophets,
in consequence of their brevity, did not allow of
more than an occasional reference to the facts re¬
corded in the Pentateuch and the succeeding his¬
torical books; but we have gone through every book
in order down 'to Ezekiel, who wrote during the
captivity, and find references to Genesis in every
one, and in several of the earlier books many and
copious quotations ; and yet Mr. Paine says, " there
is not a book, chapter, or verse of the Bible, from
the time Moses is said to have written the book of
Genesis to the book of Malachi, including a space
of more than a thousand years, in which there is any
mention of these things, (the creation, tree of life,
etc.,) or any of them, nor are they so much as al¬
luded to!"
He says the Jews stole their cosmogony from th6
Persians, and, to conceal the theft, the Rabbins of
THOMAS P A I XE .
83
the second temple published Genesis as a book of
Moses. He even has the hardihood to say that the
name of Moses is not found in the Jewish Scrip¬
tures, and says that ' this is strange, if the Jews
knew or believed any thing about him or the books
he is said to have written." Of course, then, there
never was such a man as Moses, or Abraham, Isaac,
Jacob, Judah, or Joseph—there never were any
Hebrew kings, or prophets, or priests—never any
Jewish wars, victories, or captivities—Josephus,
Philo, the Targumists, and other ancient Jewish
writers, were fools when they spoke of the laws of
Moses—so were Julian the apostate, Porphyry the
bitter enemy of Christianity, Numenius the Pytha¬
gorean, Longinus the celebrated critic, Juvenal the
satirist, Tacitus the historian, Justin the abbrevi-
ator of Trogus, Strabo and Diodorus Siculus the
great geographers, Artapanus, Eupolemus, Manetho,
and other heathen writers of antiquity, who all
agree in assigning the Pentateuch to Moses—Ptol¬
emy was imposed upon when he had the Palaia Di-
atheka translated and placed in the Alexandrian
library—the Samaritans were hoaxed when they
made their copy of the Pentateuch, which is sub¬
stantially the same as the Hebrew now in our pos¬
session. The four later books of the Pentateuch
fully endorse the first book, and continue the his¬
tory which that begins ; and, all together, form the
civil and ecclesiastical constitution of an ancient
nation, which forsooth knew nothing about the
' 2
34
R li FUTATION OF
books or their author! The whole affair was con¬
cocted by " those priestly reformers, impostors, I
should call them," says Mr. Paine, " Hilkiah, Ezra,
and Nehemiah, who began to produce books under
the name of the books of Moses. They trumped up
a story of the creation being made in six days, and
of the Creator resting on the seventh, to suit with
the lunar and chronological period of seven days;
and they manufactured a commandment to agree
with both. Impostors always work in this manner.
They put fables for originals and causes for effects."
This passage is a fine specimen of Mr. Paine's
taste, logic, and literature. He a ill not credit the
testimony of all ancient historians, sacred and pro¬
fane, in regard to the antiquity of the Pentateuch—
the proofs derived from the numerous monuments
which attest that antiquity, additions to which are
made from time to time by the discoveries in Pales¬
tine, Egypt, Nineveh, and other places—the multi¬
farious institutions of the Hebrew church and
nation, which postulate that antiquity with greater
certainty than the institutions of this country and
Great Britain corroborate the ages assigned to
Rymer's Federa, Doomsday Book, Blackstone's Com¬
mentary, the Declaration of Independence, and the
Constitution of ihe United States. And yet " those
priestly impostors" manufactured the Constitution
of the Hebrew nation, and all the historic details
connected therewith, and palmed their forgery on
the Jews, after they had been governed by it for
THOMAS PAINE.
35
more than a thousand years, and could produce ten
thousand monuments and institutions, and a library
of authentic records—Hebrew, Samaritan, Egyptian,
Chaldee, and Persian—in evidence of its antiquity !
" We now hear of thousands of Abrahams, Isaacs,
and Jacobs among the Jews," says Mr. Paine,
"but the Bible does not contain one from the time
that Abraham is said to have lived to the time of
the Babylonish captivity—this can be accounted for
but one way, which is, that before the Babylonish
captivity, the Jews had no such books as Genesis,
nor knew anything of the names and persons it
mentions, nor of the things it relates, and that the
stories in it have been manufactured since that
time." He puts Exodus, with the names of Moses
and Aaron, in the same category—all modern
priestly inventions ! The argument is this: The
Pentateuch is a fabrication of Hilkiah & Co., be¬
cause the Jews did not give their children the names
of Moses, Abraham, and other patriarchs, until
after the captivity: the negative is proved by re- .
ference to books, which, as we have seen, are full
of allusions to the law of Moses, and constantly
refer to the names of persons and places, facts and
occurrences, which make up the Pentateuchal re¬
cord !
Again: "We do not hear—I speak for myself"
—«ays Mr. Paine, "of any Jew of the present day
of the name of Adam, Abel, Seth, Enoch, Me¬
thuselah, Noah, Shorn, Ham, Japheth—the most
36 REFUTATION OF
extraordinary of all the names that make up the
catalogue of the Jewish chronology. The names
the Jews now adopt are those that are mentioned in
Genesis after the tenth chapter, for the reason, the
Jews consider the former not real, but fictitious or
allegorical persons." It will not do to say in this
case, Credat Judceus Apella, for there is not a real
Jew upon the earth that would not laugh at such
stupidity. Does not the eleventh chapter of Genesis
continue the history without any pause or mark ol
distinction—repeating the genealogy of Shem and
bringing it down to Abram, Sarai, and Lot ? And
do not the genealogical names of the tenth chapter
reappear in various parts of the succeeding books
of the Bible, as the names of veritable persons, the
progenitors of powerful nations, some of which are
still in existence, and the founders of cities, the
ruins of which corroborate their Biblical history ?
If the first ten chapters be fable, so is the eleventh;
and Abraham is as mythical a personage as Adam,
and there ought not to be an Abraham among Mr.
Paine's modern Jews, or an Ibrahim among his
Arabs and Turks.
The practice of giving names to children expres¬
sive of some circumstance connected with their
birth, obtained very extensively during the Biblical
periods of Jewish history, which accounts fcr the
great variety of names found in their records.
This practice, for the most part, ceased in later
times, and it became fashionable to name children
THOMAS PAINE. 37
after the famous men of their nation ; and as Abra¬
ham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses, were the first and
most conspicuous among them, their names would
naturally become the most popular. The names of
antediluvian#patriarchs would not so generally be
used, because they were the ancestors of the Jews
only as they were the ancestors of all the world
beside; and yet Noah is a name that obtains among
modern Jews—it means comfort, and this, apart
from the historical association it suggests, may ac¬
count for its being in vogue. Adam and Enos
mean man—Abel means vanity—Shem means name
—meanings which would not recommend them to
popular use, especially as they do not belong to " the
catalogue of the Jewish chronology." It is a bright
suggestion, that Adam, Noah, and Ham were Jews!
But Mr. Paine makes them J ews, or there is no per¬
tinency in his argument. An American historian
may draw up a chronology of English heroes, but
that would not be an American chronology; nor
would the occurrence of such names as Ethelwolf,
Edgar, Arthur, Stuart, Sidney, Pitt, and Welling¬
ton, lead us to suppose that Americans would bring
them into use as often as those of George Washing¬
ton, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Jackson,
Webster, Clay, or Calhoun.
Mr. Paine wrote a book on Common Sense—had
he so styled his Reply to Bishop Watson, the misno¬
mer would have been a richer joke than any found
38 REFUTATION OF
in all his " Theological Works," which, strange
enough, are remarkable for their jocularity.*
It requires the credulity of no ordinary type of
infidelity—infidels being the most credulous crea¬
tures in the universe—to believe that fiilkiah, Ezra,
and Nehemiah " constructed the fable of the fall of
man"—an expression, by the way, not found in the
Bible—out of an idea borrowed from the Persian
Zendavesta, which refers to the fall of the year—
that the evil thereby superinduced was the " evil of
winter"—the serpent was the constellation so called
—the apple (for Mr. Paine will have it, it was an
apple)—alludes to the fall of the year, the time
when that fruit gets ripe—and " the midst of the
garden," in which the tree was planted, is nothing
but " the mid-season between summer and winter"
—the " coats" provided for Adam and Eve were a
prudent provision for " the evil of winter, which
made warm clothing necessary." What a pity that
Mr. Paine did not publish a work which he pro¬
mised the world, in which he would " speak fully
of these things!" He ought to have been associated
with the " priestly impostors" in the manufacture
of this "cunningly-devised fable"—Genesis would
then have come to us in a vastly improved form.
* The reader may be reminded of the epitaph written by a witty
•pigrammatist on Thomas Paine:—
" Here lies Tom Paine, who wrote in Liberty's defence,
But in his Age of Reason loBt his Common Sense!"
THOMAS PAINE.
39
The book of Job is generally admitted to be one
of the most obscure and difficult in the Bible; yet
Mr. Paine says, "it is sublime, beautiful, and scien¬
tific-—full of sentiment, and abounding in grand me¬
taphorical description." Marvelous ! What could
induce such a testimony? Why, "it is a book of
the Gentiles." Reason enough! Mr. Paine chuckles
amazingly over this discovery. He says it is the
work of the Persian Magi, translated by the Jews
of the captivity, and put into their sacred books.
The proof of all this is the sublimity of the book,
and its astronomical allusions ! as if the Old Testa¬
ment did not abound in such matter. But Job
dwelt in Uz, and " if Uz is the same as Ur, it was in
Chaldea, the country of the Gentiles." But if it
was not, and every tyro in sacred geography knows
it was not, what then ? Besides, how does he know
that Ur was in Chaldea ? He could learn this only
from the book of Genesis, which he says is a fable
—the names therein contained being fictitious.
The truth is, and everybody knows it, Job was not
a Jew—he was an Idumean, Uz being in the coun¬
try of Edom, which belonged to the descendants of
Esau. It was called the land of Uz, doubtless, after
Uz, the son of Dishan, one of the sons of Seir, a
Ilorite, one of the original proprietors of that part
of the country, which was called after him, Mount
Seir. Esau took possession thereof. His first son
was named Eliphaz, whose first son was named
Teman—and these names identify the land of Uz
40 REFUTATION OF
with this portion of Idumea, and furnish strong
proofs that the history in Genesis was well knowD
to the author of the book of Job—who might have
been a Gentile or a Hebrew for anything that
appears to the contrary. Compare Gen. xiv. 6,
xxxvi. The patronymic of Dishan's son, Uz, ap¬
pears to have been Uz, the name of a grandson of
Shem. Gen. x. 22, 23. 1 Chron. i. 17, 42. Jere¬
miah fixes the locality, "Rejoice and be glad, 0
daughter of Edom, that dwellest in the land of Uz."
Lam. iv. 21. And again: " Concerning Edom,
thus saith the Lord of hosts, Is wisdom no more in
Teman ? Elee, 0 inhabitants of Dedan, for I will
bring the calamity of Esau upon him—Bozrah shall
become a desolation—Edom shall be a desolation:
as in the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah and the
neighbor cities thereof. Hear the counsel of the
Lord against Edom, and his purposes against the
inhabitants of Teman." Jer. xlix. 7-22. So Ezek.
xxv. 13: "I will stretch out mine hand upon
Edom, and I will make it desolate from Teman, and
they of Dedan shall fall by the sword." Amos i.
11, 12, in like manner identifies Edom, Teman, and
Bozrah. Obadiah also speaks of Teman as the
mount of Esau, or a portion thereof. Joshua, more¬
over, places Naamah on the border of Edom—xv.
21, 41. Jeremiah, xxv. 20-24, also associates Dedan,
Teman, and Buz—Edom, Moab, and other countries,
circumjacent to Palestine. Moses tells us that
Shuah was the son, and Dedan, the grandson, of
THOMAS PAINE.
41
Abraham, by Keturah. Gen. xxv. Their descend¬
ants spread abroad in the region east of Canaan.
The Chaldeans and Sabeans, in their predatory
excursions, would be as likely to visit Idumea as
Palestine, or any other region. They are repre¬
sented as foreigners, invading the land of Uz, which
was therefore not Ur of the Chaldees, as Mr. Paine,
with his usual sagacity, supposes.
Some learned men locate Uz in Mesopotamia, on
the ground of the astronomical, meteorological,
geological, and other phenomena, mentioned in the
book of Job; but all these agree with the descrip¬
tions which we have of Idumea and of Palestine,
which is in nearly the same latitude. Compare
Gen. xxvii. 28, 39. Deut. viii. 7-9. Ps. xviii. 7-15 ;
cxlvii. 16-18. Prov. vii. 9. Amos, v. 8. Job, xxvi.
9-11; xxviii. 1-19 ; xxxvii. 1-13 ; xxxviii. 22-35.
The river Jordan was surely not in Mesopotamia;
but it was close by Edom, and would suggest to an
Idumean the hyperbole in Job xl. 23, the Behemoth
"trusteth that he can draw up Jordan into his
mouth." It is a violent assumption—utterly gratu¬
itous—that the land of Uz, spoken of in Lam. iv. 21,
as belonging to the daughter of Edom, was a
country in Mesopotamia, which had been colonized
by the Edomites. And there is no force in the argu¬
ment, that, " as the whole is greater than the part,
it would be inexpressibly awkward to describe
Edom, the nation, as dwelling in the land of Uz,
which, if Edomite at all, could only be a district of
42
REFUTATION OF
the same." Such a commingling of names as this
is common in the Hebrew poetry. Compare Jer.
xlix. 7-22. Eze. xxv. 13. Amos, i. il, 12. By the
daughter of Edom, the prophet may have designated
a part of the posterity of Esau, which inhabited the
land of Uz—a form of expression which fixes the
locality in Idumea.
We have been thus precise in speaking of Job the
Uzzite, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite,
Zophar the Naamathite, and Elihu the Buzite, not
so much to correct the geography of Mr. Paine, as
to show how the genuineness and authenticity of
the Pentateuchal and Prophetical Scriptures, col¬
lated with the book of Job, speak out in those
numerous and incidental references to persons and
places, many of which in themselves considered are
of no importance.
Who Job was we cannot say with certainty. A
scholium in the Greek, Arabic, and old Latin Vul¬
gate versions of this book, there said to be taken
from the Syriac, identifies Job with Jobab—it says
he married an Arabian—that he was the son of
Zerah, of the posterity of Esau, a native of Bozrah
—so that he was the fifth from Abraham. This is
the oldest account we have of the matter, and it was
credited by Aristeus, Philo, Polyhistor, and the
Greek and Latin fathers. This would make Job
contemporary with Moses—both being descended
from Abraham and Isaac. Thus Jacob and Esau
were the sons of Isaac—their sons, respectively, Levi
THOMAS PAINE.
43
and leuel—their sons, respectively, Amram and
Eerah- -and theirs, Moses and Jobab. Compare
Gen. xa xvi. 17, 33. 1 Chron. i. 35-44. Ex. ii. And.
thoie is no possibility of disproving the very ancient
opinion, that Moses wrote the history of his cousin,
lie had an opportunity to do so, either when he so¬
journed in Midian, or when conducting Israel
through the wilderness. But if it was written by
Job himself, or by one of his countrymen, and after¬
ward, like the prophecies of Balaam, was revised
and by divine direction placed in the Jewish canon,
as some suppose, its value is not thereby increased
or diminished. The Jews recognized the reality of
the character, and the canonicity of the book .of
Job, as appears from Ezek. xiv. 14, 20—a passage,
by the way, which shows they did not extract it
from Persian fables, during the captivity. Josephus
and Philo bear testimony to it, as belonging to the
Hebrew canon, while Christians, of course, are
satisfied with apostolic authority in the premises.
Compare Job v. 13, 17. 1 Cor. iii. 19. Heb. xii. 5.
James v. 10, 11.
The foregoing observations render it unnecessary
to say much in reply to Mr. Paine's assertion that
" the book of Job belongs either to the Persians, the
Chaldeans, or the Egyptians, because the structure
of it is consistent with the dogma that they held,
that of a good and evil spirit, called in Job, God and
Satan, existing as distinct and separate beings, and
it is not consistent with any dogma of the Jews."
44 REFUTATION OF
Suppose it was a Chaldean dogma, could not the
Jews have derived it from Chaldea, Abraham him¬
self having emigrated thence. Suppose it was
Egyptian—could not the Hebrews have learned it
during their long sojourn in Egypt, or afterward, in
their frequent correspondences with that country ?
Were they absolute fools, until after they came in con¬
tact with the Persian Magi ? The truth is, all these
nations acquired their information on this subject
from one and the same original source, viz : the tra¬
dition of the temptation in Eden. Who, or what was
the NacTiash, but the devil ? Christ and the apostles
never dreamed that he was anything else, nor have
we any reason to suppose that Moses and the pro¬
phets entertained a different opinion. And the
serpent worship which obtained in all countries
from remote antiquity shows, that the heathen knew
the serpent was the devil, and they symbolized him
accordingly. The term Satan is a Hebrew word,
meaning adversary, and is so used in 1 Sam. xxix.
4. 1 Kings xi. 14, 23, 24; v. 4. It could not have
been first applied to the devil by the author of the
book of Job, because he speaks of Satan, as a well
known personage—although if we admit that Job
was written before Psalms, then that book is the
first place in which the title is so appropriated in the
Bible. David uses the word in Ps. cix. and Zeeha-
riah in c. iii.—but whether they mean by it a human
or an angelic adversary, is hard to say.
The agency of evil spirits in tempting men to sin,
THOMAS PAINE, 45
and in tormenting them, is distinctly recognized in
1 Sam. xvi. 14r-23. xviii. 10—and as clearly distin¬
guished from that of the Most High. " The Spirit
of the Lord departed from Saul, and an evil spirit
from the Lord troubled him." Compare 1 Kings
xxii. 21-23. What were these evil spirits and lying
spirits, but Satan, or fallen angels under his sway ?
Was there ever a Jew stupid enough to suppose that
these evil spirits were one and the same being as the
Lord God of Israel? And yet Mr. Paine says,
" The belief of a good and an evil spirit, existing as
distinct and separate beings, is not a dogma to be
found in any of the books of the Bible." It is not
necessary for us to characterize that assertion. He
has told us that he knew nothing about the Hebrew
language: he might have spared himself the con¬
fession. Nobody that knows any thing about He¬
brew idioms wants to be told that the Hebrew writers
frequently speak of a person's doing a thing, or ap¬
pointing a thing, which he only permits or does not
prevent. Calvinists themselves, however inconsist¬
ently, are obliged to make this admission. Thus
God's hardening Pharaoh's heart—selling Joseph
into Egypt—sending an evil spirit to Saul and a
lying spirit to Ahab's prophets—simply means that
he permitted the parties concerned to do the things
affirmed of them, when he might have prevented
them. Sometimes the passages which contain tljose
idiomatic forms of expression are explained by others
—as where Pharaoh is said to harden his own heart
4G refutation or
and where Satan is said to tempt David to number
the people. Compare 2 Sam. xxiv. 1,1 Chron. xxi. 1.
At other times, it seems to be taken for granted that
nobody will receive a wrong impression from the
idioms employed; and as we believe that a man
must be unusually stupid, or maliciously captious,
to bring this forward as an objection against the
Bible, we will not waste any more ink upon it.
Mr. Paine says, " It was the Jews who dishonored
God: it was the Gentiles who glorified him." How
did the Jews dishonor him? Do not their sacred
books constitute one continued protest against idol¬
atry and polytheism ? The Jews did dishonor God;
but it was when they imported the idolatries of
the heathen around about them. From whom did
they learn the worship of the host of heaven, but
from Mr. Paine's famous astronomers, the Chal¬
deans ? From whom did they learn brute and fetish
worship, but from his scientific Egyptians ? To
what nations did Ashtoreth, Dagon, Moloch, the
rabble of Baalim and the queen of heaven belong 1
Were not Chaldeans, Egyptians, Philistines, Am¬
monites, Zidonians—nay, all other nations but the
Jews—most miserable idolaters? And were not
all the Hebrew institutions purposely framed and
adapted to keep the J ews from imitating the poly¬
theistic practices of other people? And for what
reason were they ultimately sent into captivity ?
Was it not for breaking through all restraints and
falling into idolatry ? And during the captivity, did
THOMAS PAINE.
47
not the prophets perpetually and earnestly warn
them from doing after the manner of the heathen,
viz: the Chaldeans and Persians ? who, according
to Mr. Paine, were exemplary monotheists, but ac¬
cording to themselves—their monuments and his¬
tories being in evidence of the fact—were base
idolaters, and withal some of the most abominable
wretches that ever cursed the earth. These were
"the Gentiles who glorified God!" Even so said
Julian, the apostate, when in like manner he con¬
trasted the pagans of his time with the followers of
Christ—ronly Julian had not the hardihood to say
that the Greeks and Bomans did not worship more
than one God.
Mr. Paine never loses an opportunity to vent his
spleen against the practice of prayer. Of course
his ancient monotheistic friends, the pious Persians,
never prayed; and as the hook of Job is a portion
of the Persian liturgy, "in Job," says he, "we find
adoration, and submission, but not prayer. Even
the ten commandments enjoin not prayer." It is a
wonder then that Mr. Paine did not recognize their
Persian origin and excellence, and practically re¬
gard them—whereas he pronounced them a base
forgery, and violated the letter of some of them and
the spirit of them all. But why did not the deca¬
logue enjoin prayer? We answer this question by
propounding another: Why did not the decalogue
enjoin adoration? It forbids us to worship images,
but does not command us to worship Jehovah ? A
48 REFUTATION OF
slight examination of the decalogue v\ ill furnish the
reason in both cases.
But is there no mention of prayer in the book of
Job ? Let us see. Passing over the third chapter,
which Mr. Paine would have considered praying
with a vengeance, had it been in a Jewish and not
a Persian book—what means the advice of Eliphaz:
" I would seek unto God, and unto God would I com¬
mit my cause ?"—that would be a recommendation
of prayer in Isaiah or Matthew. This, too, sounds
like prayer—almost like "discontented solicitation,"
as Mr. Paine elegantly words it—"O that I might
have my request—that God would grant me the
thing that I long for: even that it would please God
to destroy me—that he would let loose his hand and
cut me off." " Why dost thou not pardon my trans¬
gressions, and take away mine iniquity?" Hear
Bildad: " If thou wouldst seek unto God betimes
and make thy supplication to the Almighty—he
would awake for thee." That is not prayer, we
suppose! Hear Job again: " I will say unto God,
Do not condemn me: show me wherefore thou con-
tendest with me." Is that not prayer ? So Zopliar :
"If thou prepare thy heart and stretch out thy
hands toward him—thou shalt forget thy misery."
Is that not prayer ? Eliphaz, in one place, supposes
that Job had restrained " prayer before God," and
assigns this as one reason for his calamities. But
he was greatly mistaken, if this book represents the
common practice of Job, for it is full of prayer.
THOMAS PAINE. 49
Indeed, Job thinks that they who do not pray are
abominable wretches, who " say unto God, Depart
from us, for we desire not the knowledge of thy
ways. What is the Almighty, that we should serve
him ? and what profit should we have if we pray
unto him ?" Let Thomas Paine answer these ques¬
tions. He would not give an answer like that of
Eliphaz : " Thou shalt make thy prayer unto him,
and he shall hear thee, and thou shalt pay thy vows
—the light shall shine upon thy ways." Elihu
thought there is some profit in prayer: " Surely it
is meet to be said unto God, I have borne chastise¬
ment, I will not offend any more. That which I
know not, teach thou me." And, not to quote nu¬
merous other passages of like import, hear what
God says in the epilogue of the drama: "Therefore
take unto you now seven bullocks and seven rams,
and go to my servant Job, and offer up for your¬
selves a burnt-offering; and my servant Job shall
pray for you ; for him will I accept: lest I deal with
you after your folly, in that ye have not spoken of
me the thing that is right, like my servant Job. So
Eliphaz the Temanite, and Bildad the Shuhite, and
Zophar the Naamathite, went and did according as
the Lord commanded them: the Lord also accepted
Job."
Yet Mr. Paine says, " In Job we find adoration
and submission, but not prayer"—a fair specimen
of his searching and honest criticisms.
In his " disconnected part" of the Reply to Bishop
50
REFUTATION OF
Watson, speaking of the Sabbath or Sunday, Mr.
Paine says, " Had the bishop been acquainted with
the history of astronomy, he would have known that
the period of seven days was originally a numerical
division of time, and nothing more. Like any other
of the artificial divisions of the year, it is only a
fractional part thereof, contrived for the sake of
counters." Now, we suppose Bishop Watson knew
as much about astronomy as Thomas Paine; but no
science or history can prove that the week was not
originally a sacred division of time. We assert that
it was. We have proved the antiquity of the Pen¬
tateuch, and that speaks of the Sabbath as set apart
for religious purposes from the creation, Gen. ii.—it
recognizes the cycle of seven days in Gen. vii. 4,10 ;
viii. 10, 12—called a week, Gen. xxx. 27, 28: com¬
pare Judges xiv. 17. Est. i.—marks it with deep
religious emphasis in the falling of the manna, Ex.
xvi.—incorporates it in the fourth commandment,
Ex. xx.—•repeats it, Ex. xxiii. and Deu. v.—and
makes it the basis of the septennial and jubilee
festivals of the Hebrew church and nation. Mr.
Paine says the Pentateuch was written after the
captivity, by priestly impostors, to give an histori¬
cal prestige to their theoeratical system—how comes
it, then, that they did not state more explicitly the
observance of the Sabbath by the antediluvian pa¬
triarchs ? Why is it that the references to it are so
few and indirect? And after the entrance into
Canaan, how comes it that we hear nothing dis-
THOMAS PAINE.
51
tinctly about its observance until the time of David,
1 Chron. xxiii. 31? We can furnish a ready an¬
swer. There was but little more occasion to speak
of the Sabbath than there was of circumcision, of
which no mention is made after the entrance into
Canaan down to the time of Christ; and yet nobody
will have the boldness to say that the posterity of
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were not circumcised in
their generations, during this period of fifteen hun¬
dred years. When, in consequence of the laxity of
morals and the prevalence of idolatry, the Sabbath
was neglected by the Jews, the prophets denounced
them for their neglect, Isa. lvi. lviii.; 2 Chron.
xxxvi. 21; Neh. ix. 14, x. 28-33, xiii. 15-32; Eze.
xx. 12-24: Hos. ii. 11. All this is just what we
would expect to find in a genuine, truthful record—
subjects occurring in a natural way, without any
apparent anxiety in regard to the credibility of the
statements recorded. Truth, having nothing to fear,
is artless and unsuspicious.
The fact, triumphantly adduced by Mr. Paine,
that heathen nations, in remote antiquity, recog¬
nized the septenary division of time, does not prove
that it is a natural division. He cannot specify any
nation that ever found out the weekly cycle by the
quarters of the moon, as there is nothing remark¬
able in the appearance of that luminary at her first
and third quarters. But as all men sprang from
the same source—Adam the first, and Noah the
second father of the race—it is not to be wondered
.12 REFUTATION OF
tit that the principal nations of antiquity had some
knowledge of the Sabbath, of sacrifices, of the future
stale, and other great constituents of patriarchal
fa. th and worship. By reference to these interesting
iueU;, we establish not merely the Hebrew, but the
ante-Mosaic origin of this great catholic institution,
which Mr. Paine so cordially hates, as a production
of ■' ignorance, imposition, and priestcraft."
But any man who will assert that the law of
Moses had no existence until the priests pretended
to find a copy of it in the temple, in the reign of
Josiah; and in the same breath assert that Ililkiah,
Ezra, and Nehemiah began to produce books under
the names of the books of Moses; and that the
Sabbaths spoken of seventy years before Josiah by
Hosea, though particularly distinguished from the
new moons, were lunar Sabbaths—not "Mosaic,"
but "Sabbaths of the idolatry," that is, heathen in¬
stitutions : any man that can bring together so many
contradictions and absurdities, puts himself beyond
the pale of reason.
Were Josiah and his subjects such fools as not to
know that the Mosaic law was the constitution of
their church and nation—although during the half
century of Manasseh's preceding idolatrous and per¬
secuting reign, the priests of the false gods having
turned the temple into a pantheon and destroyed all
the copies of the law they could find, we can readily
conceive that the pious young king would be ignor¬
ant of a great many things contained therein. This
THOMAS PAINE.
53
was just the case. When the hook of the law was
found, the priests and the king were not as much
surprised as Luther was when he found a Latin
Bible in his monastery—though they were not less
joyful than he at the discovery—and when the law
was read, Josiah did not, by its light, discern more
evils to be corrected in the Jewish church than did
the Augustinian monk in the Christian. In both
cases, existing institutions verified the genuineness
of the documents—of which there were, doubtless,
numerous copies in the hands of private persons who
had concealed them because of the inquisitorial
proceedings of their persecutors—and in both cases,
the documents, thus brought to light, discovered and
denounced the abuses that had been grafted on the
respective systems of religion, and superinduced
the most effectual means of reformation.
Mr. Paine's insinuation that the Heathen pos¬
sessed the knowledge of a future state and that the
Jews did not, and that the Christian doctrine of the
resurrection of the body is a miserable conceit, does
not deserve any notice. Traditions of patriarchal
religion and outbeamings of the Hebrew faith, gave
the ancient Heathen some notions of a future state;
and how they became distorted in their hands so as
to be worse than useless, everybody knows who is
acquainted with Egyptian, Oriental, Greek, and Ro¬
man mythology—of which Mr. Paine seems to have
been profoundly ignorant.
Mr. Paine cannot conceive what is meant by
s«
54
REFUTATION OF
Christ's coming in "the fulness of time." Of couv.se
he cannot, if he denies the authenticity of the Bible,
and entertains " a well-founded suspicion that Christ
did not exist, even as a man—that he is merely an
imaginary or allegorical character, as Apollo, Her¬
cules, Jupiter, and all the deities of antiquity were :
there is," he adds, " no history written at the time
Jesus Christ is said to have lived that speaks of the
existence of such a person even as a man." If he
never came at all, it is useless to cavil about his
coming in " the fulness of time;" and it shows
great poverty of invention to make that expression
the text for ignorant and vulgar diatribe.
The same remark applies to his reference to what
he elegantly calls the "very stupid story of the
apostles' having the gift of tongues." We shall not,
of course, say anything in reply to his abortive at¬
tempts at wit and his successful efforts at blasphemy,
in alluding to this well-attested and significant mir¬
acle. When, however, he says, " It was infinitely
more important that man should be taught the art
of printing than that Adam should be taught to
make a pair of leather breeches or his wife a petti¬
coat"—we may ask, why man was not taught that
art, or why did he not discover it, until several
thousands of years had elapsed ? Will it be said,
the fulness of time had not arrived before?—the
world was not prepared for it ? But why was it not
prepared? Why not say outright, God has never
had anything to 3o with the affairs of men—there
THOMAS PAINE.
55
is no moral governor of the world—and then what
becomes of Mr. Paine's boasted theism ? Is it not
as much as to say there is no God, as to say he does
not govern the world ?
Mr. Paine's fling at miracles is as silly as it is
trice. It is an old trick to identify the miracles of
the Bible with the lying wonders of paganism and
popery ; and Hume himself acknowledged the soph¬
istry of the argument which opposes universal ex¬
perience to particular testimony in regard to the
credibility of miracles. So far as we know, how¬
ever, Mr. Paine may claim the sole proprietorship
of the argument that Jesus Christ had no divine
mission, because he was " ignorant of the art of
printing I" But why is the knowledge of printing,
and, we will add, of the steam car and electric tele¬
graph, so important in revealed religion, when na¬
tural religion, according to Mr. Paine, did very well
without it ? If he is disposed to catechise us with
regard to the omissions and mysteries of the Bible,
we can ask him questions enough of this sort in
respect to his boasted Persian and Parisian systems
of mythology and " tlieophilanthropy." They con¬
tain not one jot or tittle of good that was not taken
from the revelations found in the Bible—while thev
ignore or deny a thousand important things therein
contained.
56
REFUTATION OF
tertian §.
The editor of Mr. Paine's works says a portion of
his answer to Bishop Watson was incorporated in
his Letter to Erskine on the Prosecution of Thomas
Williams for publishing the Age of Reason.
We have read this famous Letter with some care,
and consider it a silly production. It cites at length
the first and second chapters of Genesis, and tries to
show a discrepance between these two accounts of
the creation—alluding to what learned men have
more distinctly marked and characterized, as the
Elohistic, Jehovistic, and Jeliovali-Elohistic style in
speaking of the Supreme Being—a curiosity of lit¬
erature which does not affect the authenticity or
genuineness of the record. He says that Gen. i. 27,
and Gen. ii. 7, 21, 22, are at variance. This is not
so: the former passage speaks in general terms of
the creation of the human species, male and female
—the latter details the process, the male being
formed immediately out of the earth and the female
out of the male—where is the contradiction ?
He says one and the same person could not say,
as in Gen. i. 29, that God gave our first parents every
tree, and, as in Gen. ii., that the Lord God planted
THOMAS PAINE.
57
a tree and forbad man to eat of it! A bright con¬
ception, truly!—as if there could not be a grant
made in general terms, and then a special exception
or limitation inserted in the grant or appended to it.
Here is another bright thought: " One and the
same person could not say, ' Thus the heavens and
the earth were finished, and all the host of them,
and on the seventh day God ended his work which
he had made,' and shortly after set the Creator to
work again, to plant a garden, to make a man and a
woman, etc., as is done in the second chapter." Does
the second account state that anything said in the
former account to have been created in the six days
was created after the rest of the seventh day ? It
does not. Why, then, might not both accounts be
true, and both proceed from one source?
Mr. Paine insinuates that the care of the garden
was inconsistent with dominion over all the earth.
We should like to know why. He intimates that
the events recorded in the second story are fabulous,
because they are not contained in the first story.
But then he says, both are fabulous: we say both
are true; and the "second story" was inserted for
the very reason that it contains things not contained
in the first, yet perfectly consistent therewith.
He objects to the general deluge, because it was
" so tremendously severe and merciless." But that
does not prove it never happened. Must infidels be
pointed for the ten thousandth time to the tremend¬
ously severe and merciless instances of providential
OS? REFUTATION OF
interposition in the destruction if millions upon
millions by floods, and fires, and earthquakes, and
famines, and plagues, which are constantly recur¬
ring in the Divine administration ? Mr. Paine, as
a theist, will not put these calamities beyond the
providence of God, although without the Bible he
cannot assign the reasons for them, or justify the
ways of God to men in such severe visitations.
He tries to disprove the account of the- deluge bj
charging it with an anachronism in the mention of
the clean and unclean animals—a distinction which,
he says, never obtained before the giving of the law
of Moses. But he says in another place that God
never gave the Israelites that law, but that it was
forged by Hilkiah in the days of Josiah, and by Ezra
and others after the captivity—the Jews being pa¬
gans until that time. What then is the use of re¬
ferring to the Mosaic distinction of clean and un¬
clean animals, if no such distinction obtained until
the time of Hilkiah and Nehemiah—who, by the
way, were not contemporaries by one hundred and
seventy-eight years? But to the point: We have
proved that the Pentateuch is true ; and where does
it say that the distinction between clean and unclean
animals originated with Moses ? Who can prove it
did not obtain in the times of Adam and Abel, who
offered a lamb, a clean animal, in sacrifice ? Abra¬
ham lived before Moses, and offered sacrifices too,
and all the animals that he offered were those that
are prescribed in Leviticus. Compare Gen. xv. The
THOMAS PAJNE.
59
distinction did not refer exclusively or primarily to
the table, but to the altar; and like circumcisk n and
the Sabbath, it was very naturally and pertinently
incorporated into the Levitical law. Where is the
anachronism ?
With all his opposition to miracles and severe pro¬
vidences, Mr. Paine can admit of both, on occasion
—that is to say, when Jews are to be the victims.
It seems they were pure pagans for a thousand
years—" they then established a law, which they
called the law of the Lord given by Moses, and were
destroyed ; and it is very remarkable," says he,
" that no socmer had they established it than they
were a destroyed people, as if they were punished
for acting an imposition and affixing the name of
the Lord to it, and massacring their former priests
under the pretence of religion!" It seems, then,
miracles are not impossible : they do occur some¬
times : here is one about which there can be no
mistake ; for, says Mr. Paine, " This is not opinion,
but historical evidence." We agree with him so
far, that there was a special interposition of Provi¬
dence, " tremendously severe," as well in their Baby¬
lonish as in their Roman captivity; but we affirm
that this took place because of their violation of the
law of Moses, which threatened them with all the
evils they suffered in consequence of disobedience
Of this we have abundant historical nroofs furnished
by records and monuments, whose genuineness is
invincible to all the attacks of infidelity.
no
REFUTATION OF
3Ir. Paine says the Bible " has been read more
and examined less than any [other] boox that ever
existed." Had he said it has been examined more
than all other books that ever existed, he would per¬
haps have come nearer the truth. However, this
must be said, that if Biblical critics examined it in
a manner so superficial as that of Mr. Paine—we
say nothing now about the spirit in which he has
turned over its pages—they might as well spare their
pains.
Having been graveled by Bishop Watson so com¬
pletely in regard to the contradictions charged upon
the Bible in the second part of the Age cf Beason,
he has to make a fling at the Bishop about the ob¬
scure parts of the Bible, which require learning and
labor to make them plain:—" It is because the
Bible needs such an undertaking, that is one of
the first causes to suspect it is not the word
of God. What! does not the Creator of the' uni¬
verse, the Fountain of all wisdom, the Origin of all
science, the Author of all knowledge, the God of
order aud of harmony, know how to write? The
writings of Thomas Paine, even of Thomas Paine,
need no commentator to explain, expound, arrange,
and re-arrange their several parts, to render them
intelligible—he can relate a fact, or write an essay,
without forgetting in one page what he has written
in another. For my own part, my belief in the
perfection of the Deity will not permit me to believe
tljat a book so manifestly obscure, disorderly, and
THOMAS PAINE.
01
contradictory, can be his work. I can write a better
book myself."
A modest passage that! Now, without stopping
to c inipare the Bible with the Age of Reason, let
us compare it with the book of Nature, which Mr.
Paine calls his Bible. Are there no mysteries in
that volume ? Mr. Paine's pagan friends have stu¬
died it closely for thousands of years, and what is
the knowledge they have derived from it? Some
of them have learned from it that two principles
govern the world—one good and the other evil—and
nothing but the Bible can prove the opinion false.
Others have learned from it that there are thirty
thousand, or as his Chinese friends, of whom he is
so proud, would say, as many millions of deities
that rule the universe—all candidates for man's
homage and obedience. Others, like his compatriots
in France, have gathered from it that there is no God
at all. Why this obscurity, contradiction, mystery ?
We fear that the stars which Mr. Paine loves so
much to read—" the stars are poor books"—as Her¬
bert says—they fail to give us the first principles of
religion and morals. How many ages was it before
man found out what the heavenly bodies are—their
size, their distances, their motions, the forces by
which they move ! The same ignorance, connected
with the grossest errors, prevailed in regard to every
other department of nature and science. And even
now, how many millions of mysteries are there in
creation and providence—and apparent contradic-
6
52
REFUTATION OF
tions too—which baffle and nonplus the mind of the
philosopher. So multiplied are they, that we are
bold to affirm there can be no such thing as the re¬
ligion of nature—unless doubts, and fears, and bold
assumptions, and bald superstitions can constitute
religion. Divine revelation alone can so far clear
up the mysteries of nature and providence as to
allow of the exercise and development of faith, hope,
and charity, the grand elements of a rational and
practical, or, to speak properly, a scriptural piety.
The Bible nowhere affirms that much learning is
necessary to make a man a Christian. The inspired
volume has shallows in which a lamb might wade
—as Mr. Paine could have proved had he made the
experiment: it has also depths in which an elephant
might swim, and in which whole armies of proud,
caviling infidels have been drowned—albeit the case
of Mr. Paine shows that that might be effected in
some of its most shallow places.
thomas paine.
6J
Sutimt II.
In 1807, Mr. Paine published "An Examination
of the Passages in the New Testament, quoted from
the Old, and called Prophecies of the coming of Jesus
Christ." This is supposed to have been designed
as a third part of the Age of Reason, or of his an¬
swer to Bishop Watson, to whom he makes frequent
allusion. It furnishes striking illustration and con-
hrmation of his confessed ignorance of the tongues
and idioms of the Holy Scriptures. He takes up
seriatim the passages in the evangelists cited from
the prophets, as predictions of Christ, and asserts
that the prophets did not so intend them ; and,
therefore, the evangelists are guilty of fraud in the
premises. He might have spared himself this labor;
for if the prophecies are fables, and Christ and his
apostles are fictitious characters, it is useless to sin¬
gle out these particular passages, to show that they
do not refer to Christ. But the truth is, Mr. Paine
was ignorant of what he was about. He Avould
have done well to consult the critics and commen¬
tators on this subject: they would have saved him
from exposing his ignorance.
In this investigation, the genuineness of the pro-
64
REFUTATION OF
phecies is assumed: the use madt of them by the
evangelists is the point of cavil. Now, several things
have here to be premised:
1. That the prophecies are not to be interpreted
in an isolated manner. One passage, taken by
itself, may not clearly refer to the Messiah, but
taken in connection with the entire prophetic sys¬
tem and the expectations of a Messiah, which ob¬
tained among the Hebrews, it may speak a language
plain enough for all the purposes for which pro¬
phecy was given.
2. As the Jews were so familiar with types and
symbols, a prophecy might refer to proximate per¬
sons or events, which themselves may presignify the
Messiah, or some of the facts connected with his
history, and thus the prophecy would have a two¬
fold fuiliiment, and answer a two-fold purpose.
3 The evangelists do not say that the prophets
intended all those passages to refer to Christ.
4. The evangelists would not have attempted any
fraud in the premises, because they could have been
readily exposed by the doctors of the Jewrish law;
and there was no necessity for them to do so, for they
did not write their Gospels until Christ had demon¬
strated the divinity of his mission, by his teaching
and miracles, his death and resurrection.
The first passage which Mr. Paine adduces, is
Matt. i. 22, 23, which, referring to the miraculous
conception, says, " This was done that it might be
ful Riled which was spokeD of the Lord by the pro-
THOMAS PAINE.
G5
phot, saying, Behold, a virgin shall he with child,
and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his
name Emmanuel." Now, we do not need Mr. Paine
to tell us that the prophet referred to the birth of a
child in the days of Ahaz; nor that the Hebrew
word rendered virgin does not mean virgin, but
young woman : the former we knew before, and the
latter we knew to be false. Nor has he any author¬
ity to say, the prophet had no reference to Christ
and his virgin mother, of whom the prophetess and
her son were prophetic types ; nor does the language
of Matthew mean any thing more than this: Thus
was fulfilled the language of the prophet.
The second passage adduced is Matt. ii. 1-6,
which represents Herod inquiring, of the chief
priests and scribes where the expected Messiah
should be born. In accordance with the current
opinion of their doctors, they replied, " In Beth¬
lehem, of Judea, for thus it is written by the prophet,
And thou, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, art not
the least among the princes of Judah ; for out of thee
shall come a governor, that shall rule my people
Israel." The Messianic application of Micah v. 2,
did not therefore originate with the evangelist. No
matter to what " military chief," if any, the pro¬
phecy proximately applied, it was strikingly ful¬
filled in the person of Jesus Christ, and can literally
refer to no one else. We pass over the absurdity of
Mr. Paine's cavil in regard to the star which the
Magi saw: it is not said they saw it in the day-
O
O
60
REFUTATION OF
time, nor that it was in tin easterly direction from
them.
The third passage adduced is Matt. ii. 13-15,
which 'speaks of Christ's descent into Egypt: "That
it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord
by the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt have I called
my son." Everybody knows that Hosea (xi. 1) re¬
fers to the children of Israel in the time of Pharoah ;
yet without "making an idolater of Jesus Christ,"
because the prophet goes on to speak of the idolatry
of Israel, the evangelist might pertinently say, " So
that the language of Hosea was fulfilled in this case;"
which is the force of his expression. This form of
speech is frequently employed. Thus Epiphanius,
cited by Bloomfield: " So that the current saying of
one of the heathen philosophers, extremes meet, was
fulfilled in them."
The next text cited by Mr. Paine illustrates this
idiom: " Then was fulfilled that which was spoken
by Jeremy the prophet, saying, In Rama was there
a voice heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great
mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and
would not be comforted, because they were not."
The evangelist did not need to be told that the lan¬
guage of the prophet primarily referred to the cap¬
tivity of Israel. Mr. Paine says it might be applied
to wars, etc., where mothers lament the loss of their
children. Very well: that is how the evangelist
applied it. The language is said to be fulfilled when
it is peculiarly applicable to the event: at the same
THOMAS PAINE.
67
time, no one can say that the remote application
was not, as well as the proximate, in the mind of
the prophet.
The next case is introduced by some witty scur¬
rility about Joseph's being warned in a dream,
which he dreamed by proxy in Matthew's brain ; for,
says Mr. Paine, there is no such passage in all the
Old Testament as, " He shall be called a Nazarene:"
he is even confident enough to " invite the bishop
and all the priests in Christendom, including those
of America, to produce it." Gasconade of this sort
is not unfrequently the product of ignorance. Mat¬
thew speaks in general terms: " which was spoken
by the prophets : " he alludes to no particular pas¬
sage, as Jerome remarked long ago: various pro¬
phecies, referring to the contempt with which the
Messiah should be treated, being fulfilled when the
opprobrious epithet, "a Nazarene," was applied to
Christ. Not only in the Gospel, but also in the
writings and co mmon speech of the Jews in every
age, the term has been contemptuously applied to
Jesus and his followers.
The " imposition" charged on Matthew, in hie
reference, (iv. 12-16,) to Isa. ix. 1, 2, is like the pre¬
ceding, and needs no further notice. In the Sep-
tuagint, " the land of Zabulon, etc.," is in the nomi¬
native case, and " the people which sat in darkness"
is put in apposition therewith ; so that the omission
of a part of a passage in Isaiah is no fraudulent
garbling or. the part of Matthew, nor does it " ro-
68
REFUTATION OF
ducc the passage to a senseless skeleton of towns "—
an assertion which shows the ignorance of its
author.
His cavil on the application of Isaiah liii. 4, to
Christ, ignores the metonomy by which the cause is
put for the effect in Matthew, or the effect for the
cause in Isaiah: "infirmities and sickness" causing
" griefs and sorrows ; " so that the former can be put
for the latter, and the latter for the former, in'perfect
consonance with the idioms of the Hebrew, Greek,
and English languages. The prophet alludes prin¬
cipally to diseases of the mind; but we have no
authority to say that he does not also allude to griefs
occasioned by bodily ailments: while Matthew does
not restrict the reference to the latter. Some emi¬
nent Greek critics refer the uodeveia^, infirmities, to
the body, and the voaovg, sicknesses, to the mind. The
possessions, over which Mr. Paine makes himself so
merry, were partly mental and partly physical ail¬
ments ; and so intimately is sin associated with suf¬
fering, as cause and effect, that the removal of both
not unfrequently took place in the exercise of the
Saviour's miraculous powers. " Son, thy sins be for¬
given thee: Arise, and take up thy bed, and go thy
way into thine house." "Behold, thou art made
whole: sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto
thee." Compare James v. 14, 15. Mr. Paine says
demonical possessions " were the fable of the day,
when the books of the New Testament were writ¬
ten;" and in the same paragraph he says, they
THOMAS PAIAE.
65
are "altogether an invention of the New Testa¬
ment makers and the Christian Church." Was
there ever a more palpable contradiction ? He says
" the books of the Old Testament mention no such
thing." What then? The case of Saul, however,
Looks very much like a possession of the devil, not
to mention that of the priests of Aliab. lie says,
"the book of Matthew is the first book where the
word devil is mentioned." What does he mean? Does
he allude to the English version ? If so, the assertion
is not true, as the word occurs in Deu. xxxii. 17 ;
Psalm cvi. 37. And if he means the original, he
ought to have known that Matthew is the first Greek
book in the Bible, and devil is the English form
of the Greek 6iuj3oXoc, which is the word used Matt,
iv. 1; albeit a derivation of datfioviov, demon, is the
word used in Matt. viii. 16.
Mr. Paine says that Isaiah xlii. 1-4, cannot refer
to Christ, because he ■preached, whereas the predicted
personage was not to let his voice be heard in the
streets: the former was afraid of the Pharisees ; the
latter was not to fail or be discouraged; and more in
the same vein. He says the passage in Isaiah referred
to Cyrus, and therefore not to Christ. What logic is
this! Admitting it applied to Cyrus, it applies with
much greater force to Christ, whose meekness and
gentleness were proverbial, and who never failed ir
his great undertaking, though his life was the for
foit of his perseverance. Whether he has had " nc
70
REFUTATION OF
authority among the Gentiles," as Mr. Paine asserts,
iet history speak.
He says the language of Zechariah (ix. 9) is
"■whimsical and imaginary, and has no referonee
to Christ's riding into Jerusalem, which he never
did, because he fled from it before:" in fact, he
9ays " there is not one word of historical truth in
the whole book of Matthew," Christ being an " im¬
aginary or allegorical character, founded upon some
tale," etc. A part of this is coarse slang, and a part
sheer fallacy. Before Jesus had finished his min¬
istry, he used means to prolong his life: when his
ministry drew to a close, his hour having come, he
made this public entry into Jerusalem, preparatory
to the accomplishment of his decease, according to his
own statement. Where is the contradiction in the
premises ?
Mr. Paine's observations on Matt. xxvi. 51-56,
are exceedingly foolish. He wonders how Peter
could wear a sword, he being an apostle. Why does
he not wonder how he could deny his Master ? He
thinks the Jews were not permitted to wear swords.
We think they were: at any rate, they did, and use
them too—sometimes against their Roman masters.
It seems, the multitude had swords as well as the
disciples, who, by the way, appear to have had but
two, Luke xxii. 36, 38, one of which was, where we
should expect it to be, in the hands of Peter. Why
he was not sent to jail for using it, we are not con-
THOMAS PAINE. 71
cerned to inquire: perhaps, because of the miracle
consequent upon its use: perhaps because he made
good his retreat, which he could readily do in the
night, the mob being too much interested in his
Master to care much about him.
The apparent discrepancies in the account of
Judas, Matt, xxvii., Acts i., Zech. xi., can be satis¬
factorily disposed of by a candid criticism ; though
it is quite easy for an ingenious and malicious man
to magnify them. There is no reference to Jer.
xxxii.: so "this abominable imposition" remains
with Mr. Paine: Matthew is not to father it. The
reference is to Zech. xi. Why the word Jeremiah
instead of Zechariah occurs in the text, we may not
be able to say with certainty. Some think Jere¬
miah wrote this chapter, though it is put with
Zechariah's prophecies: others suppose that Mat¬
thew wrote no name, as none occurs in some manu¬
scripts and versions — the transcribers may have
inserted Jeremiah. One thing is obvious: there
could be no intention to deceive on the part of the
evangelist, for no end could be gained by putting
the name of Jeremiah instead of Zechariah. And
as to the text itself, whatever difficulties there may
be in reconciling Zechariah with Matthew, they are
not insurmountable, as any one may see by consult¬
ing Bootliroyd on Zechariah, and Bloomfield on
Matthew, or other commentators. The Jews refer
the passage in Zechariah to the Messiah : Matthew
docs so in the way of application. The points of
72
REFUTATION OF
analogy are simply these: The prophet and Christ
were each valued at thirty pieces of silver, the price
of a slave—a goodly price ! as Zechariah ironically
says—not, as Mr. Paine profoundly remarks, "as
much as the thing was worth !" The money in both
cases was cast into the temple; and in both cases it
went to the potter—Matthew says, to pay for the
field, which was afterwards called "The field of
blood." Luke says, Acts i. 18, Judas " purchased a
field with the reward of iniquity: " that is, he was
the occasion of its purchase—his ill-gotten money
paid for it, though, as Matthew says, the priests
paid it over to the potter. As to the two accounts
of his suicide, Matthew does not say that he did not
fall down and burst open after he hung himself;
and Luke does not say that he did not hang himself
before he fell down and burst open. Both are com¬
patible, and not improbable. The rope may have
broken, or that to which it was attached may have
given way ; or, after being suspended for some time,
so as to have become putrescent and swollen, when
the rope was untied or cut, he would naturally fall
down on his face, and the body would be ruptured
by the fall. Where are the "contradictions and
absurdities ?" Nowhere, except in the infidel's
brain.
The reference in Matt, xxvii. 35, to Psalm xxii
18, is stigmatized with "degrading meanness," be¬
cause it is about an old coat or an old pair of
breeches:" besides, it is inappropriate, as the
THOMAS PAINE.
Psalmist's vesture meant property, and Christ was
a poor man: the prophet, too, speaks in the present
tense, and therefore the language is inapplicable to
Christ. And this is reasoning! this is criticism!
Now, we affirm that the language of the Psalmist
had a striking fulfillment in the disposal of the Sa¬
viour's vesture; and the tense—past, not present—
suits the genius of prophecy, which is the antici¬
pated history of the future.
Towards the close of his tirade on Matthew, Mr.
Paine advances the sage doctrine that human ac¬
tion "is not a subject for prophecy, because it can¬
not carry with it an evidence of divine power or
divine interposition." That is no reason. The
prophecy is not affected by the character of the act,
or the agency by which it is produced: the pre-
announcement of a contingent fact, which is cer¬
tainly to transpire, is prophecy, whether God or man
is the subject. It is not the evidence of divine
power in the fulfillment, but of divine knowledge in
the announcement, which makes it prophecy.
Mr. Paine traverses Mark's testimony in regard to
the application of Malachi iii. 1, to John the Bap¬
tist, and garbles the prophet's language so as to
make the words in the second verse, " But who may
abide the day of his coming ? " refer to the messen¬
ger preparing the way ; whereas the prophet refers
them to the Lord coming to his temple, even the
Messenger of the covenant. Why may npt the fore¬
running messenger, harbingei', or herald, be John
74
REFUTATION OF
the Baptist, and the Messenger of the covenant, tnc
Lord of the temple, he Jesus Christ? And as John
came in the spirit and power of Elijah, why may he
not in prophecy he called hy his name ? And why
may not a prediction of Isaiah he associated with
one in Malaclii, if they are hoth applicable to one
and the same event ?
After expending his vulgar wit on Mark's account
of Christ's entry into Jerusalem, he makes an attack
upon the evangelist's application of Isaiah liii. 12,
to Christ: "he was numbered with the transgres¬
sors ;" and thinks that he might as well have re¬
ferred it to the thieves as to Jesus, who was crucified
with them, or to the author of the " Age of Reason
" yet," says he, " I suppose the bishop will not allow
that Isaiah was prophesying of Thomas Paine."
We suppose not; yet it would he no great marvel
for Thomas Paine to he numbered with the trans¬
gressors, as he was one of them ; hut it was strange
that the immaculate Son of God should he classed
with thieves and murderers ; and it was of him that
the prophet wrote, and not of Thomas Paine. He
challenges "the bishop" to take poison, a good dose
of arsenic, or a rattlesnake, which he offers to send
him from America, in evidence of his faith in Mark
xvi. 15; as if " the bishop" were as ignorant as
himself of the application of that text, which, " fine
Popish stuff," as he calls it, was singularly verified
in the Acts of the Apostles.
He tries to bring Luke into conflict with Matthew,
THOMAS PAINE.
75
in regard to " Herod," who, according to Matthew,
died while Christ was in Egypt, and, according tc
Luke, was alive thirty years after. And yet he
knew all the while that the Herod of Matthew and
the Herod of Luke were as different persons as
George the Third and George the Fourth. The
former was Herod the Great: the latter was Herod
Antipas, son of the former. Mr. Paine says there
could he no kings in Judea, as the Romans governed
that province by tetrarchs. This shows his ignor¬
ance, not only of sacred, but also of profane history,
which tells us that the Parthians having taken Jeru¬
salem and made Antigonus king, Herod went to
Rome for assistance, wishing his brother-in-law,
Aristobulus, to be placed on the throne of Judea by
the Romans; but Antony secured a decree from the
senate in favor of Herod himself, it being expedient
to make him king in view of the Parthian invasion.
Placed between Antony and Augustus, Herod was
escorted by the consuls and magistrates to the Capi¬
tol, where the decree making him king was enrolled.
After reigning thirty-seven years he died, leaving
the throne of Judea to his son Archelaus, giving
Antipas only the tetrarchy of Galilee and Perma,
though in his first will he had made him his succes¬
sor. Archelaus went to Rome to secure the ratifica¬
tion of his claims to the throne. The emperor gave
hiin a moiety of what his father had willed him,
assigning him the title of ethnarch, and promising
him that of king, when he should show himself
76
REFUTATION OF
worthy of it. To Antipas he confirmed the grant of
Galilee and Perrna. Thus history strikingly corro¬
borates the statements of the evangelists, even in
these incidental and apparently contradictory de¬
tails.
But Jesus was born, says Luke, when Cyrenius
was governor of Syria, to which Judas was annexed;
therefore, says Mr. Paine, he could not have been
born, as Matthew states, when Herod was king.
Everybody knows that there is a difficulty in the
construction of Lwke ii. 1, 2 ; but we have the choice
of half-a-dozen interpretations, any one of which
will show that Luke was not ignorant of those great
public events, which were known and read of all
men. None who are acquainted with the laws of
criticism and the facts of Romish and Jewish history,
can forbear to smile at Mr. Paine's dilemma. Thus
we may read the passage in this form: " This regis¬
ter was made before Cyrenius was governor of
Syria;" or, "This was the first assessment of Cy¬
renius, governor of Syria;" or, "This was the first
enrollment: it was made when Cyrenius was gov¬
ernor of Syria," as deputy under Saturninus; or,
" This first register took elfect when Cyrenius was
governor of Syria ;" or, " The taxing itself was first
made, or effected, when Cyrenius was governor of
Syria;" or, " The enrollment itself first took effect
when Cyrenius was governor of Syria." History
informs us that Herod, having been misrepresented
at Rome, received a sharp letter from Augustus, in
THOMAS PAINE.
77
which the emperor told him that he should no longer
treat him as a friend, hut as a subject. And it is
worthy of remark, that about this time Josephus
says the whole nation took an oath to Caesar and the
king jointly. Cyrenius, or Quirinius, a Roman sena¬
tor, procurator and collector of the emperor's rev¬
enues, was despatched to Judaea to enroll the Jewish
people, preparatory to taxation. Accordingly, Justin
Martyr, in his Apology to the emperor and se¬
nate of Rome, in the next century, says : " You may
assure yourselves, [of the birth of Jesus in Bethle¬
hem,] from the census made in the time of Cyrenius,
your first procurator in Judaea." Herod, however,
through the agency of Nicholas of Damascus,
changed the mind of the emperor, who suspended
the execution of the decree, and permitted Herod
to perpetuate his sovereignty over the Jews. Some
ten or eleven years after, when the same Cyrenius
was president of Syria, the enrollment took effect, or
was accomplished: the tax was levied on the nation,
now reduced to a province: Archelaus was banished,
and the Herodian dynasty came to a perpetual end.
Thus do the apparent contradictions of Scripture,
when examined critically and in the light of history,
corroborate the veracity of the sacred writers.
It is scarcely necessary to remark, that Luke's
omission of many things contained in Matthew does
not, as Mr. Paine insinuates, prove that they were
forged by Matthew. The historians of our Lord
have enough matter in common to show their mu-
78
REFUTATlON OF
tual agreement: enough apparent discrepancy tc
show that they were not acting in concert to impose
fables upon the world; and enough variety to show
that, in writing their respective Gospels, none of
them were engaged in a supererogatory service.
Mr. Paine's buffoonery and lampooning do not
prove that the prophet, like unto Moses, spoken of
Deut. xviii. 15, admitting the proximate reference to
Joshua, did not refer principally to Jesus Christ,
of whom Joshua was a type. It certainly was, and
still is, fulfilled in Christ. Nor can it he shown that
the interdict, Ex. xii. 46, "neither shall ye break
a bone thereof," did not refer to Christ, of whom the
paschal lamb was also an expressive type. The ful¬
fillment in the person of Christ was a remarkable
circumstance. John xix.
Mr. Paine says that " there were but few copies of
the Old Testament extant, and those chiefly in the
hands of the Church, when the New Testament was
made ; and therefore the writers of the latter could
make quotations from the former as they pleased,
with very little danger of being detected. Besides
which, the terrors and inquisitorial fury of the
Church, like what they tell us of the flaming sword
that turned every way, stood sentry over the New
Testament." " But few copies of the Old Testament
extant! " Why, they were to be found almost all
over the world: in the synagogues of the Jews ; in
public and private libraries ; in Hebrew, Samaritan,
Chalice, Greek, and other tongues. Instead of be-
THOMAS PAINE.
ing principally in possession oi' the Church, they
were principally in the hands of her enemies, who
were keen in discovering the least apparent mis¬
quotation or misconstruction of their contents. In¬
stead of being guarded by the terrors of the Church,
the New Testament was carried to all parts of the
world before the Church had escaped from the
" terrors " of her pagan persecutors; while so de¬
voted were the primitive Christians to the study
of the holy oracles, that from the writings of the
Fathers of the first and second centuries after the
age of the inspired penmen, which have come down
to our times, might be collected nearly every pas¬
sage in the New Testament, and a large portion of
the Old ; so that the canon of Scripture was neither
forged by councils nor defended by " inquisitorial
fury." There have been terrors and fury enough,
from the time of Nero to that of Thomas Paine, to
destroy every vestige of the Bible, had not a super¬
intending Providence defended it. A power more
terrible than the Edenic cherubim has guarded the
sacred book, and instead of becoming obsolete, every
year adds hundreds of thousands of copies, in more
than a hundred tongues, to those previously in ex¬
istence. Alongside of this fact, how empty is the
ignorant, vainglorious boast of Mr. Paine: " I have
now gone through the Bible, as a man would go
through a wood with an axe on his shoulder, and
fell trees. Here they lie; and the priests, if they
can, may replant them. They may, perhaps, stick
80
REFUTATION OF
them in the ground, but they will never make them
grow."
In our review of this part of Mr. Paine's work,
we are amazed at his ignorance and shocked at his
blasphemy; and are reminded of the epigram
written by a poet in a blank page of the Age of
Reason:
"At every page divine his rancor teems:
This hour he reasons, and the next blasphemes,
Marking each text with a censorious eye,
That gives his practice or his pride the lie."
TnOMAS paine.
81
Sutitfw ill.
Mr. Paine is equally surprised and delighted to
find that Dr. Middleton calls creation by the title of
Revelation; not having been aware that anybody
besides himself "had expressed the same idea."
How extensive must have been his theological and
classical reading!
He insinuates that Christianity damns all that
have not heard of Christ, and who therefore cannot
believe on him : a principle only less detestable than
his own infidelity, and equally opposed to the teach¬
ing of inspiration.
He can find evidence enough to satisfy him that
Freemasonry is Druidism; but he can find no proof
that Moses and Christ were any other than alle¬
gorical personages, or that their respective religions
are any thing but the contemptible forgeries of
modern priestcraft.
From a careful examination of his " Theological
Works," we feel justified in saying that he evinces
an enormous credulity, being ready to believe in
Zoroaster, Confucius, Mohammed, any impostor and
all unbelief. Moses and the prophets, Christ and
the apostles, the purest and noblest characters in
the universe, he believes were liars, cowards, mur¬
derers, and the records of their lives stupidly-
devised fables; notwithstanding there is not one
jot or tittle of evidence to justify the monstrous
belief! We say belief, not however because we sup-
82
REFUTATION OF
pose that this Avas really his faith. Indeed, Ave havo
evidence to the contrary—the evidence ot his oavii
confession. Shortly after the publication of his
"Theological Works" in the United States, Mr.
Paine fell in company with a young man of a skep¬
tical turn, who congratulated him on the anticipated
success of the " Age of Reason." After making
some inquiries as to the verdict passed on it by the
public, Mr. Paine drew a long breath, and_observed,
"Well, sir, I am sorry that that work ever Avent to
press. I wrote it more for my OAvn amusement and
to see what I could do, than any design of benefit¬
ing the world." He then added, with great em¬
phasis, " I would give Avorlds, had I them at my
command, if the Age of Reason had never been
published! No, sir: I regret the publication of
that Avork exceedingly. It can never do the Avorld
any good, and its sarcastic style Avill, doubtless,
lead thousands to esteem lightly the only book of
correct morals that has ever blessed the Avorld. I
would ad\fise you not to read that work." In say¬
ing this, he fixed his eye on that of the young man,
and spoke with so much earnestness, as to produce
an impression on the mind of the latter, which re¬
sulted in his complete deliverance from the snare of
infidelity. Yet the "Age of Reason" is held up to
us as worthy of all acceptation; and the Holy Bible
is to be set aside in favor of a profane and acknow¬
ledged cheat!
It must, however, be admitted that it is difficult
to determine what were the real opinions of Mr-
TIIOMAS PAINE. 8,"}
r'ainc, inasmuch as no reliance can be placed on his
own testimony. After his return from France to
the United States, in 1802, till the day of his death,
in 1809, Mr. Thorburn remarks: "I do not think
he was one day sober enough to sit steady in a
coach or wagon, so as to travel from New York to
Sing-Sing. There lives not a man under the canopy
of heaven who heard, felt, and saw so much of this
enemy of God and man as I, myself. Paine, Carver,
and Carver's wife were natives of the same town in
England. Carver and I were journeymen in the
same shop—he making horse-nails, I making house-
nails. Paine boarded with Carver. Many, many
winter nights I sat in company with the three, hear¬
ing them narrate the incidents of their lives. Thus
I traced Paine from his cradle, and, through life,
till I followed him to his grave. As a man, he was
dishonest, a liar, and a beastly drunkard. Carver,
one of his warmest friends in infidelity and politics,
assured me, that while he, namely, Paine, during
three years, boarded in Carver's house, he drank
two gallons of brandy every week. I never heard
him evince any regret for publishing the 'Age of
Reason.' He died in great horror, exclaiming,
'Lord, help ! Lord Jesus, help ! ' "
It is by no means surprising that a man of such
a character and habits of life should be an enemy
to the gospel, nor that at some seasons, particularly
at the approach of death, he should be the victim
of regret, remorse, and rage.
There is one part of his Augaoan stable that wo
84 REFUTATION" OF THOMAS PAINE.
have not brought to light in this examination—the
" Essay on Dreams," prefixed to his diatribe on the
Gospels. This is so obscene and blasphemous that
the editor of his " Works " seems to be ashamed of
it: we must, of course, be excused noticing any thing
so enormously vile. The effort of that gentleman to
whitewash the moral character of his patron saint
might be a labor of love, but love's labor is lost in
such a case as this. It is rather too soon to attempt
a canonization of Thomas Paine. There are too many
persons still living who can bear testimony to his
gross immoralities, as well as to the circumstances
of his miserable death; while the ribaldry, false¬
hood, and blasphemy of his "Theological Works,"
to say nothing of their infidelity, will cause him to
be " damned to everlasting fame." But with this
matter we have nothing to do at present. It is cer¬
tain no man can be a sincere Christian without liv¬
ing a virtuous and godly life, and dying a peaceful
and happy death; but infidels may be debauchees,
rogues, liars, hypocrites, blasphemers, as many, not
to say the majority of them, have been ; and as their
infidelity does not make them virtuous and holy
while they are in this world, so it does not give
them a tranquil and triumphant removal from it to
a better. The lives and deaths of believers and un¬
believers respectively originate no doubt in regard
to the destiny decreed them by the great Arbiter of
the fates of men: " He that believeth and is bap¬
tized shall be saved ; but he that believeth not shall
be damned."