Junius Unmasked Part 17

But Junius, like Paine, was a _religious_ man. In Letter 56, he says: "I know such a man; my lord, I know you both, _and, with the blessing of G.o.d_ (_for I, too, am religious_), the people of England shall know you as well as I do."

As Mr. Paine has been misunderstood by the religious world, and as so much has been said against his religion that a prejudice deep and bitter now rests on the world against him, I will give a couple of extracts from his Rights of Man on this point. I confess that my own prejudices were so great against him (and I thought myself quite liberal), that they would not suffer me to read his works till quite recently. Such is the tyranny of religious instruction. The first extract is from the first part. In a note, he says: "There is a single idea, which, if it strikes rightly upon the mind, either in a legal or a religious sense, will prevent any man, or any body of men, or any government, from going wrong on the subject of religion; which is, that before any human inst.i.tutions of government were known in the world, there existed, if I may so express it, a compact between G.o.d and man from the beginning of time; and that, as the relation and condition which man in his individual person stands in toward his Maker can not be changed by any human laws or human authority, that religious devotion, which is a part of this compact, can not so much as be made a subject of human laws; and that all laws must conform themselves to the prior-existing compact, and not a.s.sume to make the compact conform to the laws, which, besides being human, are subsequent thereto. The first act of man, when he looked around and saw himself a creature which he did not make, and a world furnished for his reception, must have been devotion; and devotion must ever continue sacred to every individual man, as it appears right to him, and governments do mischief by interfering."

The next extract is from part second, near its close, and I would call the attention of the reader to the beauty of the allegory:

"But as religion is very improperly made a political machine, and the reality of it is thereby destroyed, I will conclude this work with stating in what light religion appears to me.

"If we suppose a large family of children on any particular day, or particular occasion, made it a custom to present to their parents some token of their affection and grat.i.tude, each of them would make a different offering, and most probably in a different manner. Some would pay their congratulations in themes of verse and prose, others by some little devices, as their genius dictated or according to what they thought would please; and, perhaps, the least of all, not able to do any of those things, would ramble into the garden or the field and gather what it thought the prettiest flower it could find, though perhaps it might be but a simple weed. The parents would be more gratified by such a variety than if the whole of them had acted on a concerted plan, and each had made exactly the same offering. This would have the cold appearance of contrivance, or the harsh one of control. But of all unwelcome things nothing would more afflict the parent than to know that the whole of them had afterwards gotten together by the ears, boys and girls, fighting, and reviling, and abusing each other about which was the best or the worst present.

"Why may we not suppose that the great Father of all is pleased with a variety of devotion; and that the greatest offense we can act is that by which we seek to torment and render each other miserable? For my own part I am fully satisfied that what I am now doing with an endeavor to conciliate mankind, to render their condition happy, to unite nations that have hitherto been enemies, and to extirpate the horrid practice of war, and break the chains of slavery and oppression, is estimable in his sight, and being the best service I can perform, I act it cheerfully.

"I do not believe that any two men, on what are called doctrinal points, think alike who think at all."

[And this, my reader, is Thomas Paine who hath spoken. I would like to have Henry Ward Beecher, after he has read this book, take the above pa.s.sage as a text and preach a sermon from it.]

I now call attention to a few parallels:

_Paine._

"A narrow system of politics like a narrow system of religion, is calculated only to sour the temper, and be at variance with mankind."--Crisis, iii.

_Junius._

"Superst.i.tion is certainly not the characteristic of this age; yet some men are bigoted in politics who are infidels in religion."--Let. 67.

"Secluded from the world, attached from his infancy to one set of persons and one set of ideas, he can neither open his heart to new connections nor his mind to better information. A character of this sort is the soil fittest to produce that obstinate bigotry in politics and religion which begins with a meritorious sacrifice of the understanding and finally conducts the monarch and the martyr to the block."--Let. 39.

Junius is here speaking of the king, who with a narrow understanding would naturally have a narrow system of politics and religion. But again:

_Paine._

"We persecute no man, neither will we abet in the persecution of any man for religion's sake."--Crisis, iii.

_Junius._

"The fundamental principles of Christianity may still be preserved though every zealous sectary adheres to his own exclusive doctrine, and pious ecclesiastics make it part of their religion to persecute one another."--Let. 58.

"The writer of this is one of those few who never dishonors religion, either by ridiculing or caviling at any denominations whatsoever. To G.o.d and not to man are all men accountable on the score of religion."--Epistle to the Quakers.

"If I thought Junius capable of uttering a disrespectful word of the religion of his country I should be the first to renounce and give him up to the public contempt and indignation."--Let. 54.

Above it is Philo Junius who is speaking; but the reader will remember he is the real Junius. He had been attacked for his impiety, and he puts Philo Junius forward to defend himself. The reader can not fail to notice the same hand in the last parallel. Paine says: "The _writer_ of this is one of _those few_ who never dishonors religion" by abusing the professors of it. And he never did. Junius ridiculed the ceremonial in the Catholic Church which denies the cup to the laity; and of this he says: "It is, in this country, as fair an object of ridicule as _transubstantiation_, or any other part of Lord Peter's History in the Tale of the Tub." This reminds me of what Paine says of popery and Peter: "A man hath as good reason to believe that there is as much of kingcraft as priestcraft in withholding the scripture from the public in popish countries. For monarchy in every instance is the popery of government."--Common Sense. In regard to Peter, we see the same temptation to touch his pen with satire and ridicule, and the pa.s.sage may be found in Rights of Man, part first. It is as follows: "I will quote Mr. Burke's catalogue of barriers that he has set up between man and his maker. Putting himself in the character of a herald, he says: 'We fear G.o.d; we look with _awe_ to kings; with affection to parliaments; with duty to magistrates; with reverence _to_ priests; and with respect to n.o.bility.' Mr. Burke has forgot to put in chivalry. _He has also forgot to put in Peter._"

They both considered it true that there is a wide difference between _piety_ and _morality_. Paine himself says (and it is the n.o.blest sentiment ever uttered by man): "MY COUNTRY IS THE WORLD, AND MY RELIGION IS TO DO GOOD." Junius frequently puts piety and morality in ant.i.thesis, as the following examples will show: "They care not what injustice is practiced upon a man whose _moral character_ they _piously_ think themselves obliged to condemn."--Let. 39. "The _unfeigned piety_, the _sanctified religion_ of George the Third have taught him to new-model the civil forces of the State. _Corruption glitters in the van_," etc. Then, speaking of some of his predecessors, he says: "They were kings or gentlemen, not hypocrites or priests. They were at the head of the Church, but did not know the value of their office. They said their prayers without ceremony, and had too little of priestcraft in their understanding to reconcile the _sanctimonious forms_ of religion with the utter destruction of the _morality_ of the people."--Let. 55.

But Mr. Paine was the inveterate enemy to priestcraft as well as kingcraft. His whole life was spent in waging war against the two. Let us now see what Junius thought of the former. I have shown him to run parallel with Mr. Paine in the latter.

Junius says: "The resentment of a priest is implacable: no sufferings can soften; no penitence can appease."--Let. 53. In speaking of the Rev.

Mr. Horne, he says: "No, my lord; it was the solitary, vindictive malice of a monk, brooding over the infirmities of his friends, until he thought they quickened into public life, and feasting with a rancorous rapture upon the sordid catalogue of his distresses. Now let him go back to his cloister. The Church is a proper retreat for him; in his principles he is already a bishop. The mention of this man has moved me from my natural moderation."--Let. 49. Again:

"The priesthood are accused of misinterpreting the scriptures. Mr. Horne has improved on his profession. He alters the text, and creates a refutable doctrine of his own."--Let. 53.

The above pa.s.sages can not be mistaken for Mr. Paine's spirit, style, and language. These tell us they are his with much more truth than a name attached to any writing tells us its author.

It seems they both had the same opinion of a _Methodist_:

_Paine._

"But when he [man] multiplies his creed with imaginary things, he forces his mind, and pretends to believe what he does not believe. This is, in general, the case with the _Methodists_--their religion is all creed and no morals."--Let. to Mr.

Dean.

_Junius._

"You meanly evaded the question, and, instead of the explicit firmness and decision of a king, gave us nothing but the misery of a ruined grazier, and the whining piety of a _Methodist_."--Let. 36.

Now the reader will recall the parallel I gave in regard to never dishonoring religion by saying any thing against particular forms or denominations. With the exception of the Catholic Church, this is the only instance which has fallen under my eye; and it seems they had such a disliking to Methodism, a sarcasm must be let loose upon it. Trifling as this instance may seem, there is great force in its being solitary, and apparently contradictory to what they both before affirmed in general. Such an instance has, in fact, more weight than a score of parallels on common characteristics, for it shows a peculiar and strong bias in a particular direction.

Of the term Christian there is no positive ground for a parallel, because it is one of no definite meaning. We call ourselves, as a nation, Christians; yet we are divided into a hundred forms of {172}religion, and many of them in the articles of faith contradictory and antagonistic. Yet, in the fundamental principles of morality, we are, in common with all civilized races, agreed. The Christian religion happens to belong to the highest civilization, and we frequently use the term as synonymous with the _morality_ of this civilization. But when we come to define strictly according to the theological import of the word, there are many of us who are not Christians. In the former sense, Mr. Paine and Junius were Christians; in the latter sense, they were not. And now for the proof. Junius says, in Letter 15, to the Duke of Grafton: "It is not, indeed, the least of the thousand contradictions which attend you, that a man marked to the world by the grossest violation of ceremony and decorum, should be the first servant of a court in which _prayers are morality_, and _kneeling is religion_." For this, and his attacks on the priesthood, and his frequently putting piety in ant.i.thesis to morality, he was at last accused of being an impious and irreligious man. He now puts Philo Junius forward to explain his religious views, who says, in Letter 54: "These candid critics never remember any thing he says in honor of our holy religion, though it is true that one of his leading arguments is made to rest 'upon the internal evidence which the purest of all religions carries with it.' I quote his words, and conclude from them that he is a true and hearty Christian--_in substance_, not in _ceremony_--though possibly he may not agree with my reverend lords the bishops, or with the head of the Church, 'that prayers are morality, or that kneeling is religion.'"

That is, Junius was a Christian who, upon moral principles, did not say his prayers, and who thought that forms were no part of religion. In other words, if the highest morality was Christianity, he claimed to be a Christian, and would not stoop "to reconcile the sanctimonious forms of religion with the utter destruction of morality."

This, too, was Mr. Paine's Christianity. In a national and moral sense he uses the term with approbation, but when in a theological sense he disowns it. He says, in Crisis, ii: "This ingrat.i.tude may suit a tory, or the _unchristian_ peevishness of a fallen Quaker, but none else." In Crisis, i, he says: "I wish, with all the devotion of a Christian, that the names of whig and tory may never more be mentioned." To the Quakers he says: "Call not coldness of soul religion, nor put the _bigot_ in the place of the _Christian_." In Common Sense he says: "For myself, I fully and conscientiously believe that it is the will of the Almighty that there should be a diversity of religious opinions among us. It affords a larger field for our Christian kindness." And again: "This new world hath been the asylum for the persecuted lovers of civil and religious liberty from every part of Europe.... In this extensive quarter of the globe, we forget the narrow limits of three hundred and sixty miles (the extent of England), and carry our friends.h.i.+p on a larger scale; _we claim brotherhood with every European Christian, and triumph in the generosity of the sentiment_."

The above are a few of the many pa.s.sages in which he indorses Christianity. But Christian here means only its moral phase or principles, and these principles exalted by the feeling of universal brotherhood. But in a theological sense he uses the term very differently, and by keeping this fact in view, he is readily understood, and there is only the contradiction which the use of the word by common consent carries with it. In the Age of Reason, Conclusion, he says: "Of all the systems of religion that ever were invented there is none more derogatory to the Almighty, more unedifying to man, more repugnant to reason, and more contradictory in itself, than this thing called Christianity."

They both had the same views of Jesus. Mr. Paine says in the Age of Reason, part i: "Nothing that is here said can apply, even with the most distant disrespect, to the real character of Jesus Christ. He was a virtuous and amiable man. The morality that he preached and practiced was of the most benevolent kind; and though similar systems of morality had been preached by Confucius and by some of the Greek philosophers many years before, and by the Quakers since, and by many good men in all ages, it has not been exceeded by any.... He preached most excellent morality, and the equality of man; but he preached also against the corruptions and avarice of the Jewish priests, and this brought upon him the hatred and vengeance of the whole order of the priesthood." And between the Romans and the Jews "this virtuous reformer and revolutionist lost his life."

Junius, near the close of his last letter but one, boldly affirms Jesus a _man_. He says: "The holy author of our religion was seen in the company of sinners, but it was his gracious purpose to convert them from their sins. _Another man_ [the king], who, in the _ceremonies_ of our faith, might give lessons to the great enemy of it [the devil] upon different principles, keeps much the same company."

Neither Mr. Paine nor Junius were superst.i.tious. And first of Paine. In Crisis, i, he says: "I have as little _superst.i.tion_ in me as any man living, but my secret opinion has ever been, and still is, that G.o.d Almighty will not give up, to military destruction, a people," etc.

Junius says, in Letter 36, note: "Every coward pretends to be planet-struck." And in Letter 49, satirizing Lord Bute, he says: "When that noxious planet approaches England, he never fails to bring plague and pestilence along with him." In Letter 67 he says: "Superst.i.tion is certainly not the characteristic of this age; yet some men are bigoted in politics who are _infidels_ in religion. I do not despair of making them ashamed of their credulity."

Above, Junius also casts an aspersion upon the term _infidel_. Mr. Paine was very tender upon this point, and could not bear to be taunted with _infidelity_. He says: "Infidelity is believing falsely. If what Christians believe is not true, it is the Christians that are the infidels."--Remarks on R. Hall's sermon. In the Examination of the Prophecies, he concludes with this sentence, emphasized as follows: "HE THAT BELIEVES IN THE STORY OF CHRIST, IS AN INFIDEL TO G.o.d." He also defines infidelity as being unfaithful to one's own convictions. In the Age of Reason, part i, he says: "Infidelity consists in _professing_ to believe what he does not believe." He also uses the word as synonymous with atheist, in his Discourse to the Theophilanthropists, as will be seen by reference to page 163 of this book.