Here we are.The existence of an Almighty power is sufficiently demonstrated to us, though we cannot conceive, as it is impossible we should, the nature and manner of its existence.We cannot conceive how we came here ourselves, and yet we know for a fact that we are here.We must know also, that the power that called us into being, can if he please, and when he pleases, call us to account for the manner in which we have lived here; and therefore without seeking any other motive for the belief, it is rational to believe that he will, for we know beforehand that he can.The probability or even possibility of the thing is all that we ought to know; for if we knew it as a fact, we should be the mere slaves of terror; our belief would have no merit, and our best actions no virtue.
Deism then teaches us, without the possibility of being deceived, all that is necessary or proper to be known.The creation is the Bible of the deist.He there reads, in the hand-writing of the Creator himself, the certainty of his existence, and the immutability of his power; and all other Bibles and Testaments are to him forgeries.The probability that we may be called to account hereafter, will, to reflecting minds, have the influence of belief; for it is not our belief or disbelief that can make or unmake the fact.As this is the state we are in, and which it is proper we should be in, as free agents, it is the fool only, and not the philosopher, nor even the prudent man, that will live as if there were no God.
But the belief of a God is so weakened by being mixed with the strange fable of the Christian creed, and with the wild adventures related in the Bible, and the obscurity and obscene nonsense of the Testament, that the mind of man is bewildered as in a fog.Viewing all these things in a confused mass, he confounds fact with fable; and as he cannot believe all, he feels a disposition to reject all.But the belief of a God is a belief distinct from all other things, and ought not to be confounded with any.The notion of a Trinity of Gods has enfeebled the belief of one God.A multiplication of beliefs acts as a division of belief; and in proportion as anything is divided, it is weakened.
Religion, by such means, becomes a thing of form instead of fact; of notion instead of principle: morality is banished to make room for an imaginary thing called faith, and this faith has its origin in a supposed debauchery;a man is preached instead of a God; an execution is an object for gratitude;the preachers daub themselves with the blood, like a troop of assassins, and pretend to admire the brilliancy it gives them; they preach a humdrum sermon on the merits of the execution; then praise Jesus Christ for being executed, and condemn the Jews for doing it.
A man, by hearing all this nonsense lumped and preached together, confounds the God of the Creation with the imagined God of the Christians, and lives as if there were none.
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.
Too absurd for belief, too impossible to convince, and too inconsistent for practice, it renders the heart torpid, or produces only atheists and fanatics.As an engine of power, it serves the purpose of despotism; and as a means of wealth, the avarice of priests; but so far as respects the good of man in general, it leads to nothing here or hereafter.
The only religion that has not been invented, and that has in it every evidence of divine originality, is pure and simple deism.It must have been the first and will probably be the last that man believes.But pure and simple deism does not answer the purpose of despotic governments.They cannot lay hold of religion as an engine but by mixing it with human inventions, and making their own authority a part; neither does it answer the avarice of priests, but by incorporating themselves and their functions with it, and becoming, like the government, a party in the system.It is this that forms the otherwise mysterious connection of church and state; the church human, and the state tyrannic.
Were a man impressed as fully and strongly as he ought to be with the belief of a God, his moral life would be regulated by the forcc of belief;he would stand in awe of God, and of himself, and would not do the thing that could not be concealed from either.To give this belief the full opportunity of force, it is necessary that it acts alone.This is deism.
But when, according to the Christian Trinitarian scheme, one part of God is represented by a dying man, and another part, called the Holy Ghost, by a flying pigeon, it is impossible that belief can attach itself to such wild conceits.[The book called the book of Matthew, says, (iii.16,) that the Holy Ghost descended in the shape of a dove.It might as well have said a goose; the creatures are equally harmless, and the one is as much a nonsensical lie as the other.Acts, ii.2, 3, says, that it descended in a mighty rushing wind, in the shape of cloven tongues: perbaps it was cloven feet.Such absurd stuff is fit only for tales of witches and wizards.
-- Author.
It has been the scheme of the Christian church, and of all the other invented systems of religion, to hold man in ignorance of the Creator, as it is of government to hold him in ignorance of his rights.The systems of the one are as false as those of the other, and are calculated for mutual support.The study of theology as it stands in Christian churches, is the study of nothing; it is founded on nothing; it rests on no principles;it proceeds by no authorities; it has no data; it can demonstrate nothing;and admits of no conclusion.Not any thing can be studied as a science without our being in possession of the principles upon which it is founded;and as this is not the case with Christian theology, it is therefore the study of nothing.
