                        36 page printout

                               IX.

                        PROSPECT PAPERS.

                        EDITOR'S PREFACE.

     THESE occasional pieces were contributed in 1804 to 'The
Prospect;' or 'View of the Moral Word,' a monthly magazine in New
York, edited by Elihu Palmer, Paine's most eminent convert. Palmer,
a native of Canterbury, Connecticut, born 1754, after graduation at
Dartmouth College entered the Presbyterian ministry but left it and
established the "Temple of Reason" in New York. Dr. Francis, in his
"Old New York," despite his dislike of Palmer's rationalism, says:
"I have more than once listened to Palmer; none could be weary
within the sound of his voice; his diction was classical; and much
of his natural theology attractive by variety of illustration."
Palmer said of Paine that he was "probably the most useful man that
ever existed on the face of the earth." Concerning his "Principles
of Nature," which was prosecuted in England along with the "Age of
Reason," Paine wrote him from Paris, ("February 21, 1802, since the
Fable of Christ"): "I received by Mr. Livingston the letter you
wrote me, and the excellent work you have published. I see you have
thought deeply on the subject, and expressed your thoughts in a
strong and clear style. The hinting and intimating manner of
writing that was formerly used on subjects of this kind produced
skepticism, but not conviction. It is necessary to be bold." On his
arrival in New York Paine joined with Palmer in founding a Theistic
Church, and wrote for 'The Prospect.' Palmer died suddenly in
Philadelphia, March 31. I am indebted to Mr. W.A. Hunter of
Plumpton, Penrith, for the use of a letter to his grandfather from
the widow of Elihu Palmer, dated New York, September 3, 1806. "Of
course I am left poor indeed. I have been exceedingly distressed
for the means of living. I had to sell my furniture to pay my rent
the first of May, was in very bad health, and really tired of my
life. But my prospects and condition are now altered for the
better. Mr. Thomas Paine had a fit of apoplexy on the 27th of last
July, and as soon as he recovered his senses he sent for me, and I
have been with him ever since. And I expect if I outlive him to be
heir to part of his property. He says I must never leave him while
he lives. He is now comfortable, but so lame he cannot walk, nor
get into bed without the help of two men. He stays at Mr. Carver's.
... Mr. Paine sends his best respects to you and all your family."
Of his apoplectic stroke Paine wrote to a friend: "I had neither
pulse nor breathing, and the people about me supposed me dead; yet
all this while my mental faculties remained as perfect as I ever
enjoyed them. I consider the scene I have gone through as an
experiment on dying, and I find that death has no terrors for me."
Mr. Hunter also possesses a silhouette of Paine, made in his last
years, which is unique among portraits as showing the great length
of his head; and at the back of this is a portrait of Elihu Palmer,
with a quatrain engraved above it of which I can make out but two
lines, which refer to his having become blind:

          "Though shades and darkness cloud his visual ray,
           The mind unclouded feels no loss of day;
           In Reason's . . . "




                         Bank of Wisdom
                  Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
                                1

                        PROSPECT PAPERS.

These two men founded in New York the first purely Theistic Society
in Christendom, which survives in the freethinking Fraternity, who
have their halls in New York and Boston, and preserve the spirit
though not the Theism of their founders.

                          ****     ****
                               IX.

                        PROSPECT PAPERS.

                        EDITOR'S PREFACE.

     THESE occasional pieces were contributed in 1804 to 'The
Prospect;' or 'View of the Moral Word,' a monthly magazine in New
York, edited by Elihu Palmer, Paine's most eminent convert. Palmer,
a native of Canterbury, Connecticut, born 1754, after graduation at
Dartmouth College entered the Presbyterian ministry but left it and
established the "Temple of Reason" in New York. Dr. Francis, in his
"Old New York," despite his dislike of Palmer's rationalism, says:
"I have more than once listened to Palmer; none could be weary
within the sound of his voice; his diction was classical; and much
of his natural theology attractive by variety of illustration."
Palmer said of Paine that he was "probably the most useful man that
ever existed on the face of the earth." Concerning his "Principles
of Nature," which was prosecuted in England along with the "Age of
Reason," Paine wrote him from Paris, ("February 21, 1802, since the
Fable of Christ"): "I received by Mr. Livingston the letter you
wrote me, and the excellent work you have published. I see you have
thought deeply on the subject, and expressed your thoughts in a
strong and clear style. The hinting and intimating manner of
writing that was formerly used on subjects of this kind produced
skepticism, but not conviction. It is necessary to be bold." On his
arrival in New York Paine joined with Palmer in founding a Theistic
Church, and wrote for 'The Prospect.' Palmer died suddenly in
Philadelphia, March 31. I am indebted to Mr. W.A. Hunter of
Plumpton, Penrith, for the use of a letter to his grandfather from
the widow of Elihu Palmer, dated New York, September 3, 1806. "Of
course I am left poor indeed. I have been exceedingly distressed
for the means of living. I had to sell my furniture to pay my rent
the first of May, was in very bad health, and really tired of my
life. But my prospects and condition are now altered for the
better. Mr. Thomas Paine had a fit of apoplexy on the 27th of last
July, and as soon as he recovered his senses he sent for me, and I
have been with him ever since. And I expect if I outlive him to be
heir to part of his property. He says I must never leave him while
he lives. He is now comfortable, but so lame he cannot walk, nor
get into bed without the help of two men. He stays at Mr. Carver's.
... Mr. Paine sends his best respects to you and all your family."
Of his apoplectic stroke Paine wrote to a friend: "I had neither
pulse nor breathing, and the people about me supposed me dead; yet
all this while my mental faculties remained as perfect as I ever
enjoyed them. I consider the scene I have gone through as an
experiment on dying, and I find that death has no terrors for me."
Mr. Hunter also possesses a silhouette of Paine, made in his last
years, which is unique among portraits as showing the great length
of his head; and at the back of this is a portrait of Elihu Palmer,
with a quatrain engraved above it of which I can make out but two 
lines, which refer to his having become blind:

                         Bank of Wisdom
                  Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
                                2

                        PROSPECT PAPERS.

          "Though shades and darkness cloud his visual ray,
           The mind unclouded feels no loss of day;
           In Reason's ..."

These two men founded in New York the first purely Theistic Society
in Christendom, which survives in the freethinking Fraternity, who
have their halls in New York and Boston, and preserve the spirit
though not the Theism of their founders.

                          ****     ****

                        PROSPECT PAPERS.

                  REMARKS ON R. HALL'S SERMON.

[NOTE: "The following piece, obligingly communicated by Mr. Paine
for The Prospect, is full of that acuteness of mind, perspicuity of
expression, and clearness of discernment, for which this excellent
author is so remarkable in all his writings." -- Editor of The
Prospect.]

     ROBERT HALL, a protestant minister in England, preached and
published a sermon against what he called Modern 'Infidelity.' A
copy of it was sent to a gentleman in America with a request for
his opinion thereon. That gentleman sent it to a friend of his in
New York, with the request written on the cover -- and this last
gentleman sent it to Thomas Paine, who wrote the following
observations on the blank leaf at the end of the sermon

     The preacher of the foregoing sermon speaks a great deal about
'infidelity,' but does not define what he means by it. His harangue
is a general exclamation. Everything, I suppose that is not in his
creed is infidelity with him, and his creed is infidelity with me.
Infidelity is believing falsely. If what Christians believe is not
true, it is the Christians that are the infidels.

     The point between deists and christians is not about doctrine,
but about fact -- for if the things believed by the Christians to
be facts are not facts, the doctrine founded thereon falls of
itself. There is such a book as the Bible, but is it a fact that
the Bible is revealed religion? The christians cannot prove it is.
They put tradition in place of evidence, and tradition is not
proof. If it were, the reality of witches could be proved by the
same kind of evidence.

     The Bible is a history of the times of which it speaks, and
history is not revelation. The obscene and vulgar stories in the
Bible are as repugnant to our ideas of the purity of a divine
Being, as the horrid cruelties and murders it ascribes to him are
repugnant to our ideas of his justice. It is the reverence of the
Deists for the attributes of the DEITY, that causes them to reject
the Bible.

     Is the account which the christian church gives of the person
called Jesus Christ a fact, or a fable? Is it a fact that he was
begotten by the Holy Ghost? The christians cannot prove it, for the
case does not admit of proof. The things called miracles in the 


                         Bank of Wisdom
                  Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
                                3

                        PROSPECT PAPERS.

Bible, such for instance as raising the dead, admitted if true of
occular demonstration, but the story of the conception of Jesus
Christ in the womb is a case beyond miracle, for it did not admit
of demonstration. Mary, the reputed mother of Jesus, who must be
supposed to know best, never said so herself, and all the evidence
of it is that the book of Matthew says that Joseph dreamed an angel
told him so. Had an old maid two or three hundred years of age
brought forth a child it would have been much better presumptive
evidence of a supernatural conception, than Matthew's story of
Joseph's dream about his young wife.

     Is it a fact that Jesus Christ died for the sins of the world,
and how is it proved? If a God he could not die, and as a man he
could not redeem. How then is this redemption proved to be fact? It
is said that Adam ate of the forbidden fruit, commonly called an
apple, and thereby subjected himself and all his posterity for ever
to eternal damnation. This is worse than visiting the sins of the
fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generations.
But how was the death of Jesus Christ to affect or alter the case?
Did God thirst for blood? If so, would it not have been better to
have crucified Adam at once upon the forbidden tree, and made a new
man? Would not this have been more creator-like than repairing the
old one? Or did God, when he made Adam, supposing the story to be
true, exclude himself from the right of making another? or impose
on himself the necessity of breeding from the old stock? Priests
should first prove facts, and deduce doctrines from them
afterwards. But instead of this they assume every thing and prove
nothing. Authorities drawn from the Bible are no more than
authorities drawn from other books, unless it can be proved that
the Bible is revelation.

     The story of the redemption will not stand examination. That
man should redeem himself from the sin of eating an apple by
committing a murder on Jesus Christ, is the strangest system of
religion ever set up. Deism is perfect purity compared with this.
It is an established principle with the Quakers not to shed blood:
suppose then all Jerusalem had been Quakers when Christ lived,
there would have been nobody to crucify him, and in that case, if
man is redeemed by his blood, which is the belief of the Church,
there could have been no redemption; and the people of Jerusalem
must all have been damned because they were too good to commit
murder. The christian system of religion is an outrage on common
sense. Why is man afraid to think?

     Why do not the christians, to be consistent, make saints of
Judas and Pontius Pilate? For they were the persons who
accomplished the act of salvation. The merit of a sacrifice, if
there can be any merit in it, was never in the thing sacrificed,
but in the persons offering up the sacrifice -- and, therefore,
Judas and Pontius Pilate ought to stand first on the calendar of
saints. [NOTE: In "A Political Biography," Disraeli (Lord
Beaconsfield) repeats substantially Paine's argument in this
paragraph. -- Author.]

                                        THOMAS PAINE.

                          ****     ****


                         Bank of Wisdom
                  Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
                                4

                        PROSPECT PAPERS.

                     OF THE WORD "RELIGION,"

           AND OTHER WORDS OF UNCERTAIN SIGNIFICATION.

     THE word 'religion' is a word of forced application when used
with respect to the worship of God. The root of the word is the
latin verb ligo, to tie or bind. From 'ligo,' comes 'religo,' to
tie or bind over again, or make more fast -- from religo, comes the
substantive 'religio,' which, with the addition of n makes the
English substantive Religion. The French use the word properly:
when a woman enters a convent she is called a noviciate, that is,
she is upon trial or probation. When she takes the oath, she is
called a religieuse, that is, she is tied or bound by that oath to
the performance of it. We use the word in the same kind of sense
when we say we will religiously perform the promise that we make.

     But the word, without referring to its etymology, has, in the
manner it is used, no definite meaning, because it does not
designate what religion a man is of. There is the religion of the
Chinese, of the Tartars, of the Bramins, of the Persians, of the
Jews, of the Turks, etc.

     The word Christianity is equally as vague as the word
Religion. No two sectaries can agree what it is. It is lo here and
lo there. The two principal sectaries, Popists and Protestants,
have often cut each other's throats about it. The Popists call the
Protestants heretics, and the Protestants call the Popists
idolaters. The minor sectaries have shown the same spirit of
rancor, but as the civil law restrains them from blood, they
content themselves with preaching damnation against each other.

     The word 'protestant' has a positive signification in the
sense it is used, It means protesting against the authority of the
Pope, and this is the only article in which the Protestants agree.
In every other sense, with respect to religion, the word Protestant
is as vague as the word Christian. When we say an Episcopalian, a
Presbyterian, a Baptist, a Quaker, we know what those persons are,
and what tenets they hold; but when we say a "Christian," we know
he is not a Jew nor a Mahometan, but we know not if he be a
trinitarian or an anti-trinitarian, a believer in what is called
the immaculate conception or a disbeliever, a man of seven
sacraments, or of two sacraments, or of none. The word "Christian
describes what a man is not, but not what he is.

     The word Theology, from Theos, the Greek word for God, and
meaning the study and knowledge of God, is a word that strictly
speaking belongs to Theists or Deists, and not to the Christians.
The head of the Christian Church is the person called Christ, but
the head of the Church of the Theists, or Deists, as they are more
commonly called (from Deus, the latin word for God), is God
himself; and therefore the word "Theology" belongs to that Church
which has Theos or God for its head, and not to the Christian
Church which has the person called Christ for its head. Their
technical word is Christianity, and they cannot agree what
Christianity is.




                         Bank of Wisdom
                  Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
                                5

                        PROSPECT PAPERS.

     The words 'revealed religion,' and natural religion, also
require explanation. They are both invented terms, contrived by the
Church for the support of priestcraft. With respect to the first,
there is no evidence of any such thing, except in the universal
revelation that God has made of his power, his wisdom, his
goodness, in the structure of the universe, and in all the works of
Creation. We have no cause or ground from anything we behold in
those works to suppose God would deal partially by mankind, and
reveal knowledge to one nation and withhold it from another, and
then damn them for not knowing it. The sun shines an equal quantity
of light all over the world -- and mankind in all ages and
countries are endued with reason, and blessed with sight, to read
the visible works of God in the creation, and so intelligent is
this book that he that runs may read. We admire the wisdom of the
ancients, yet they had no bibles nor books called "revelation."
They cultivated the reason that God gave them, studied him in his
works, and arose to eminence.

     As to the Bible, whether true or fabulous, it is a history,
and history is not a revelation. If Solomon had seven hundred
wives, and three hundred concubines, and if Samson slept in
Delilah's lap, and she cut his hair off, the relation of those
things is mere history that needed no revelation from heaven to
tell it; neither does it need any revelation to tell us that Samson
was a fool for his pains, and Solomon too.

     As to the expressions so often used in the Bible, that the
word of the Lord came to such an one, or such an one, it was the
fashion of speaking in those times, like the expression used by a
Quaker, that the spirit moveth him, or that used by priests, that
they have a call. We ought not to be deceived by phrases because
they are ancient. But if we admit the supposition that God would
condescend to reveal himself in words, we ought not to believe it
would be in such idle and profligate stories as are in the Bible;
and it is for this reason, among others which our reverence to God
inspires, that the Deists deny that the book called the Bible is
the Word of God, or that it is revealed religion.

     With respect to the term 'natural religion,' it is upon the
face of it, the opposite of artificial religion, and it is
impossible for any man to be certain that what is called revealed
religion is not artificial. Man has the power of making books,
inventing stories of God, and calling them revelation, or the Word
of God. The Koran exists as an instance that this can be done, and
we must be credulous indeed to suppose that this is the only
instance, and Mahomet the only impostor. The Jews could match him,
and the Church of Rome could overmatch the Jews. The Mahometans
believe the Koran, the Christians believe the Bible, and it is
education makes all the difference.

     Books, whether Bibles or Korans, carry no evidence of being
the work of any other power than man. It is only that which man
cannot do that carries the evidence of being the work of a superior
power, Man could not invent and make a universe -- he could not
invent nature, for nature is of divine origin. It is the laws by
which the universe is governed. When, therefore, we look through
nature up to nature's God, we are in the right road of happiness, 


                         Bank of Wisdom
                  Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
                                6

                        PROSPECT PAPERS.

but when we trust to books as the Word of God, and confide in them
as revealed religion, we are afloat on the ocean of uncertainty,
and shatter into contending factions. The term, therefore, natural
religion, explains itself to be divine religion, and the term
revealed religion involves in it the suspicion of being artificial

     To shew the necessity of understanding the meaning of words,
I will mention an instance of a minister, I believe of the
episcopalian church of Newark, in Jersey. He wrote and published a
book, and entitled it 'An Antidote to Deism." [NOTE: Antidote to
Deism. The Deist unmasked; or an ample refutation of all the
objections of Thomas Paine against the Christian Religion; as
contained in a pamphlet entitled The Age of Reason, addressed to
the citizens of these States. By the Rev. Uzal Ogden, Rector of
Trinity Church, at Newark in the State of New Jersey. Newark,
1795." -- Editor.]

     An antidote to 'Deism' must be 'Atheism.' It has no other
antidote -- for what can be an antidote to the belief of a God, but
the disbelief of God? Under the tuition of such pastors, what but
ignorance and false information can be expected?     T.P.

                          ****     ****

                        OF CAIN AND ABEL.

     THE story of Cain and Abel is told in Genesis iv. Cain was the
elder brother, and Abel the younger, and Cain killed Abel. The
Egyptian story of Typhon and Osiris, and the Jewish story in
Genesis of Cain and Abel, have the appearance of being the same
story differently told, and that it came originally from Egypt.

     In the Egyptian story, Typhon and Osiris are brothers; Typhon
is the elder, and Osiris the younger, and Typhon kills Osiris. The
story is an allegory on Darkness and Light: Typhon, the elder
brother, is Darkness, because Darkness was supposed to be more
ancient than Light: Osiris is the Good Light who rules during the
summer months, and brings forth the fruits of the earth, and is the
favorite, as Abel is said to have been; for which Typhon hates him;
and when the winter comes, and cold and Darkness overspread the
earth, Typhon is represented as having killed Osiris out of malice,
as Cain is said to have killed Abel.

     The two stories are alike in their circumstances and their
event, and are probably but the same story. What corroborates this
opinion is, that the fifth chapter of Genesis historically
contradicts the reality of the story of Cain and Abel in the fourth
chapter; for though the name of Seth, a son of Adam, is mentioned
in the fourth chapter, he is spoken of in the fifth chapter as if
he was the firstborn of Adam. The chapter begins thus:

     This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that
God created man, in the likeness of God created he him; Male and
female created he them, and blessed them, and called their name
Adam, in the day when they were created. And Adam lived an hundred
and thirty years and begat a son, in his own likeness and after his
image, and called his name Seth." The rest of the chapter goes on
with the genealogy.

                         Bank of Wisdom
                  Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
                                7

                        PROSPECT PAPERS.

     Any body reading this chapter, cannot suppose there were any
sons born before Seth. The chapter begins with what is called the
creation of Adam, and calls itself the book of the generation of
Adam, yet no mention is made of such persons as Cain and Abel. One
thing however is evident on the face of these two chapters, which
is, that the same person is not the writer of both; the most
blundering historian could not have committed himself in such a
manner.

     Though I look on every thing in the first ten chapters of
Genesis to be fiction, yet fiction historically told should be
consistent; whereas these two chapters are not. The Cain and Abel
of Genesis appear to be no other than the ancient Egyptian story of
Typhon and Osiris, the Darkness and the Light, which answered very
well as an allegory without being believed as a fact.

                       THE TOWER OF BABEL.

     THE story of the tower of Babel is told in Genesis xi. It
begins thus: "And the whole earth [it was but a very little part of
it they knew] was of one language and of one speech. And it came to
pass as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in
the land of Shinar, and they dwelt there. And they said one to
another, Go to, let us make brick and burn them thoroughly, and
they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar. And they
said, Go to, let us build us a city, and a tower whose top may
reach unto heaven, and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered
abroad upon the face of the whole earth. And the Lord came down to
see the city and the tower which the children of men builded. And
the Lord said, Behold the people is one, and they have all one
language; and this they begin to do; and now nothing will be
restrained from them which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us
go down and there confound their language, that they may not
understand one another's speech. So [that is, by that means] the
Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the
earth; and they left off building the city."

     This is the story, and a very foolish inconsistent story it
is. In the first place, the familiar and irreverent manner in which
the Almighty is spoken of in this chapter is offensive to a serious
mind. As to the project of building a tower whose top should reach
to heaven, there never could be a people so foolish as to have such
a notion; but to represent the Almighty as jealous of the attempt,
as the writer of the story has done, is adding profanation to
folly. "Go to," say the builders, "let us build us a tower whose
top shall reach to heaven." "Go to," says God, "let us go down and
confound their language." This quaintness is indecent, and the
reason given for it is worse, for, "now nothing will be restrained
from them which they have imagined to do." This is representing the
Almighty as jealous of their getting into heaven. The story is too
ridiculous, even as a fable, to account for the diversity of
languages in the world, for which it seems to have been intended.

     As to the project of confounding their language for the
purpose of making them separate, it is altogether inconsistent;
because instead of producing this effect, it would, by increasing
their difficulties, render them more necessary to each other, and 
cause them to keep together. Where could they go to better
themselves?
                         Bank of Wisdom
                  Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
                                8

                        PROSPECT PAPERS.

     Another observation upon this story is, the inconsistency of
it with respect to the opinion that the bible is the Word of God
given for the information of mankind; for nothing could so
effectually prevent such a word from being known by mankind as
confounding their language. The people, who after this spoke
different languages, could no more understand such a Word
generally, than the builders of Babel could understand one another.
It would have been necessary, therefore, had such Word ever been
given or intended to be given, that the whole earth should be, as
they say it was at first, of one language and of one speech, and
that it should never have been confounded.

     The case, however, is, that the bible will not bear
examination in any part of it, which it would do if it was the Word
of God. Those who most believe it are those who know least about
it, and priests always take care to keep the inconsistent and
contradictory parts out of sight.

                                                       T.P.
                          ****     ****

           OF THE RELIGION OF DEISM COMPARED WITH THE
         CHRISTIAN RELIGION, AND THE SUPERIORITY OF THE
                     FORMER OVER THE LATTER.

     EVERY person, of whatever religious denomination he may be, is
a DEIST in the first article of his Creed. Deism, from the Latin
word Detis, God, is the belief of a God, and this belief is the
first article of every man's creed.

     It is on this article, universally consented to by all
mankind, that the Deist builds his church, and here he rests.
Whenever we step aside from this article, by mixing it with
articles of human invention, we wander into a labyrinth of
uncertainty and fable, and become exposed to every kind of
imposition by pretenders to revelation. The Persian shows the
Zendavesta of Zoroaster, the lawgiver of Persia, and calls it the
divine law; the Bramin shows the Shaster, revealed, he says, by God
to Brama, and given to him out of a cloud; the Jew shows what he
calls the law of Moses, given, he says, by God, on the Mount Sinai;
the Christian shows a collection of books and epistles, written by
nobody knows who, and called the New Testament; and the Mahometan
shows the Koran, given, be says, by God to Mahomet: each of these
calls itself revealed religion, and the only true word of God, and
this the followers of each profess to believe from the habit of
education, and each believes the others are imposed upon.

     But when the divine gift of reason begins to expand itself in
the mind and calls man to reflection, he then reads and
contemplates God in his works, and not in the books pretending to
be revelation. The Creation is the bible of the true believer in
God. Every thing in this vast volume inspires him with sublime
ideas of the Creator. The little and paltry, and often obscene, 
tales of the bible sink into wretchedness when put in comparison
with this mighty work. The Deist needs none of those tricks and
shows called miracles to confirm his faith, for what can be a
greater miracle than the Creation itself, and his own existence?


                         Bank of Wisdom
                  Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
                                9

                        PROSPECT PAPERS.

     There is a happiness in Deism, when rightly understood, that
is not to be found in any other system of religion. All other
systems have something in them that either shock our reason, or are
repugnant to it, and man, if he thinks at all, must stifle his
reason in order to force himself to believe them. But in Deism our
reason and our belief become happily united. The wonderful
structure of the universe, and every thing we behold in the system
of the creation, prove to us, far better than books can do, the
existence of a God, and at the same time proclaim his attributes.
It is by the exercise of our reason that we are enabled to
contemplate God in his works, and imitate him in his ways. When we
see his care and goodness extended over all his creatures, it
teaches us our duty towards each other, while it calls forth our
gratitude to him. It is by forgetting God in his works, and running
after the books of pretended revelation, that man has wandered from
the straight path of duty and happiness, and become by turns the
victim of doubt and the dupe of delusion.

     Except in the first article in the Christian creed, that of
believing in God, there is not an article in it but fills the mind
with doubt as to the truth of it, the instant man begins to think.
Now every article in a creed that is necessary to the happiness and
salvation of man, ought to be as evident to the reason and
comprehension of man as the first article is, for God has not given
us reason for the purpose of confounding us, but that we should use
it for our own happiness and his glory.

     The truth of the first article is proved by God himself, and
is universal; for the creation is of itself demonstration of the
existence of a Creator. But the second article, that of God's
begetting a son, is not proved in like manner, and stands on no
other authority than that of a tale. Certain books in what is
called the New Testament tell us that Joseph dreamed that the angel
told him so. (Matthew i. 20.) "And behold the Angel of the Lord
appeared to Joseph, in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David,
fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife, for that which is
conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost." The evidence upon this
article bears no comparison with the evidence upon the first
article, and therefore is not entitled to the same credit, and
ought not to be made an article in a creed, because the evidence of
it is defective, and what evidence there is, is doubtful and
suspicious. We do not believe the first article on the authority of
books, whether called Bibles or Korans, nor yet on the visionary
authority of dreams, but on the authority of God's own visible
works in the creation. The nations who never heard of such books,
nor of such people as Jews, Christians, or Mahometans, believe the
existence of a God as fully as we do, because it is self evident.
The work of man's hands is a proof of the existence of man as fully
as his personal appearance would be. When we see a watch, we have
as positive evidence of the existence of a watch-maker, as if we
saw him; and in like manner the creation is evidence to our reason
and our senses of the existence of a Creator. But there is nothing
in the works of God that is evidence that he begat a son, nor any
thing in the system of creation that corroborates such an idea,
and, therefore, we are not authorized in believing it. What truth
there may be in the story that Mary, before she was married to
Joseph, was kept by one of the Roman soldiers, and was with child 


                         Bank of Wisdom
                  Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
                               10

                        PROSPECT PAPERS.

by him, I leave to be settled between the Jews and the Christians.
The story however has probability on its side, for her husband
Joseph suspected and was jealous of her, and was going to put her
away. "Joseph, her husband, being a just man, and not willing to
make her a public example, was going to put her away privately."
(Matt, i. 19.) [NOTE: The literature of this story, which seems to
have been known to Celsus in one of its various forms, is referred
to in detail in McClintock and Strong's "Cyclopedia of Biblical,
Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature," article MARY. The
Hebrew work, Toldoth Jesu, containing the Jewish tradition, was
published in English by Richard Carlile, London, in 1823. --
Editor.]

     I have already said that "whenever we step aside from the
first article (that of believing in God), we wander into a
labyrinth of uncertainty," and here is evidence of the justness of
the remark, for it is impossible for us to decide who was Jesus
Christ's father.

     But presumption can assume any thing, and therefore it makes
Joseph's dream to be of equal authority with the existence of God,
and to help it on calls it revelation. It is impossible for the
mind of man in its serious moments, however it may have been
entangled by education, or beset by priest-craft, not to stand
still and doubt upon the truth of this article and of its creed.
But this is not all. The second article of the Christian creed
having brought the son of Mary into the world, (and this Mary,
according to the chronological tables, was a girl of only fifteen
years of age when this son was born,) the next article goes on to
account for his being begotten, which was, that when he grew a man
he should be put to death, to expiate, they say, the sin that Adam
brought into the world by eating an apple or some kind of forbidden
fruit.

     But though this is the creed of the church of Rome, from
whence the protestants borrowed it, it is a creed which that church
has manufactured of itself, for it is not contained in, nor derived
from, the book called the New Testament. The four books called the
Evangelists, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, which give, or pretend
to give, the birth, sayings, life, preaching, and death of Jesus
Christ, make no mention of what is called the fall of man; nor is
the name of Adam to be found in any of those books, which it
certainly would be if the writers of them believed that Jesus was
begotten, born, and died for the purpose of redeeming mankind from
the sin which Adam had brought into the world. Jesus never speaks
of Adam himself, of the Garden of Eden, nor of what is called the
fall of man.

[Paine here repeats his citations from St. Augustine, Origen, and
Maimenides, as to the mystical interpretation of the story in
Genesis, given on P. 264 of this volume.]

     But the Church of Rome having set up its new religion, which
it called Christianity, invented the creed which it named the
Apostles' Creed, in which it calls Jesus the only son of God,
conceived by the Holy Ghost, and born of the Virgin Mary; things of
which it is impossible that man or woman can have any idea, and 


                         Bank of Wisdom
                  Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
                               11

                        PROSPECT PAPERS.

consequently no belief but in words; and for which there is no
authority but the idle story of Joseph's dream in the first chapter
of Matthew, which any designing impostor or foolish fanatic might
make. It then manufactured the allegories in the book of Genesis
into fact and the allegorical tree of life and the tree of
knowledge into real trees, contrary to the belief of the first
Christians, and for which there is not the least authority in any
of the books of the New Testament; for in none of them is there any
mention made of such place as the Garden of Eden, nor of any thing
that is said to have happened there.

     But the church of Rome could not erect the person called Jesus
into a Savior of the world without making the allegories in the
book of Genesis into fact, though the New Testament, as before
observed, gives no authority for it. All at once the allegorical
tree of knowledge became, according to the church, a real tree, the
fruit of it real fruit, and the eating of it sinful. As priest-
craft was always the enemy of knowledge, because priest-craft
supports itself by keeping people in delusion and ignorance, it was
consistent with its policy to make the acquisition of knowledge a
real sin.

     The church of Rome having done this, it then brings forward
Jesus the son of Mary as suffering death to redeem mankind from
sin, which Adam, it says, had brought into the world by eating the
fruit of the tree of knowledge. But as it is impossible for reason
to believe such a story, because it can see no reason for it, nor
have any evidence of it, the church then tells us we must not
regard our reason, but must believe, as it were, and that through
thick and thin, as if God had given man reason like a plaything, or
a rattle, on purpose to make fun of him. Reason is the forbidden
tree of priest-craft, and may serve to explain the allegory of the
forbidden tree of knowledge, for we may reasonably suppose the
allegory had some meaning and application at the time it was
invented. It was the practice of the eastern nations to convey
their meaning by allegory, and relate it in the manner of fact.
Jesus followed the same method, yet nobody every supposed the
allegory or parable of the rich man and Lazarus, the Prodigal Son,
the ten Virgins, etc., were facts. Why then should the tree of
knowledge, which is far more romantic in idea than the parables in
the New Testament are, be supposed to be a real tree? [NOTE by
PAINE: The remark of the Emperor Julian, on the story of the Tree
of Knowledge is worth observing. "If," said he, "there ever had
been, or could be, a Tree of Knowledge, instead of God forbidding
man to eat thereof, it would be that of which he would order him to
eat the most." -- Author.] The answer to this is, because the
church could not make its new fangled system, which it called
Christianity, hold together without it. To have made Christ to die
on account of an allegorical tree would have been too bare-faced a
fable.

     But the account, as it is given of Jesus in the New Testament,
even visionary as it is, does not support the creed of the church
that he died for the redemption of the world. According to that
account he was crucified and buried on the Friday, and rose again
in good health on the Sunday morning, for we do not hear that he
was sick. This cannot be called dying, and is rather making fun of 


                         Bank of Wisdom
                  Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
                               12

                        PROSPECT PAPERS.

death than suffering it. There are thousands of men and women also,
who if they could know they should come back again in good health
in about thirty-six hours, would prefer such kind of death for the
sake of the experiment, and to know what the other side of the
grave was. Why then should that which would be only a voyage of
curious amusement to us, be magnified into merit and suffering in
him? If a God he could not suffer death, for immortality cannot
die, and as a man his death could be no more than the death of any
other person.

     The belief of the redemption of Jesus Christ is altogether an
invention of the church of Rome, not the doctrine of the New
Testament. What the writers of the New Testament attempted to prove
by the story of Jesus is the resurrection of the same body from the
grave, which was the belief of the Pharisees, in opposition to the
Sadducees (a sect of Jews) who denied it. Paul, who was brought up
a Pharisee, labors bard at this point, for it was the creed of his
own Pharisaical church: i Corinthians xv. is full of supposed cases
and assertions about the resurrection of the same body, but there
is not a word in it about redemption. This chapter makes part of
the funeral service of the Episcopal church. The dogma of the
redemption is the fable of priest-craft invented since the time the
New Testament was compiled, and the agreeable delusion of it suited
with the depravity of immoral livers. When men are taught to
ascribe all their crimes and vices to the temptations of the Devil,
and to believe that Jesus by his death rubs all off, and pays their
passage to heaven gratis, they become as careless in morals as a
spendthrift would be of money, were he told that his father had
engaged to pay off all his scores. It is a doctrine not only
dangerous to morals in this world, but to our happiness in the next
world, because it holds out such a cheap, easy, and lazy way of
getting to heaven, as has a tendency to induce men to hug the
delusion of it to their own injury.

     But there are times when men have scrious thoughts, and it is
at such times, when they begin to think, that they begin to doubt
the truth of the Christian Religion; and well they may, for it is
too fanciful and too full of conjecture, inconsistency,
improbability, and irrationality, to afford consolation to the
thoughtful man. His reason revolts against his creed. He sees that
none of its articles are proved, or can be proved. He may believe
that such a person as is called Jesus (for Christ was not his name)
was born and grew to be a man, because it is no more than a natural
and probable case. But who is to prove he is the son of God, that
he was begotten by the Holy Ghost? Of these things there can be no
proof; and that which admits not of proof, and is against the laws
of probability and the order of nature, which God himself has
established, is not an object for belief. God has not given man
reason to embarrass him, but to prevent his being imposed upon.

     He may believe that Jesus was crucified, because many others
were crucified, but who is to prove he was crucified for the sins
of the world? This article has no evidence, not even in the New
Testament; and if it had, where is the proof that the New
Testament, in relating things neither probable nor provable, is to
be believed as true? When an article in a creed does not admit of
proof nor of probability, the salvo is to call it revelation; but 


                         Bank of Wisdom
                  Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
                               13

                        PROSPECT PAPERS.

this is only putting one difficulty in the place of another, for it
is as impossible to prove a thing to be revelation as it is to
prove that Mary was gotten with child by the Holy Ghost.

     Here it is that the religion of Deism is superior to the
Christian Religion. It is free from all those invented and
torturing articles that shock our reason or injure our humanity,
and with which the Christian religion abounds. Its creed is pure,
and sublimely simple. It believes in God, and there it rests. It
honors Reason as the choicest gift of God to man, and the faculty
by which he is enabled to contemplate the power, wisdom and
goodness of the Creator displayed in the creation; and reposing
itself on his protection, both here and hereafter, it avoids all
presumptuous beliefs, and rejects, as the fabulous inventions of
men, all books pretending to revelation.
                                                  T.P.

                          ****     ****

                 TO THE MEMBERS OF THE SOCIETY,
             STYLING ITSELF THE MISSIONARY SOCIETY.

The New York Gazette of the 16th (August) contains the following
article -- "On Tuesday, a committee of the Missionary Society,
consisting chiefly of distinguished Clergymen, had an interview, at
the City Hotel, with the chiefs of the Osage tribe of Indians, now
in this City, (New York) to whom they presented a Bible, together
with an Address, the object of which was, to informs them that this
good book contained the will and laws of the GREAT SPIRIT."

     IT is to be hoped some humane person will, on account of our
people an the frontiers, as well as of the Indians, undeceive them
with respect to the present the Missionaries have made them, and
which they call a good book, containing, they say, the will and
laws of the GREAT SPIRIT. Can those Missionaries suppose that the
assassination of men, women, and children, and sucking infants,
related in the books ascribed to Moses, Joshua, etc., and
blasphemously said to be done by the command of the Lord, the Great
Spirit, can be edifying to our Indian neighbors, or advantageous to
us? Is not the Bible warfare the same kind of warfare as the
Indians themselves carry on, that of indiscriminate destruction,
and against which humanity shudders? Can the horrid examples and
vulgar obscenity with which the Bible abounds improve the morals or
civilize the manners of the Indians? Will they learn sobriety and
decency from drunken Noah and beastly Lot; or will their daughters
be edified by the example of Lot's daughters? Will the prisoners
they take in war be treated the better by their knowing the horrid
story of Samuel's hewing Agag in pieces like a block of wood, or
David's putting them under harrows of iron? Will not the shocking
accounts of the destruction of the Canaanites, when the Israelites
invaded their country, suggest the idea that we may serve them in
the same manner, or the accounts stir them up to do the like to our
people on the frontiers, and then justify the assassination by the
Bible the Missionaries have given them? Will those Missionary
Societies never leave off doing mischief?




                         Bank of Wisdom
                  Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
                               14

                        PROSPECT PAPERS.

     In the account which this missionary committee give of their
interview, they make the Chief of the Indians to say, that, "as
neither he nor his people could read it, he begged that some good
white man might be sent to instruct them."

     It is necessary the General Government keep a strict eye over
those Missionary Societies, who, under the pretence of instructing
the Indians, send spies into their country to find out the best
lands. No Society should be permitted to have intercourse with the
Indian tribes, nor send any person among them, but with the
knowledge and consent of the Government. The present Administration
[Jefferson's] has brought the Indians into a good disposition, and
is improving them in the moral and civil comforts of life; but if
these self-created Societies be suffered to interfere, and send
their speculating Missionaries among them, the laudable object of
government will be defeated. Priests, we know, are not remarkable
for doing any thing gratis; they have in general some scheme in
every thing they do, either to impose on the ignorant, or derange
the operations of government.

                                        A FRIEND TO THE INDIANS.

                          ****     ****

               OF THE SABBATH DAY IN CONNECTICUT.

     THE word Sabbath, means REST, that is, cessation from labor,
but the stupid Blue Laws [NOTE by PAINE: They were called Blue Laws
because they were originally printed on blue paper, -- Author.] of
Connecticut make a labor of rest, for they oblige a person to sit
still from sunrise to sunset on a Sabbath day, which is hard work.
Fanaticism made those laws, and hypocrisy pretends to reverence
them, for where such laws prevail hypocrisy will prevail also.

     One of those laws says, "No person shall run on a Sabbath-day,
nor walk in his garden, nor elsewhere, but reverently to and from
meeting." These fanatical hypocrites forgot that God dwells not in
temples made with hands, and that the earth is full of his glory.
One of the finest scenes and subjects of religious contemplation is
to walk into the woods and fields, and survey the works of the God
of the Creation. The wide expanse of heaven, the earth covered with
verdure, the lofty forest, the waving corn, the magnificent roll of
mighty rivers, and the murmuring melody of the cheerful brooks, are
scenes that inspire the mind with gratitude and delight. But this
the gloomy Calvinist of Connecticut must not behold on a Sabbath-
day. Entombed within the walls of his dwelling, he shuts from his
view the Temple of Creation. The sun shines no joy to him. The
gladdening voice of nature calls on him in vain. He is deaf, dumb,
and blind to every thing around that God has made. Such is the
Sabbath-day of Connecticut.

     From whence could come this miserable notion of devotion? It
comes from the gloominess of the Calvinistic creed. If men love
darkness rather than light, because their works are evil, the
ulcerated mind of a Calvinist, who sees God only in terror, and
sits brooding over the scenes of hell and damnation, can have no
joy in beholding the glories of the Creation. Nothing in that 


                         Bank of Wisdom
                  Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
                               15

                        PROSPECT PAPERS.

mighty and wondrous system accords with his principles or his
devotion. He sees nothing there that tells him that God created
millions on purpose to be damned, and that the children of a span
long are born to burn forever in hell. [NOTE: This phrase, about
the damnation of infants "a span long," was ascribed to Rev. Dr.
Emmons and several other extreme predestinarians in America. --
Editor.] The Creation preaches a different doctrine to this. We
there see that the care and goodness of God is extended impartially
over all the creatures he has made. The worm of the earth shares
his protection equally with the elephant of the desert. The grass
that springs beneath our feet grows by his bounty as well as the
cedars of Lebanon. Every thing in the Creation reproaches the
Calvinist with unjust ideas of God, and disowns the hardness and
ingratitude of his principles. Therefore he shuns the sight of them
on a Sabbath-day.

                              AN ENEMY TO CANT AND IMPOSITION.

                          ****     ****

                OF THE OLD AND THE NEW TESTAMENT.

     ARCHBISHOP Tillotson says: "The difference between the style
of the Old and New Testament is so very remarkable, that one of the
greatest sects in the primitive times, did, upon this very ground,
found their heresy of two Gods, the one evil, fierce, and cruel,
whom they called the God of the Old Testament; the other good,
kind, and merciful, whom they called the God of the New Testament
so great a difference is there between the representations that are
given of God in the books of the Jewish and Christian Religion, as
to give, at least, some color and pretence to an imagination of two
Gods." Thus far Tillotson.

     But the case was, that as the Church had picked out several
passages from the Old Testament, which she most absurdly and
falsely calls prophecies of Jesus Christ, (whereas there is no
prophecy of any such person, as any one may see by examining the
passages and the cases to which they apply,) she was under the
necessity of keeping up the credit of the Old Testament, because if
that fell the other would soon follow, and the Christian system of
faith would soon be at an end. As a book of morals, there are
several parts of the New Testament that are good; but they are no
other than what had been preached in the Eastern world several
hundred years before Christ was born. Confucius, the Chinese
philosopher, who lived five hundred years before the time of
Christ, says, Acknowledge thy benefits by the return of benefits,
but never revenge injuries.

     The clergy in Popish countries were cunning enough to know
that if the Old Testament was made public the fallacy of the New,
with respect to Christ, would be detected, and they prohibited the
use of it, and always took it away wherever they found it. The
Deists, on the contrary, always encouraged the reading it, that
people might see and judge for themselves, that a book so full of
contradictions and wickedness could not be the word of God, and
that we dishonor God by ascribing it to him.

                                             A TRUE DEIST.

                         Bank of Wisdom
                  Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
                               16

                        PROSPECT PAPERS.

       HINTS TOWARDS FORMING A SOCIETY FOR INQUIRING INTO
        THE TRUTH OR FALSEHOOD OF ANCIENT HISTORY, SO FAR
        AS HISTORY IS CONNECTED WITH SYSTEMS OF RELIGION
                       ANCIENT AND MODERN.

     IT has been customary to class history into three divisions,
distinguished by the names of Sacred, Profane, and Ecclesiastical.
By the first is meant the Bible; by the second, the history of
nations, of men and things; and by the third, the history of the
church and its priesthood.

     Nothing is more easy than to give names, and, therefore, mere
names signify nothing unless they lead to the discovery of some
cause for which that name was given. For example, 'Sunday' is the
name given to the first day of the week, in the English language,
and it is the same in the Latin, that is, it has the same meaning,
(Dies solis,) and also in the German, and in several other
languages. Why then was this name given to that day? Because it was
the day dedicated by the ancient world to the luminary which in the
English we call the Sun, and therefore the day 'Sun-day,' or the
day of the Sun; as in the like manner we call the second day
Monday, the day dedicated to the Moon.

     Here the name Sunday leads to the cause of its being called
so, and we have visible evidence of the fact, because we behold the
Sun from whence the name comes; but this is not the case when we
distinguish one part of history from another by the name of Sacred.
All histories have been written by men. We have no evidence, nor
any cause to believe, that any have been written by God. That part
of the Bible called the Old Testament, is the history of the Jewish
nation, from the time of Abraham, which begins in Genesis xi., to
the downfall of that nation by Nebuchadnezzar, and is no more
entitled to be called sacred than any other history. It is
altogether the contrivance of priestcraft that has given it that
name. So far from its being sacred, it has not the appearance of
being true in many of the things it relates. It must be better
authority than a book which any impostor might make, as Mahomet
made the Koran, to make a thoughtful man believe that the sun and
moon stood still, or that Moses and Aaron turned the Nile, which is
larger than the Delaware, into blood, and that the Egyptian
magicians did the same. These things have too much the appearance
of romance to be believed for fact.

     It would be of use to inquire, and ascertain the time, when
that part of the Bible called the Old Testament first appeared.
From all that can be collected there was no such book till after
the Jews returned from captivity in Babylon, and that it is the
work of the Pharisees of the Second Temple. How they came to make
Kings xix. and Isaiah xxxvii. word for word alike, can only be
accounted for by their having no plan to go by, and not knowing
what they were about. The same is the case with respect to the last
verses in 2d Chronicles, and the first verses in Ezra; they also
are word for word alike, which shows that the Bible has been put
together at random.





                         Bank of Wisdom
                  Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
                               17

                        PROSPECT PAPERS.

     But besides these things there is great reason to believe we
have been imposed upon with respect to the antiquity of the Bible, 
and especially with respect to the books ascribed to Moses.
Herodotus, who is called the father of history, and is the most
ancient historian whose works have reached to our time, and who
travelled into Egypt, conversed with the priests, historians,
astronomers, and learned men of that country, for the purpose of
obtaining all the information of it he could, and who gives an
account of the ancient state of it, makes no mention of such a man
as Moses, though the Bible makes him to have been the greatest hero
there, nor of any one circumstance mentioned in the Book of Exodus
respecting Egypt, such as turning the rivers into blood, the dust
into lice, the death of the first born throughout all the land of
Egypt, the passage of the Red Sea, the drowning of Pharaoh and all
his host, things which could not have been a secret in Egypt, and
must have been generally known, had they been facts; and,
therefore, as no such things were known in Egypt, nor any such man
as Moses, at the time Herodotus was there, which is about two
thousand two hundred years ago, it shows that the account of these
things in the books ascribed to Moses is a made story of later
times, -- that is, after the return of the Jews from the Babylonian
captivity, -- and that Moses is not the author of the books
ascribed to him.

     With respect to the cosmogony, or account of the Creation, in
Genesis i., of the Garden of Eden in chapter ii., and of what is
called the Fall of Man in chapter iii., there is something
concerning them we are not historically acquainted with. In none of
the books of the Bible, after Genesis, are any of these things
mentioned, or even alluded to. How is this to be accounted for? The
obvious inference is, that either they were not known, or not
believed to be facts, by the writers of the other books of the
Bible, and that Moses is not the author of the chapters where these
accounts are given.

     The next question on the case is, how did the Jews come by
these notions, and at what time were they written?

     To answer this question we must first consider what the state
of the world was at the time the Jews began to be a people, for the
Jews are but a modern race compared with the antiquity of other
nations. At the time there were, even by their own account, but
thirteen Jews or Israelites in the world, Jacob and his twelve
sons, and four of these were bastards, the nations of Egypt,
Chaldea, Persia, and India, were great and populous, abounding in
learning and science, particularly in the knowledge of astronomy,
of which the Jews were always ignorant. The chronological tables
mention that eclipses were observed at Babylon above two thousand
years before the Christian era, which was before there was a single
Jew or Israelite in the world.

     All those ancient nations had their cosmogonies, that is,
their accounts how the Creation was made, long before there was
such people as Jews or Israelites. An account of these cosmogonies
of India and Persia is given by Henry Lord, Chaplain to the Fast
India Company at Surat, and published in London in 1630. The writer
of this has seen a copy of the edition of 1630, and made extracts 
from it. The work, which is now scarce, was dedicated by Lord to
the Archbishop of Canterbury.
                         Bank of Wisdom
                  Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
                               18

                        PROSPECT PAPERS.

     We know that the Jews were carried captive into Babylon by
Nebuchadnezzar, and remained in captivity several years, when they
were liberated by Cyrus king of Persia. During their captivity they
would have had an opportunity of acquiring some knowledge of the
cosmogony of the Persians, or at least of getting some ideas how to
fabricate one to put at the head of their own history after their
return from captivity. This will account for the cause, for some
cause there must have been, that no mention nor reference is made
to the cosmogony in Genesis in any of the books of the Bible
supposed to have been written before the captivity, nor is the name
of Adam to be found in any of those books.

     The books of Chronicles were written after the return of the
Jews from captivity, for the third chapter of the first book gives
a list of all the Jewish kings from David to Zedekiah, who was
carried captive into Babylon, and to four generations beyond the
time of Zedekiah. In Chron. i. I, the name of Adam is mentioned,
but not in any book in the Bible written before that time, nor
could it be, for Adam and Eve are names taken from the cosmogony of
the Persians. Henry Lord, in his book, written from Surat and
dedicated, as I have already said, to the Archbishop of Canterbury,
says that in the Persian cosmogony the name of the first man was
Adamoh, and of the woman Hevah. [NOTE: In an English edition of the
Bible, in 1583, the first woman is called Hevah. -- Editor of the
Prospact.] From hence comes the Adam and Eve of the book of
Genesis. In the cosmogony of India, of which I shall speak in a
future number, the name of the first man was Pourous, and of the
woman Parcoutee. We want a knowledge of the Sanscrit language of
India to understand the meaning of the names, and I mention it in
this place, only to show that it is from the cosmogony of Persia,
rather than that of India, that the cosmogony in Genesis has been
fabricated by the Jews, who returned from captivity by the
liberality of Cyrus, king of Persia. There is, however, reason to
conclude, on the authority of Sir William Jones, who resided
several years in India, that these names were very expressive in
the language to which they belonged, for in speaking of this
language, he says, (see the Asiatic Researches,) "The Sanscrit
language, whatever be its antiquity, is of wonderful structure; it
is more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and
more exquisitely refined than either."

     These hints, which are intended to be continued, will serve to
shew that a Society for inquiring into the ancient state of the
world, and the state of ancient history, so far as history is
connected with systems of religion ancient and modern, may become
a useful and instructive institution. There is good reason to
believe we have been in great error with respect to the antiquity
of the Bible, as well as imposed upon by its contents. Truth ought
to be the object of every man; for without truth there can be no
real happiness to a thoughtful mind, or any assurance of happiness
hereafter. It is the duty of man to obtain all the knowledge he
can, and then make the best use of it.                 T.P.

                          ****     ****





                         Bank of Wisdom
                  Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
                               19

                        PROSPECT PAPERS.

        TO MR. MOORE, OF NEW YORK, COMMONLY CALLED BISHOP
                             MOORE.

     [NOTE: Benjamin Moore, D.D., Rector of Trinity Church, New
York, 1800, elected Bishop 1801, died 1816. Ordained by the Bishop
of London, 1774. For a time President of Columbia College, New
York. Alexander Hamilton fell in a duel with Aaron Burr (1804). --
Editor.]

     I HAVE read in the newspapers your account of the visit you
made to the unfortunate General Hamilton, and of administering to
him a ceremony of your church which you call the 'Holy Communion.'

     I regret the fate of General Hamilton, and I so far hope with
you that it will be a warning to thoughtless man not to sport away
the life that God has given him; but with respect to other parts of
your letter I think it very reprehensible, and betrays great
ignorance of what true religion is. But you are a priest, you get
your living by it, and it is not your worldly interest to undeceive
yourself.

     After giving an account of your administering to the deceased
what you call the Holy Communion, you add, "By reflecting on this
melancholy event let the humble believer be encouraged ever to hold
fast that precious faith which is the only source of true
consolation in the last extremity of nature. Let the infidel be
persuaded to abandon his opposition to the Gospel."

     To show you, sir, that your promise of consolation from
scripture has no foundation to stand upon, I will cite to you one
of the greatest falsehoods upon record, and which was given, as the
record says, for the purpose, and as a promise, of consolation.

     In the epistle called the First Epistle of Paul to the
Thessalonians, iv., the writer consoles the Thessalonians as to the
case of their friends who were already dead. He does this by
informing them, and he does it he says, by the word of the Lord, (a
most notorious falsehood,) that the general resurrection of the
dead and the ascension of the living will be in his and their days;
that their friends will then come to life again; that the dead in
Christ will rise first. -- "Then WE (says he, ver. 17, 18) which
are alive and remain shall be caught up together with THEM in the
clouds, to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with
the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words."

     Delusion and falsehood cannot be carried higher than they are
in this passage. You, sir, are but a novice in the art. The words
admit of no equivocation. The whole passage is in the first person
and the present tense, "We which are alive." Had the writer meant
a future time, and a distant generation, it must have been in the
third person and the future tense. "They who shall then be alive."
I am thus particular for the purpose of nailing you down to the
text, that you may not ramble from it, nor put other constructions
upon the words than they will bear, which priests are very apt to
do.




                         Bank of Wisdom
                  Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
                               20

                        PROSPECT PAPERS.

     Now, sir, it is impossible for serious man, to whom God has
given the divine gift of reason, and who employs that reason to
reverence and adore the God that gave it, it is, I say, impossible
for such a man to put confidence in a book that abounds with fable
and falsehood as the New Testament does. This passage is but a
sample of what I could give you.

     You call on those whom you style "infidels," (and they in
return might call you an idolater, a worshipper of false gods, a
preacher of false doctrine,) "to abandon their opposition to the
Gospel." Prove, sir, the Gospel to be true, and the opposition will
cease of itself; but until you do this (which we know you cannot
do) you have no right to expect they will notice your call. If by
infidels you mean Deists, (and you must be exceedingly ignorant of
the origin of the word Deist, and know but little of Deus, to put
that construction upon it,) you will find yourself over-matched if
you begin to engage in a controversy with them. Priests may dispute
with priests, and sectaries with sectaries, about the meaning of
what they agree to call scripture, and end as they began; but when
you engage with a Deist you must keep to fact. Now, sir, you cannot
prove a single article of your religion to be true, and we tell you
so publicly. Do it, if you can. The Deistical article, the belief
of a God, with which your creed begins, has been borrowed by your
church from the ancient Deists, and even this article you dishonor
by putting a dream-begotten phantom [NOTE by PAINE: The first
chapter of Matthew, relates that Joseph, the betrothed husband of
Mary, dreamed that the angel told him that his intended bride was
with child by the Holy Ghost. It is not every husband, whether
carpenter or priest, that can be so easily satisfied, for lo! it
was a dream. Whether Mary was in a dream when this was done we are
not told. It is, however, a comical story. There is no woman living
can understand it. -- Author.] which you call his son, over his
head, and treating God as if he was superannuated. Deism is the
only profession of religion that admits of worshipping and
reverencing God in purity, and the only one, on which the
thoughtful mind can repose with undisturbed tranquillity. God is
almost forgotten in the Christian religion. Every thing, even the
creation, is ascribed to the son of Mary.

     In religion, as in every thing else, perfection consists in
simplicity. The Christian religion of Gods within Gods, like wheels
within wheels, is like a complicated machine that never goes right,
and every projector in the art of Christianity is trying to mend
it. It is its defects that have caused such a number and variety of
tinkers to be hammering at it, and still it goes wrong. In the
visible world no time-keeper can go equally true with the sun; and
in like manner, no complicated religion can be equally true with
the pure and unmixed religion of Deism,

     Had you not offensively glanced at a description of men whom
you call by a false name, you would not have been troubled nor
honored with this address; neither has the writer of it any desire
or intention to enter into controversy with you. He thinks the
temporal establishment of your church politically unjust and
offensively unfair; [NOTE: Paine's reference is to the English
Church, with which the Episcopal Church in America was affiliated.
After the Declaration of Independence that Church still held
exceptional advantages, in some of the States, by their glebes, but

                         Bank of Wisdom
                  Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
                               21

                        PROSPECT PAPERS.

it was legally established only as other denominations were, and
are, by the exemption of their property from taxation, -- Editor.]
but with respect to religion itself, distinct from temporal
establishments, he is happy in the enjoyment of his own, and he
leaves you to make the best you can of yours.

                              A MEMBER OF THE DEISTICAL CHURCH.

                          ****     ****

                          TO JOHN MASON

[NOTE: John Mason, D.D., 1770-1829. This celebrated Presbyterian
orator had been the particular friend of Hamilton, who was also a
Presbyterian so far as he held any dogmas. In his last moments
Hamilton desired Dr. Mason to administer the sacrament to him, but
as this did not accord with Presbyterian usage, Bishop Moore
performed that office. -- Editor.]

         ONE OF THE MINISTERS OF THE SCOTCH PRESBYTERIAN
CHURCH, OF NEW YORK, WITH REMARKS ON HIS ACCOUNT
       OF THE VISIT HE MADE TO THE LATE GENERAL HAMILTON.

     "Come now, let us REASON together saith the Lord." This is one
of the passages you quoted from your Bible, in your conversation
with General Hamilton, as given in your letter, signed with your
name, and published in the Commercial Advertiser, and other New
York papers, and I re-quote the passage to show that your text and
your Religion contradict each other.

     It is impossible to reason upon things not comprehensible by
reason; and therefore, if you keep to your text, which priests
seldom do, (for they are generally either above it, or below it, or
forget it,) you must admit a religion to which reason can apply,
and this certainly is not the Christian religion.

     There is not an article in the Christian religion that is
cognizable by reason. The Deistical article of your religion, the
belief of a God, is no more a Christian article than it is a
Mahometan article. It is an universal article, common to all
religions, and which is held in greater purity by Turks than by
Christians; but the Deistical church is the only one which holds it
in real purity; because that church acknowledges no co-partnership
with God. It believes in him solely; and knows nothing of Sons,
married Virgins, nor Ghosts. It holds all these things to be the
fables of priest-craft.

     Why then do you talk of Reason, or refer to it, since your
religion has nothing to do with reason, nor reason with that? You
tell people as you told Hamilton, that they must have faith! Faith
in what? You ought to know that before the mind can have faith in
any thing, it must either know it as a fact, or see cause to
believe it on the probability of that kind of evidence that is
cognizable by reason. But your religion is not within either of
these cases; for, in the first place, you cannot prove it to be
fact; and in the second place, you cannot support it by reason, not
only because it is not cognizable by reason, but because it is 


                         Bank of Wisdom
                  Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
                               22

                        PROSPECT PAPERS.

contrary to reason. What reason can there be in supposing, or
believing that God put himself to death to satisfy himself, and be
revenged on the Devil on account of Adam? For, tell the story which
way you will it comes to this at last.

     As you can make no appeal to Reason in support of an
unreasonable religion, you then (and others of your profession)
bring yourselves off by telling people they must not believe in
reason but in revelation. This is the artifice of habit without
reflection. It is putting words in the place of things; for do you
not see that when you tell people to believe in revelation, you
must first prove that what you call revelation, is revelation; and
as you cannot do this, you put the word, which is easily spoken, in
the place of the thing you cannot prove. You have no more evidence
that your Gospel is revelation than the Turks have that their Koran
is revelation, and the only difference between them and you is,
that they preach their delusion and you preach yours.

     In your conversation with General Hamilton, you say to him,
"The simple truths of the Gospel which require no abstruse
investigation, but faith in the veracity of 'God who cannot lie,'
are best suited to your present condition."

     If those matters you call "simple truths" are what you call
them, and require no abstruse investigation, they would be so
obvious that reason would easily comprehend them; yet the doctrine
you preach at other times is, that the mysteries of the Gospel are
beyond the reach of reason. If your first position be true, that
they are simple truths, priests are unnecessary, for we do not want
preachers to tell us the sun shines; and if your second be true,
the case, as to effect, is the same, for it is waste of money to
pay a man to explain unexplainable things, and loss of time to
listen to him. That God cannot lie, is no advantage to your
argument, because it is no proof that priests cannot, or, that the
Bible does not. Did not Paul lie when he told the Thessalonians
that the general resurrection of the dead would be in his life-
time, and that he should go up alive along with them into the
clouds to meet the Lord in the air? i Thes. iv. 17.

     You spoke of what you call, "the precious blood of Christ."
This savage style of language belongs to the priests of the
Christian religion. The professors of this religion say they are
shocked at the accounts of human sacrifices of which they read in
the histories of some countries. Do they not see that their own
religion is founded on a human sacrifice, the blood of man, of
which their priests talk like so many butchers? It is no wonder the
Christian religion has been so bloody in its effects, for it began
in blood, and many thousands of human sacrifices have since been
offered on the altar of the Christian religion.

     It is necessary to the character of a religion, as being true,
and immutable as God himself is, that the evidence of it be equally
the same through all periods of time and circumstance. This is not
the case with the Christian religion, nor with that of the Jews
that preceded it, (for there was a time and that within the
knowledge of history, when these religions did not exist,) nor is
it the case with any religion we know of but the religion of Deism.


                         Bank of Wisdom
                  Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
                               23

                        PROSPECT PAPERS.

In this the evidences are eternal and universal." The heavens
declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handiwork.
Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto nigh showeth
knowledge." [NOTE by PAINE: This Psalm (19) which is a Deisdeal
Psalm, is so much in the manner of some parts of the book of job,
(which is not a book of the Jews, and does not belong to the
Bible,) that it has the appearance of having been translated into
Hebrew from the same language in which the book of Job was
originally written, and brought by the Jews from Chaldea or Persia,
when they returned from captivity. The contemplation of the heavens
made a great part of the religious devotion of the Chaldeans and
Persians, and their religious festivals were regulated by the
progress of the sun through the twelve signs of the Zodiac. But the
Jews knew nothing about the Heavens, or they would not have told
the foolish story of the sun's standing still upon a hill, and the
moon in a valley. What could they want the moon for in the day
time? -- Author.] But all other religions are made to arise from
some local circumstance, and are introduced by some temporary
trifle which its partizans call a miracle, but of which there is no
proof but the story of it.

     The Jewish religion, according to the history of it, began in
a wilderness, and the Christian religion in a stable. The Jewish
book tell us of wonders exhibited upon mount Sinai. It happened
that nobody lived there to contradict the account. The Christian
books tell us of a star that hung over the stable at the birth of
Jesus. There is no star there now, nor any person living that saw
it. But all the stars in the heavens bear eternal evidence to the
truth of Deism. It did not begin in a stable, nor in a wilderness.
It began every where. The theater of the universe is the place of
its birth.

     As adoration paid to any being but GOD himself is idolatry:
the Christian religion by paying adoration to a man, born of a
woman called Mary, belongs to the idolatrous class of religions;
consequently the consolation drawn from it is delusion. Between you
and your rival in communion ceremonies, Dr. Moore of the Episcopal
church, you have, in order to make yourselves appear of some
importance, reduced General Hamilton's character to that of a
feeble minded man, who in going out of the world wanted a passport
from a priest. Which of you was first or last applied to for this
purpose is a matter of no consequence.

     The man, sir, who puts his trust and confidence in God, that
leads a just and moral life, and endeavors to do good, does not
trouble himself about priests when his hour of departure comes, nor
permit priests to trouble themselves about him. They are in general
mischievous beings where character is concerned; a consultation of
priests is worse than a consultation of physicians.

                         A MEMBER OF THE DEISTICAL CONGREGATION.

                          ****     ****






                         Bank of Wisdom
                  Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
                               24

                        PROSPECT PAPERS.

           ON DEISM, AND THE WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE.

     [NOTE: Though at this distance of time one paragraph in this 
article may seem egotistical, it should be remembered that Paine
was then the object of furious attacks in religious papers and
pulpits on account of his Deism. -- Editor.]

     THE following reflections, written last winter, were
occasioned by certain expressions in some of the public papers
against Deism and the writings of Thomas Paine on that subject.

     "Great is Diana of the Ephesians," was the cry of the people
of Ephesus (Acts xix. 28); and the cry of "our holy religion" has
been the cry of superstition in some instances, and of hypocrisy in
others, from that day to this.

     The Brahmin, the follower of Zoroaster, the Jew, the
Mahometan, the church of Rome, the Greek church, the Protestant
church, split into several hundred contradictory sectaries,
preaching in some instances damnation against each other, all cry
out, "our holy religion." The Calvinist, who damns children of a
span long to hell to burn forever for the glory of God, (and this
is called Christianity,) and the Universalist who preaches that all
shall be saved and none shall be damned, (and this also is called
Christianity,) boast alike of their holy religion and their
Christian faith. [NOTE: Universalism in America long held strictly
to orthodox dogmas, with the exception that the atonement was
declared to be efficacious for the salvation of all mankind. Its
doctrines are now Unitarian. -- Editor.] Something more therefore
is necessary than mere cry and wholesale assertion, and that
something is TRUTH; and as inquiry is the road to truth, he that is
opposed to inquiry is not a friend to truth.

     The God of Truth is not the God of fable; when, therefore, any
book is introduced into the world as the Word of God, and made a
ground-work for religion, it ought to be scrutinized more than
other books to see if it bear evidence of being what it is called.
Our reverence to God demands that we do this, lest we ascribe to
God what is not his, and our duty to ourselves demands it lest we
take fable for fact, and rest our hope of salvation on a false
foundation. It is not our calling a book holy that makes it so, any
more than our calling a religion holy that entitles it to the name.
Inquiry therefore is necessary in order to arrive at truth. But
inquiry must have some principle to proceed on, some standard to
judge by, superior to human authority.

     When we survey the works of Creation, the revolutions of the
planetary system, and the whole economy of what is called nature,
which is no other than the laws the Creator has prescribed to
matter, we see unerring order and universal harmony reigning
throughout the whole. No one part contradicts another. The sun does
not run against the moon, nor the moon against the sun, nor the
planets against each other. Every thing keeps its appointed time
and place. This harmony in the works of God is so obvious, that the
farmer of the field, though he cannot calculate eclipses, is as
sensible of it as the philosophical astronomer. He sees the God of
order in every part of the visible universe.


                         Bank of Wisdom
                  Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
                               25

                        PROSPECT PAPERS.

     Here, then, is the standard to which every thing must be
brought that pretends to be the work or Word of God, and by this
standard it must be judged, independently of any thing and every
thing that man can say or do. His opinion is like a feather in the
scale compared with the standard that God himself has set up.

     It is, therefore, by this standard, that the Bible, and all
other books pretending to be the Word of God, (and there are many
of them in the world,) must be judged, and not by the opinions of
men or the decrees of ecclesiastical councils. These have been so
contradictory, that they have often rejected in one Council what
they had voted to be the word of God in another; and admitted what
had been before rejected. In this state of uncertainty in which we
are, and which is rendered still more uncertain by the numerous
contradictory sectaries that have sprung up since the time of
Luther and Calvin, what is man to do? The answer is easy. Begin at
the root -- begin with the Bible itself. Examine it with the utmost
strictness. It is our duty so to do. Compare the parts with each
other, and the whole with the harmonious, magnificent order that
reigns throughout the visible universe, and the result will be,
that if the same almighty wisdom that created the universe dictated
also the Bible, the Bible will be as harmonious and as magnificent
in all its parts, and in the whole, as the universe is. But if,
instead of this, the parts are found to be discordant,
contradicting in one place what is said in another, (as in 2 Sam.
xxiv. I, and I Chron. xxi. I, where the same action is ascribed to
God in one book and to Satan in the other,) abounding also in idle
and obscene stories, and representing the Almighty as a passionate,
whimsical Being, continually changing his mind, making and unmaking
his own works as if he did not know what he was about, we may take
it for certainty that the Creator of the universe is not the author
of such a book, that it is not the Word of God, and that to call it
so is to dishonor his name. The Quakers, who are a people more
moral and regular in their conduct than the people of other
sectaries, and generally allowed so to be, do not hold the Bible to
be the word of God. They call it a history of the times, and a bad
history it is, and also a history of bad men and of bad actions,
and abounding with bad examples.

     For several centuries past the dispute has been about
doctrines. It is now about fact. Is the Bible the Word of God, or
is it not? For until this point is established, no doctrine drawn
from the Bible can afford real consolation to man, and he ought to
be careful he does not mistake delusion for truth. This is a case
that concerns all men alike.

     There has always existed in Europe, and also in America, since
its establishments, a numerous description of men, (I do not here
mean the Quakers,) who did not, and do not believe the Bible to be
the Word of God. These men never formed themselves into an
established society, but are to be found in all the sectaries that
exist, and are more numerous than any, perhaps equal to all, and
are daily increasing. From Deus, the Latin word for God, they have
been denominated Deists, that is, believers in God. It is the most
honorable appellation that can be given to man, because it is
derived immediately from the Deity. It is not an artificial name
like Episcopalian, Presbyterian, etc., but is a name of sacred 
signification, and to revile it is to revile the name of God.

                         Bank of Wisdom
                  Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
                               26

                        PROSPECT PAPERS.

     Since then there is so much doubt and uncertainty about the
Bible, some asserting and others denying it to be the Word of God,
it is best that the whole matter come out. It is necessary for the
information of the world that it should. A better time cannot offer
than while the government, [NOTE: Under the presidency of
Jefferson. -- Editor.] patronizing no one sect or opinion in
preference to another, protects equally the rights of all; and
certainly every man must spurn the idea of an ecclesiastical
tyranny, engrossing the rights of the press, and holding it free
only for itself.

     Whilst the terrors of the Church, and the tyranny of the
State, hung like a pointed sword over Europe, men were commanded to
believe what the Church told them, or go to the stake. All
inquiries into the authenticity of the Bible were shut out by the
Inquisition. We ought therefore to suspect that a great mass of
information respecting the Bible, and the introduction of it into
the world, has been suppressed by the united tyranny of Church and
State, for the purpose of keeping people in ignorance, and which
ought to be known.

     The Bible has been received by the Protestants on the
authority of the Church of Rome, and on no other authority. It is
she that has said it is the Word of God. We do not admit the
authority of that Church with respect to its pretended
infallibility, its manufactured miracles, its setting itself up to
forgive sins, its amphibious doctrine of transubstantiation, etc.;
and we ought to be watchful with respect to any book introduced by
her, or her ecclesiastical Councils, and called by her the Word of
God: and the more so, because it was by propagating that belief and
supporting it by fire and faggot, that she kept up her temporal
power. That the belief of the Bible does no good in the world, may
be seen by the irregular lives of those, as well priests as laymen,
who profess to believe it to be the Word of God, and the moral
lives of the Quakers who do not. It abounds with too many ill
examples to be made a rule for moral life, and were a man to copy
after the lives of some of its most celebrated characters, he would
come to the gallows.

     Thomas Paine has written to show that the Bible is not the
Word of God, that the books it contains were not written by the
persons to whom they are ascribed, that it is an anonymous book,
and that we have no authority for calling it the Word of God, or
for saying it was written by inspired penmen, since we do not know
who the writers were. This is the opinion not only of Thomas Paine,
but of thousands and tens of thousands of the most respectable
characters in the United States and in Europe. These men have the
same right to their opinions as others have to contrary opinions,
and the same right to publish them. Ecclesiastical tyranny is not
admissible in the United States.

     With respect to morality, the writings of Thomas Paine are
remarkable for purity and benevolence; and though he often enlivens
them with touches of wit and humor, he never loses sight of the
real solemnity of his subject. No man's morals, either with respect
to his Maker, himself, or his neighbor, can suffer by the writings
of Thomas Paine. [NOTE: This article was anonymous. -- Editor.] It 


                         Bank of Wisdom
                  Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
                               27

                        PROSPECT PAPERS.

is now too late to abuse Deism, especially in a country where the
press is free, or where free presses can be established. It is a
religion that has God for its patron and derives its name from him.
The thoughtful mind of man, wearied with the endless contentions of
sectaries against sectaries, doctrines against doctrines, and
priests against priests, finds its repose at last in the
contemplative belief and worship of one God and the practice of
morality; for as Pope wisely says,

         He can't be wrong, whose life is in the right."

                               IX

                        PROSPECT PAPERS.

               OF THE BOOKS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.

                    ADDRESS TO THE BELIEVERS
               IN THE BOOK CALLED THE SCRIPTURES.

     THE New Testament contains twenty-seven books, of which four
are called Gospels; one called the Acts of the Apostles; fourteen
called the Epistles of Paul; one of James; two of Peter; three of
John; one of Jude; one called the Revelation.

     None of those books have the appearance of being written by
the persons whose names they bear, neither do we know who the
authors were. They come to us on no other authority than the Church
of Rome, which the Protestant Priests, especially those of New
England, call the Whore of Babylon. This church, or to use their
own vulgar language, this whore, appointed sundry Councils to be
held, to compose creeds for the people, and to regulate Church
affairs. Two of the principal of these Councils were that of Nice,
and of Laodicea (names of the places where the Councils were held,)
about three hundred and fifty years after the time that Jesus is
said to have lived. Before this time there was no such book as the
New Testament. But the Church could not well go on without having
something to show, as the Persians showed the Zeildavesta, revealed
they say by God to Zoroaster; the Bramins of India, the Shaster,
revealed, they say, by God to Brama, and given to him out of a
dusky cloud; the Jews, the books they call the Law of Moses, given
they say also out of a cloud on Mount Sinai. The Church set about
forming a code for itself out of such materials as it could find or
pick up. But where they got those materials, in what language they
were written, or whose handwriting they were, or whether they were
originals or copies, or on what authority they stood, we know
nothing of, nor does the New Testament tell us. The Church was
resolved to have a New Testament, and as, after the lapse of more
than three hundred years, no handwriting could be proved or
disproved, the Church, which like former impostors had then gotten
possession of the State, had every thing its own way. it invented
creeds, such as that called the Apostles Creed, the Nicean Creed,
the Athanasian Creed, and out of the loads of rubbish that were
presented it voted four to be Gospels, and others to be Epistles,
as we now find them arranged.




                         Bank of Wisdom
                  Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
                               28

                        PROSPECT PAPERS.

     Of those called Gospels, above forty were presented, each
contending to be genuine. Four only were voted in, and entitled:
the Gospel according to St. Matthew -- the Gospel according to St.
Mark -- the Gospel according to St. Luke -- the Gospel according to
St. John.

     This word according, shows that those books have not been
written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, but according to some
accounts or traditions, picked up concerning them. The word
"according" means agreeing with, and necessarily includes the idea
of two things, or two persons. We cannot say, The Gospel written by
Matthew according to Matthew, but we might say, the Gospel of some
other person according to what was reported to have been the
opinion of Matthew. Now we do not know who those other persons
were, nor whether what they wrote accorded with anything that
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John might have said. There is too little
evidence, and too much contrivance, about those books to merit
credit.

     The next book after those called Gospels, is that called the
Acts of the Apostles. This book is anonymous; neither do the
Councils that compiled or contrived the New Testament tell us how
they came by it. The Church, to supply this defect, say it was
written by Luke, which shows that the Church and its priests have
not compared that called the Gospel according to St. Luke and the
Acts together, for the two contradict each other. The book of Luke,
xxiv., makes Jesus ascend into heaven the very same day that it
makes him rise from the grave. [NOTE: With reference to Luke xxiv.
51, it is said in the Revised Version, "Some ancient authorities
omit and was carried up into heaven." -- Editor.]  The book of
Acts, i. 3, says that he remained on earth forty days after his
crucifixion. There is no believing what either of them says.

     The next to the book of Acts is that entitled, "The Epistle of
Paul the Apostle [NOTE by PAINE: According to the criterion of the
Church, Paul was not an Apostle; that appelladon being given only
to those called the Twelve. Two sailors belonging to a man of war
got into a dispute upon this point, whether Paul was an Apostle or
not, and they agreed to refer it to the boatswain, who decided very
canonically that Paul was an acting Apostle but not rated. --
Author.] to the Romans." This is not an Epistle, or letter, written
by Paul or signed by him. It is an Epistle, or letter, written by
a person who signs himself TERTIUS, and sent, as it is said in the
end, by a servant woman called Phebe. The last chapter, ver. 22,
says, "I Tertius, who wrote this Epistle, salute you." Who Tertius
or Phebe were, we know nothing of. The Epistle is not dated. The
whole of it is written in the first person, and that person is
Tertius, not Paul. But it suited the Church to ascribe it to Paul.
There is nothing in it that is interesting except it be to
contending and wrangling sectaries. The stupid metaphor of the
potter and the clay is in chapter ix.

     The next book is entitled "The First Epistle of Paul the
Apostle to the Corinthians." This, like the former, is not an
Epistle written by Paul, nor signed by him. The conclusion of the
Epistle says, "The first epistle to the Corinthians was written
from Philippi, by Stephanas, and Fortunatus, and Achaicus, and 


                         Bank of Wisdom
                  Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
                               29

                        PROSPECT PAPERS.

Timotheus." The second epistle entitled, "The second Epistle of
Paul the Apostle to the Corffithians," is in the same case with the
first. The conclusion of it says, "It was written from Philippi, a
city of Macedonia, by Titus and Lucas."

     A question may arise upon these cases, which is, are these
persons the writers of the epistles originally, or are they the
writers and attestors of copies sent to the Councils who compiled
the code or canon of the New Testament? If the epistles had been
dated this question could be decided; but in either of the cases
the evidences of Paul's hand writing and of their being written by
him is wanting, and, therefore, there is no authority for calling
them Epistles of Paul. We know not whose Epistles they were, nor
whether they are genuine or forged.

     The next is entitled, "The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the
Galatians." It contains six short chapters, yet the writer of it
says, vi. II, "Ye see how large a letter I have written to you with
my own hand." If Paul was the writer of this it shows he did not
accustom himself to write long epistles; yet the epistle to the
Romans and the first to the Corinthians contain sixteen chapters
each; the second to the Corinthians and that to the Hebrews
thirteen each. There is something contradictory in these matters.
But short as the Epistle is, it does not carry the appearance of
being the work or composition of one person. Chapter v. 2 says, "If
ye be circumcised Christ shall avail you nothing." It does not say
circumcision shall profit you nothing, but Christ shall profit you
nothing. Yet in vi. 15 it says, "For in Christ Jesus neither
circumcision availeth any thing nor uncircumcision, but a new
creature." These are not reconcilable passages, nor can contrivance
make them so. The conclusion of the Epistle says it was written
from Rome, but it is not dated, nor is there any signature to it,
neither do the compilers of the New Testament say how they came by
it. We are in the dark upon all these matters.

     The next is entitled, "The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the
Ephesians." [NOTE: Here, and in each of the succeeding paragraphs
concerning the Epistles, Paine gives the number of their "short
chapters," which I omit. -- Editor.] Paul is not the writer. The
conclusion of it says, "Written from Rome unto the Ephesians by
Tychicus."

     The next is entitled, "The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the
Philippians." Paul is not the writer. The conclusion of it says,
"It was written to the Philippians from Rome by Epaphroditus." It
is not dated. Query, were those men who wrote and signed those
Epistles journeymen Apostles, who undertook to write in Paul's
name, as Paul is said to have preached in Christ's name?

     The next is entitled, "The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the
Colossians." Paul is not the writer. Doctor Luke is spoken of in
this Epistle as sending his compliments. "Luke, the beloved
physician, and Demas, greet you." (iv. 14.) It does not say a word
about his writing any Gospel. The conclusion of the Epistle says,
"Written from Rome to the Colossians by Tychicus and Onesimus."




                         Bank of Wisdom
                  Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
                               30

                        PROSPECT PAPERS.

     The next is entitled, "The first and the second Epistles of
Paul the Apostle to the Thessalonians." Either the writer of these
Epistles was a visionary enthusiast, or a direct impostor, for he
tells the Thessalonians, and, he says, he tells them by the word of
the Lord, that the world will be at an end in his and their time;
and after telling them that those who are already dead shall rise,
he adds, iv. 17, "Then we which are alive and remain shall be
caught up with them into the clouds to meet the Lord in the air,
and so shall we be ever with the Lord." Such detected lies as
these, ought to fill priests with confusion, when they preach such
books to be the Word of God. These two Epistles are said in the
conclusion of them, to be written from Athens. They are without
date or signature.

     The next four Epistles are private letters. Two of them are to
Timothy, one to Titus, and one to Philemon. Who they were, nobody
knows.

     The first to Timothy, is said to be written from Laodicea. It
is without date or signature. The second to Timothy, is said to be
written from Rome, and is without date or signature. The Epistle to
Titus is said to be written from Nicopolis in Macedonia. It is
without date or signature. The Epistle to Philemon is said to be
written from Rome by Onesimus. It is without date.

     The last Epistle ascribed to Paul is entitled, "The Epistle of
Paul the Apostle to the Hebrews," and is said in the conclusion to
be written from Italy, by Timothy. This Timothy (according to the
conclusion of the Epistle called the second Epistle of Paul to
Timothy) was Bishop of the church of the Ephesians, and
consequently this is not an Epistle of Paul.

     On what slender cobweb evidence do the priests and professors
of the Christian religion hang their faith! The same degree of
hearsay evidence, and that at third and fourth hand, would not, in
a court of justice, give a man title to a cottage, and yet the
priests of this profession presumptuously promise their deluded
followers the kingdom of Heaven. A little reflection would teach
men that those books are not to be trusted to; that so far from
there being any proof they are the Word of God, it is unknown who
the writers of them were, or at what time they were written, within
three hundred years after the reputed authors are said to have
lived. It is not the interest of priests, who get their living by
them, to examine into the insufficiency of the evidence upon which
those books were received by the popish Councils who compiled the
New Testament. But if Messrs. Linn and Mason would occupy
themselves upon this subject (it signifies not which side they
take, for the event will be the same) they would be better employed
than they were last presidential election, in writing jesuitical
electioneering pamphlets. The very name of a priest attaches
suspicion on to it the instant he becomes a dabbler in party
politics. The New England priests set themselves up to govern the
state, and they are falling into contempt for so doing. Men who
have their farms and their several occupations to follow, and have
a common interest with their neighbors in the public prosperity and
tranquillity of their country, neither want nor choose to be told
by a priest who they shall vote for, nor how they shall conduct 
their temporal concerns.

                         Bank of Wisdom
                  Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
                               31

                        PROSPECT PAPERS.

     The cry of the priests that the Church is in danger, is the
cry of men who do not understand the interest of their own craft;
for instead of exciting alarms and apprehensions for its safety, as
they expect, it excites suspicion that the foundation is not sound,
and that it is necessary to take down and build it on a surer
foundation. Nobody fears for the safety of a mountain, but a
hillock of sand may be washed away! Blow then, O ye priests, "the
Trumpet in Zion," for the Hillock is in danger.

                                        DETECTOR -- P.

                       BIBLICAL BLASPHEMY.

     THE Church tells us that the books of the Old and New
Testament are divine revelation, and without this revelation we
could not have true ideas of God.

     The Deist, on the contrary, says that those books are not
divine revelation; and that were it not for the light of reason and
the religion of Deism, those books, instead of teaching us true
ideas of God, would teach us not only false but blasphemous ideas
of him.

     Deism teaches us that God is a God of truth and justice. Does
the Bible teach the same doctrine? It does not.

     The Bible says, (Jeremiah xx. 5, 7,) that God is a deceiver.
"O Lord (says Jeremiah) thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived.
Thou art stronger than I, and hast prevailed."

     Jeremiah not only upbraids God with deceiving him, but, in iv.
9, he upbraids God with deceiving the people of Jerusalem. "Ah!
Lord God, (says he,) surely thou hast greatly deceived this people
and Jerusalem, saying, ye shall have peace, whereas the sword
reacheth unto the soul."

     In xv. 8, the Bible becomes more impudent, and calls God in
plain language, a liar. "Wilt thou, (says Jeremiah to God,) be
altogether unto me as a liar and as waters that fail."

     Ezekiel xiv. 9, makes God to say -- "If the prophet be
deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I the Lord have deceived that
prophet." All this is downright blasphemy.

     The prophet Micaiah, as he is called, 2 Chron. xviii. 18-21,
tells another blasphemous story of God. "I saw," says he, "the Lord
sitting on his throne, and all the hosts of heaven standing on his
right hand and on his left. And the Lord said, who shall entice
Ahab, king of Israel, to go up and 'fall' at Ramoth Gilead? And one
spoke after this manner, and another after that manner. Then there
came out a spirit [Micaiah does not tell us where he came from] and
stood before the Lord, [what an impudent fellow this spirit was,]
and said, I will entice him. And the Lord said unto him, wherewith?
And he said, I will go out and be a lying spirit in the mouth of
all his prophets. And the Lord said, Thou shalt entice him, and
thou shalt also prevail; go out, and do even so,"



                         Bank of Wisdom
                  Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
                               32

                        PROSPECT PAPERS.

     We often hear of a gang of thieves plotting to rob and murder
a man, and laying a plan to entice him out that they may execute
their design, and we always feel shocked at the wickedness of such
wretches; but what must we think of a book that describes the
Almighty acting in the same manner, and laying plans in heaven to
entrap and ruin mankind? Our ideas of his justice and goodness
forbid us to believe such stories, and therefore we say that a
lying spirit has been in the mouth of the writers of the books of
the Bible.

                                                  T. P.

                      BIBLICAL ANACHRONISM.

     IN addition to the judicious remarks in your 12th number, on
the absurd story of Noah's flood, in Genesis vii. I send you the
following:

     The second verse makes God to say unto Noah, Of every 'clean'
beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female,
and of every beast that are 'not clean,' by two, the male and his
female."

     Now, there was no such thing as beasts 'clean' and 'unclean'
in the time of Noah. Neither were there any such people as Jews or
Israelites at that time, to whom that distinction was a law. The
law, called the law of Moses, by which a distinction is made,
beasts clean and unclean, was not until several hundred years after
the time that Noah is said to have lived. The story, therefore,
detects itself, because the inventor forgot himself, by making God
make use of an expression that could not be used at the time. The
blunder is of the same kind, as if a man in telling a story about
America a hundred years ago, should quote an expression from Mr.
Jefferson's inaugural speech as if spoken by him at that time.

     My opinion of this story is the same as what a man once said
to another, who asked him in a drawling tone of voice, "Do you
believe the account about No-ah?" The other replied in the same
tone of voice, ah-no.
                                                  T.P.

                     RELIGIOUS INTELLIGENCE.

     THE following publication, which has appeared in several
newspapers in different parts of the United States, shows in the
most striking manner the character and effects of religious
fanaticism, and to what extravagant lengths it will carry its
unruly and destructive operations. We give it a place in the
Prospect, because we think the perusal of it will be gratifying to
our subscribers; and, because, by exposing the true character of
such frantic zeal, we hope to produce some influence upon the
reason of man, and in duce him to rise superior to such dreadful
illusions.

     The judicious remarks at the end of this account were
communicated to us by a very intelligent and faithful friend to the
cause of Deism.


                         Bank of Wisdom
                  Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
                               33

                        PROSPECT PAPERS.

     Extract from a Letter of the Rev. George Scott, of Hill Creek,
Washington County, Pennsylvania, to Col. William M'Farran, of Mount
Bethel, Northampton County, Pa., dated November 3, 1802.

"MY DEAR FRIEND,

     We have wonderful times here. God has been pleased to visit
this barren corner with abundance of his grace. The work began in
a neighboring congregation, at a sacramental occasion, about the
last of September. It did not make its appearance in my
congregation till the first Tuesday of October. After society in
the night, there appeared an evident stir among the young people,
but nothing of the appearance of what appeared afterwards. On
Saturday evening following we had society, but it was dull
throughout. On Sabbath-day one cried out, but nothing else
extraordinary appeared. -- That evening I went part of the way to
the Raccoon congregation, where the sacrament of the supper was
administered; but on Monday morning a very strong impression of
duty constrained me to return to my congregation in the Flats,
where the work was begun. We met in the afternoon at the meeting-
house where we had a warm society. In the evening we removed to a
neighboring house, where we continued in society till midnight;
numbers were falling all the time of society. -- After the people
were dismissed, a considerable number stayed and sung hymns, till
perhaps two o'clock in the morning, when the work began to the
astonishment of all. Only five or six were left able to take care
of the rest, to the number perhaps of near forty. -- They fell in
all directions, on benches, on beds, and on the floor. Next morning
the people began to flock in from all quarters. One girl came early
in the morning, but did not get within one hundred yards of the
house before she fell powerless, and was carried in. We could not
leave the house, and, therefore, continued society all that day and
all that night, and on Wednesday morning I was obliged to leave a
number of them on the spot. On Thursday evening we met again, when
the work was amazing; about twenty persons lay to all appearance
dead for near two and a half hours, and a great number cried out
with sore distress. -- Friday I preached at Mill Creek. Here
nothing appeared more than an unusual solemnity. That evening we
had society, where great numbers were brought under conviction, but
none fell. On sabbath-day I preached at Mill Creek. This day and
evening was a very solemn time but none fell. On Monday I went to
attend presbytery, but returned on Thursday evening to the Flats,
where society was appointed, when numbers were struck down. On
Saturday evening we had society, and a very solemn time -- about a
dozen persons lay dead three and a half hours by the watch. On
sabbath a number fell, and we were obliged to continue all night in
society, as we had done every evening we had met before. On Monday
a Mr. Hughes preached at Mill Creek, but nothing extraordinary
appeared, only a great deal of falling. We concluded to divide that
evening into two societies, in order to accommodate the people. Mr.
H. attended the one and I the other. Nothing strange appeared where
Mr. H. attended; but where I attended God was present in the most
wonderful manner. I believe there was not one present but was more
or less affected. A considerable number fell powerless, and two or
three, after laying some time, recovered with joy, and spoke near
half an hour. One, especially, declared in a surprising manner the
wonderful view she had of the person, character, and offices of 


                         Bank of Wisdom
                  Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
                               34

                        PROSPECT PAPERS.

Christ, with such accuracy of language, that I was astonished to
hear it. Surely, this must be the work of God! On Thursday evening
we had a lively society, but not much falling down. On Saturday we
all went to the Cross Roads, and attended a sacrament. Here were,
perhaps, about 4000 people collected. The weather was
uncomfortable; on the Sabbath-day it rained, and on Monday it
snowed. We had thirteen ministers present. The exercises began on
Saturday, and continued on night and day with little or no
intermission. Great numbers fell; to speak within bounds, there
were upwards of 150 down at one time, and some of them continued
three or four hours with but little appearance of life. Numbers
came to, rejoicing, while others were deeply distressed. -- The
scene was wonderful; the cries of the distressed, and the agonizing
groans, gave some faint representation of the awful cries and the
bitter screams which will no doubt be extorted from the damned in
hell. But what is to me the most surprising, of those who have been
subjects among my people with whom I have conversed, but three had
any terrors of hell during their exercise. The principal cry is, O
how long have I rejected Christ! O how often have I embrued my
hands in his precious blood! O how often have I waded through his
precious blood by stifling conviction! O this dreadful hard heart!
O what a dreadful monster sin is! It was my sin that nailed Jesus
to the cross! &c.

     The preaching is various; some thunder the terrors of the law
-- others preach the mild invitation of the gospel. For my part,
since the work began, I have confined myself chiefly to the
doctrines of our fallen state by nature, and the way of recovery
through Christ; opening the way of salvation; showing how God can
be just and yet be the justifier of them that believe, and also the
nature of true faith and repentance; pointing put the difference
between true and false religion, and urging the invitations of the
gospel in the most engaging manner that I am master of, without any
strokes of terror. The convictions and cries appear to be, perhaps,
nearly equal under all these different modes of preaching, but it
appears rather most when we preach on the fullness and freeness of
salvation."

                      REMARKS BY MR. PAINE.

     In the fifth chapter of Mark, we read a strange story of the
Devil getting into the swine after he had been turned out of a man,
and as the freaks of the Devil in that story and the tumble-down
description in this are very much alike, the two stories ought to
go together. [Paine here quotes in full Mark v. 1-13.]

     The force of the imagination is capable of producing strange
effects. -- When Animal Magnetism began in France, which was while
Doctor Franklin was Minister to that country, the wonderful
accounts given of the wonderful effects it produced on the persons
who were under operation, exceeded any thing related in the
foregoing letter from Washington County. They tumbled down, fell
into trances, roared and rolled about like persons supposed to be
bewitched. The government, in order to ascertain the fact, or
detect the imposition, appointed a Committee of physicians to
inquire into the case, and Doctor Franklin was requested to
accompany them, which he did.


                         Bank of Wisdom
                  Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
                               35

                        PROSPECT PAPERS.

     The Committee went to the operator's house, and the persons on
whom an operation was to be performed were assembled. They were
placed in the position in which they had been when under former
operations, and 'blind-folded.' In a little time they began to show
signs of agitation, and in the space of about two hours they went
through all the frantic airs they had shown before; but the case
was, that no operation was performing upon them, neither was the
operator in the room, for he had been ordered out of it by the
physicians; but as the persons did not know this, they supposed him
present and operating upon them. It was the effect of imagination
only. Doctor Franklin, in relating this account to the writer of
this article, said, that he thought the government might as well
have let it gone on, for that as imagination sometimes produced
disorders it might also cure some. It is fortunate, however, that
this falling down and crying out scene did not happen in New
England a century ago, for if it had the preachers would have been
hung for witchcraft, and in more ancient times the poor falling
down folks would have been supposed to be possessed of a devil,
like the man in Mark, among the tombs. The progress that reason and
Deism make in the world lessen the force of superstition, and abate
the spirit of persecution.

                          ****     ****













    Reproducible Electronic Publishing can defeat censorship.










          This file, its printout, or copies of either
          are to be copied and given away, but NOT sold.










                         Bank of Wisdom
                  Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
                               36
