§&.rnn qns 
 
 I ^ 
 
 FIRST 
 
 OCT I 2 '62 
 
 
 MISSIONARY ORATION, 
 
 AS DELIVERED, OR INTENDED TO BE DELIVERED, 
 
 BEFORE THE THREE UNIVERSITIES, 
 
 AND IN 
 
 VARIOUS CITIES AND TOWNS 
 
 OF 
 
 ©ttglanb anti Irclanti, 
 
 BY 
 
 THE REV. ROBERT TAYLOR, 
 
 bachelor of arts, and member of the royal college of 
 SURGEONS, 
 
 IN THE SUMMER OF THE YEAR 
 
 1829. 
 
 I speak as to wise men ; Judge ye wliat I say. 
 
 1 Corinth., x. 15. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY R. CARLILE, 
 
 62 , FLEET STREET. 
 
 1829 . 
 
 I 
 
Otrr) 
 
 ermoN* 
 
 FIRST 
 
 MISSIONARY ORATION, 
 
 &c. 8$c. 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen, 
 
 The nature of the invitation on which you are here 
 convened, pledges on our part, a promise of matter 
 worthy of your attention ; as your attendance is the 
 pledge on yours, of willingness to hear, candour to 
 weigh, and equity to judge what we propound. 
 
 To be deficient of such weight of argument as might 
 justify the cafl that we have made, would in us, be folly — 
 I admit consummate folly: to want a liberality responsive 
 to that call, would be a deficiency elsewhere, which as 
 I name not, I fear not. 
 
 Men, Brethren, Intellectual, Intelligent, and Rational 
 inhabitants of this — ( Great City *) — I appeal to your 
 intellect, your intelligence and your reason. — Judge ye 
 what I say. 
 
 The pencil of Raphael never pourtrayed a sublimer 
 subject, nor could the mind of man conceive a more 
 august spectacle, than that of man reasoning with men, 
 — the orator in the assembly of the people, 
 
 “ ilium 
 
 quern mirabantur Athenae 
 Torrentem, et pleni moderantem fraena Theatri.f” 
 
 “ Whom Athens crowded theatre admired. 
 
 While with his voice, as with a rein he bent 
 Their ductile passions, and their pleased assent : J” 
 
 * Ancient town, or University, as it may be. 
 t Juvenalis Satira 10, line 128. 
 t Owen’s Poetical Version. 
 
 A 2 
 
 life 
 
4 
 
 or, than your own Christian Demosthenes, the aposto- 
 lic “ Chief of Sinners," in the same Areopagus, address- 
 ing and remonstrating with the philosophers of Pagan 
 Athens : — 
 
 AySpeg ciOrjvaioi Kara iravra wg SumdaipovtoTtpovg vpag dtui- 
 p<v, Siep^o/uevog yap, kcu avaOtivpaiv ra aefiaa para v/jlwv, ivpov 
 k ai ev w nrtyty paiTTO , ayvuorip Osw* 
 
 “Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too reli- 
 gious, for as I passed by and observed your devotions, I saw an 
 altar inscribed to the Unknown God.” 
 
 Endured the men of Athens such an attack on their 
 religion ? And have Christians, and Christian assem- 
 blies, in all ages, admitted the full propriety and admi- 
 rable fitness of such an appeal ? cited it, as the noblest 
 specimen of human eloquence — the best of reasoning, 
 in the best of causes? and applauded the transcendent 
 magnanimity of the man, who, like 
 
 “ the seraph Abdiel, faithful found 
 
 Among the faithless, faithful only he 
 Among innumerable false, unmoved ; 
 
 Unshaken, unseduced, unterrify’d 
 His loyalty he kept, his love, his zeal. 
 
 Nor number, nor example, with him wrought 
 To swerve from truth, or change his constant mind ?" 
 
 And shall an assembly, in an age of a thousand-fold the 
 intelligence of the age of Athens, be found incapable of 
 doing justice to a similar degree of virtue, offering pre- 
 cisely a similar argument. “ Ye men of 
 
 I perceive that in all things, ye are too religious. For 
 [ also have passed by, and have observed your devo- 
 tions, and have seen your altars to — an Unknown God.” 
 
 Suppose ye, that those men of Athens had exclaimed, 
 “ Who is this stranger?” Or had found reason enough 
 for refusing to listen to him, in the answer that might 
 have been given to that question. “ This is Paul of 
 Tarsus. This is that recreant from the faith of his fore- 
 
 * Acts xvii. 22. Spokeu in the attitude of Raphael's Cartoon, 
 Paul preaching at Athens. Griesbach’s Greek — Archbishop New- 
 comb’s translation. 
 
fathers, — the Blasphemer, the Infidel — who, in the ar- 
 rogance of his brain-sick vanity, hath changed his opi- 
 nions, and expects the insulted world to change with 
 him : who now professes the principles he once abjured, 
 and would destroy the faith which once he preached : 
 the Jew of yesterday — the Christian to-day ; that shall 
 be the Jew again, when the sun bakes his head on the 
 other side. " 
 
 Protect me, Sirs, with such an answer as yourselves 
 would find to such a challenge : and let the shield 
 which shall be broad enough to cover the advocate of 
 one cause, retain its dimensions when spread over the 
 advocate of another. Or take the alternative (if ye 
 choose it the rather,) of maintaining that it was only 
 from Pagans that liberality was to be expected ; and 
 that when a man has become a Christian, he should no 
 more listen to reason, nor be capable of justice. 
 
 Your Christian missionaries, Gentlemen, who, in the 
 sincerity of their convictions, and the intensity of their 
 charity, traverse the globe, 
 
 “From realm to realm, with cross or crescent crown’d. 
 Where’er mankind and misery are found,’ 
 
 to carry to them (as they conceive they carry,) “ the 
 glad tidings of salvation, to bind up the broken heart 
 and cheer the drooping mind,” deserve your applause, 
 and mine; and have it too for “ I would applaud them 
 to the very echo, that should applaud again.” They act 
 like honest men. They act as becomes good men. 
 For there is no greater goodness than in conferring 
 benefits on others. They act as becomes wise men. 
 For there is no greater wisdom than in laying out our 
 lives, for the very end for which we live ; — to aid and 
 serve mankind. 
 
 But applause, however merited, is but half the tribute 
 I owe them. I will imitate the virtue I admire. I will 
 equal it. I will transcend it. And transcend in such 
 degree, that they themselves shall own my pre-emi- 
 nence ; and I, not own that I have moved a finger in 
 
6 
 
 this cause, till “ I have been in labours more abundant 
 than they all.” 
 
 All that 1 demand shall be no more than the fairness 
 which they themselves demand. Let even-handed jus- 
 tice weigh me out the same share of attention which 
 they would think but reasonably to be granted, from 
 those whom they expect to convert to the Christian 
 faith. Let them not, themselves, put on the Christian 
 faith, a worse indignity than it could possibly receive 
 from me ; that of being exhibited as the only faith 
 under heaven — that will not brook opposition, and can- 
 not abide controversy. 
 
 Let me at least experience from civilized and enlight- 
 ened society, but only so much generosity as they would 
 challenge from the barbarians, their hearers : 
 
 “ From brassy bosoms and rough hearts of steel ; 
 
 From stubborn Turks and Tartars, never train'd 
 To offices of gentle courtesy.” 
 
 And I will show to them, the divinity of an inspiring 
 virtue in this bosom, the God within me ; a confidence 
 in this great cause, which dare trust it to the conflict of 
 opinion ; a zeal, the like of which never glowed, nor 
 could glow, in any Christian heart. Achieve they their 
 unenvied triumphs in the nurseries of infancy, or in the 
 chambers of decrepitude and age, ere reason hath shone 
 upon the mind, or after reason’s candles have burnt out. 
 Preach they to barbarous ignorance, uncultivated rude- 
 ness, and unquestioning impotence. Be they wise men, 
 where only themselves are wise, and eloquent, where 
 none may speak but they. 
 
 I seek the field of accomplished controversy, and 
 challenge the collision of mind with mind. I call on 
 men of the highest order of education, of most culti- 
 vated talents, most extensive research, and most labo- 
 rious learning, to abide the juxta-position of their learn- 
 ing and of mine. Nam et ego in Arcadia! For all I 
 offer, I stand on no higher ground, and none lower, than 
 that on which the Roman orator achieved and held the 
 
7 
 
 attention of a Roman audience; “Numfingo? Num 
 mentior? Cupio refelli. Quid enim laboro, nisi ut veritas 
 in omni quaestione illustretur.” — “Do I feign? Do I 
 lie ? I desire to be refuted : For wherefore do I labour, 
 but that in every question, truth may triumph.” 
 
 Shall it be urged against me, that I come a stranger 
 and an adventurer here, to disturb the intellectual 
 repose of thousands who were perfectly at ease in the 
 faith which I assail, in the belief of the doctrines which 
 I impugn. 
 
 Why, so? Then, Sirs, light all the blame upon me, 
 when it shall be shown that there is in reason a pre- 
 sumption, or in evidence a fact, to justify the presump- 
 tion, that the thousands could not possibly be most 
 injuriously deceived ; or that it is not possible to be 
 most injuriously deceived, and to be in a perfect state 
 of repose at the same time. 
 
 But this not being shown, nor to be shown; con- 
 demn not that same principle of conduct on your right 
 hand, which you profess to admire and revere on your 
 left: and deem not that a vice in us, which you would 
 account a virtue in any men, but us. 
 
 Had the repose of barbarous ignorance never been 
 disturbed. Had the thousands, for whom it might with 
 equal justice have been urged, that they were well 
 enough at ease, and perfectly satisfied with the modes 
 of thought which they had been brought up to enter- 
 tain, never been induced to entertain any other modes 
 of thought. Had scorn, and nought but scorn, been 
 due to every attempt to emancipate men's minds from 
 the thraldom of their prejudices. Had it been the duty 
 of the more knowing and the better informed, to keep 
 their better knowledge to themselves, to doff the bon- 
 net to the tyranny of ignorance, and submit to the usur- 
 pation of imposture ; the race of men might to this day 
 have run wild in the woods from which they sprang ; 
 and though they would have been, (as all wild men 
 are,) vastly religious, they would never have become 
 rational. 
 
8 
 
 The characteristic of civilized man, as distinguished 
 from his catabank and ourang-outang brother of the 
 forest, is not, to possess a perfect knowledge, nor to be 
 free from error ; but to be willing on all subjects, and 
 at all times, to correct his errors, and to increase his 
 knowledge. This he can only do, by submitting all his 
 modes of thought to the test of comparison with other 
 modes of thought, using his faculty of reason to reason 
 with, and his two ears for the purpose for which nature 
 gave him two — to hear on both sides. He who hath no 
 mind to do this , to all intents and purposes, hath no 
 mind at all, and however he may have cut his nails and 
 shaved his beard, may still know himself to be a lineal 
 descendant from John the Baptist. 
 
 Sirs — The very novelty, the manner, the arrange- 
 ment, time, place, and circumstances under which we 
 address you, (if not a poursuivant report of us and. of 
 our counsels,) prepare ye to expect, that we are not 
 come to tell you an old story. Had we come to do so, 
 you yourselves are conscious that we should have taken 
 the pains, which those who tell old stories, never fail 
 to take, to keep all the telling to ourselves : — and we are 
 conscious, that we should have had no other pains to 
 take. 
 
 No ignorance could be too gross, no fatuity too stolid 
 in the advocacy of the cause, which, (without witch- 
 craft) ye guess that we oppose ; to have wanted the con- 
 venience of the largest public room in this tow r n, or to 
 have failed to draw together the largest auditory. 
 
 The only thing which men are afraid to hear, and 
 are unwilling to have heard, is, (what they suspect that 
 we have brought them,) something worth hearing. 
 
 Were it a missionary meeting? Were it a religious 
 tract association, a Jew converting, gospel propagating, 
 or bible circulating society ; or any society or assembly 
 of men in which gospel and bible interests were 
 involved; you would see every means taken, fair or 
 foul, to shut out and bar off the possible collision of 
 adverse sentiment. 
 
9 
 
 The presence of one suspected of being unfriendly to 
 their proceedings, would be formidable ; his attempt 
 to offer them reason, would be terrible to them. They 
 would send for the Philistines to be in readiness 
 to bear him to the dungeon, if an honest man, but 
 came to look on them ; as knowing what they 
 cannot but know, that he must think, and guessing 
 what he would say, if he might speak the thing he 
 thought.* 
 
 The guilty felon shrinks not with more conscious 
 despair of his lost cause, from the ordeal of that cross- 
 examination which should be about to puzzle his con- 
 trivance, derange his schemes, detect his falsehood, and 
 drag him to the light of public refutation ; than the 
 advocates of what you are told is the cause of God and 
 of God’s word — shrink, quail, and shudder at the danger 
 of bein g found out, at the hazard of abiding such a test 
 as it was never any thing else but falsehood, that had 
 reason to fear. 
 
 To be sure, say they, “ our cause is that of omni- 
 potence itself : tis founded on a rock, the everlasting 
 rock of ages.” And I dare say, it is. But for all that ; 
 the confectioners very well know that their sugar-candy 
 castles were never built to abide the warm breath of an 
 Infidel. 
 
 Whatever other tests and trials Christianity and 
 Christians may be said to have gone through in confir- 
 mation of their sincerity and truth, they never yet went 
 through the trial of giving fair play to their adversaries, 
 of submitting their opinions to the tests by which alone 
 the validity of all opinions can be analyzed, and of deal- 
 ing with the adversaries of their faith, as they would 
 have the adversaries of their faith, deal with them. 
 
 Whatever weight may be due to the argument 
 
 * The committee of the Auxiliary Bible Society held at Free- 
 masons’ Hall, applied for officers at Bow-street, upon only seeing 
 that the Rev. Robert Taylor and Mr. Carlile were present at their 
 meeting on the 30th of April last. 
 
10 
 
 
 
 inferred from stories “of ages long ago betid,” of the 
 martyrdoms incurred and sufferings endured, (as we 
 are told by the venerable archdeacon who could not 
 afford to keep a conscience,*) endured (to be sure,) by 
 the primitive Christians in pledge of the sincerity of 
 their faith, their 
 
 “ unconquerable zeal, 
 
 And courage never to submit or yield, 
 
 And what was more, not to be overcome 
 
 the merit of that argument, in all experience and in all 
 observance of your immediate forefathers and yourselves, 
 up to this very day, stands on the side, exclusively on 
 the side of the opponents of Christianity, (as I wish to 
 God it did not.) 
 
 But they, and they alone, are called to sufferings. 
 They alone give evidence of the sincerity of their convic- 
 tion in the voluntary abdication of station and affluence, 
 and in the patient endurance of the most grievous wrongs. 
 They alone are subject to have their names cast out as 
 evil, to be disinherited of their family succession, to 
 have their motives maligned, their characters aspersed, 
 their fortunes pawned in recognizances and fines, their 
 dear liberty taken from them, and the brightest meri- 
 dian of their talents, shut up to shine upon the cheerless 
 walls, that neither justice, law, or reasowpver meant, but 
 for felony and crime. 
 
 I’ll say no more of this : but only ask ye, Sirs, to put 
 it to your honourable hearts ; upon any sort of evidence 
 of sincerity that man could give to men, to settle the 
 matter as ye will, whether the probability stands, that 
 it should be your mitred prelates, and your cassocked 
 priests, that are the honest men; — and we, that are the 
 hypocrites. 
 
 Or how say ye, Sirs, to the demonstration of fact, 
 which you cannot but by a painful effort, exclude from 
 
 * This was the avowed sentiment of the celebrated Archdeacon 
 Palcy ; and exemplified throughout the whole course of his life. — 
 Sec his Biography, attached to his “ Evidences of Christianity." 
 
II 
 
 its command on your conviction, that if we advocated 
 the cause which we oppose, and did so, either with the 
 most egregious incompetence, the wildest fanaticism, or 
 the most palpable hypocrisy ; we should have had no 
 occasion for characters — nor for abilities either. We 
 should do it all the better, for the absence of every 
 quality that is respectable in man ; and should only 
 have to tell you, that “the strength of God was made 
 manifest in our weakness, and his wisdom in our folly.” 
 Nobody would have suggested that you should suspect 
 our motives : nobody would have been afraid of the 
 impressions our harangues might produce on the 
 public mind. 
 
 We might have been Swedenborgians, Southcotians, 
 Muggletonians, Sandemanians, Jumpers, Dunkers, 
 Shakers, and Quakers, Haldanites, Glassites, Kilhamites, 
 Arminians, Socinians, Calvinians, Arians, Unitarians, 
 Sabbatarians, Millenarians, any thing in the world, so 
 we were but far enough off from being rational. 
 
 “ The meanest peasant in the kingdom, the most 
 illiterate, barbarous hind, in doating age or drivelling 
 idiotcy, would obtain a magistrate's licence to go a 
 preaching, and have liberty to disseminate his conceits, 
 however absurd, preposterous, or wicked they might be; 
 so they w r ere but absurd, preposterous, and wicked 
 enough, to pass for the inspirations of infinite wisdom.”* 
 
 The only case in which the magistrate would be 
 cautioned to have an eye on the proceedings, and the 
 clergy would be alarmed ; would be on the possible 
 coming forward of an honest man, who having dis- 
 covered how miserably mankind have been deceived, 
 dare run the hazard of their displeasure, for the gene- 
 rous purpose of undeceiving them. 
 
 Even such an one am I. And having after the 
 prosecution of this purpose for many years, paid the 
 ransom of this bold attempt, in the endurance of the 
 
 * The Author’s Defence on his Trial before the Lord Chief 
 Justice in the Court of King’s Bench, Guildhall, October 24, 1827. 
 
12 
 
 penalty of the law, for not having prosecuted it as by 
 law 1 might have done ; I return to it, as under 
 sanction and allowance of law ; 1 have dearly bought 
 the right to do. 
 
 “ Not in a tone of sarcasm and coarseness such as" 
 I was alleged to have used, and such as I have suffered 
 for having been alleged to have used, (and J dare say 
 the lamb did foul the water and use very unbecoming 
 language in the ears of the poor innocent wolf,) “ but 
 by solemn, serious, and deliberate argument addressed to 
 the minds of men capable of reasoning and judging of 
 such matters, to endeavour to bring the Christian religion 
 into disbelief ” This is law. This is Lord Chief 
 Justice Tenterden’s Court of King's Bench law. This 
 I paid for, in the endurance of the long wear and tear 
 of nine thousand and ninety-six hours' solitary confine- 
 ment. This I bought, at a price, beyond what I can 
 afford to pay for any thing more of the same commo- 
 dity : and I give it you for nothing. 
 
 “ To endeavour in public assemblies to bring the 
 Christian religion into disbelief — not in a tone of sar- 
 casm and coarseness, but by solemn, serious , and deli- 
 berate argument , addressed to the minds of men capable 
 of reasoning and judging of such matters."* (Oh, how 
 perfect is my memory !) This I have a right to do. 
 This right with all due reverence and respect for all 
 other rights, I come here to assert and exercise.' So 
 that if there be in this assembly, any persons conscious 
 of not being “ capable of reasoning and judging of 
 such matters," or not capable of appreciating the merit 
 of such “ solemn , serious, and deliberate argument," as 
 I have to offer, I do beseech their honoured incapability, 
 to protect itself from all offence, by leaving me, as far 
 as their presence shall obstruct my vista, to address the 
 friezes, cornices, and pilasters of this apartment, which 
 
 * Sec Lord Tenterden’s Charge to the Jury on the Author’s Trial 
 for alleged blasphemy. 
 
13 
 
 to my mind's conceit, would pay me a more flattering- 
 attention, and be quite as good judges. 
 
 To the intelligent, “ to persons capable of reasoning 
 and judging of such matters ,” (and such alone seek 1 
 to reason with) whose professed faith in Christianity, 
 should be thought to be founded on the convictions of 
 
 O 
 
 their reason ; 1 owe, and I most freely pay, the allow- 
 ances 1 expected for myself, when up to an advanced 
 period of my life, (somewhat too much advanced) I 
 thought, and reasoned ; and felt, and judged as they do. 
 
 For I have been — and as the sanctity of priesthood, 
 once conferred, is held to be an indelible sanctification 
 barring all subsequent apostacy, or unworthiness of the 
 recipient, I am, against my will, 1 am full of the Holy 
 Ghost — even a priest for ever, after the order of Mel- 
 chisedec. 
 
 From the sincerest convictions of an honest heart, I 
 once preached the faith of a divine Redeemer. I have 
 abjured that faith. My convictions are the reverse of 
 what they were. Say, sirs ! when a man finds that he 
 cannot lodge his faith and his honesty together, in the 
 same bosom, which of them it is, that he should give 
 notice to quit. 
 
 For some seven or eight years, I officiated at the altars 
 of the Established Church, whose holy orders still I 
 hold ; and with a measure of talent and ability which 
 wanted not its recognition then, from those who will no 
 longer find it convenient to have a memory; I won 
 laurels in the Christian cause ; and in the pulpits of 
 London and its vicinity; and in my own at Midhurst, 
 in Sussex ; I filled those pulpits as a Minister of the 
 Gospel, compared to any other Minister of the Gospel, 
 neither inferior nor second, themselves being judges. 
 
 This plead I, only in conciliation of the prejudice 
 that would give the authority of falsely arrogated claims 
 to superior knowledge, and better means of information 
 on the great question at issue, to those whose minds 
 have settled down into a state of conviction, into which 
 
14 
 
 my mind lias entered as deeply as theirs; with the only 
 difference, of not settling down into that state. 
 
 And while I accuse not them, of not having gone to 
 the bottom of the argument; I claim excuse from them, 
 for having dashed through the bottom, and come out at 
 the other side. 
 
 But without a metaphor: this advantage is indis- 
 putably on our side ; that the Christian Minister who 
 has become an Infidel, cannot have failed to have 
 brought over with him, all the means of knowledge 
 which Christianity could give its advocates. 
 
 No rational man will talk of the possibility of any 
 thing being to be known of the Christian religion, of 
 which a Christian Minister could be ignorant. 
 
 “ He that believeth hath the witness in himself.” 
 But he must recollect that that, is a sort of witness 
 he must for ever keep to himself, and with which, he 
 has no right , as he has no power to command the con- 
 viction of another. 
 
 The apostate from Christianity, knows what it is to 
 have been a Christian : has seen the country, has 
 breathed its air, has conversed with its inhabitants, 
 hath learned its language, hath conned its polity, hath 
 proved and known, all that could be known of Chris- 
 tianity. But the Christian knows not what it is to be 
 an Infidel, knows not the merit of the Infidel argument: 
 and is afraid of nothing else on earth so much, as that 
 he should know it. 
 
 On one side there has been a comparison made, and 
 a judgment formed on that comparison — on the other, 
 there has been no comparison, and consequently no 
 judgment. 
 
 The self-same principle of implicit faith, which 
 makes a man a believer in Jesus, would, under another 
 line of latitude make him a believer in Juggernaut. 
 
 He who has embraced truth itself, without being at 
 the pains of sifting it ; only treats the diamond as he 
 would treat the sand. 
 
15 
 
 “ Puts truth and falsehood on the same level, 
 
 And serves his God, as he would serve the — any thing else.'' 
 
 But would that well-informed, that deeply-thinking, 
 and sincerely conscientious man ; who, for himself, is 
 entirely convinced of the truth of the Christian religipn, 
 and who, in the strong language that such persons ever 
 delight in, would be ready to seal his conviction with 
 his blood, and to die if it might be a thousand deaths? 
 Will that man say, that one whose convictions were 
 the diametrically reverse of his own, who held Chris- 
 tianity to be as false, as he esteems it to be true, as great 
 a curse as he esteems it to be a blessing, as infinitely 
 mischievous, as he accounts it to be beneficial to man- 
 kind; should suppress his convictions, or be constrained 
 by force or fraud to suppress them, should stand by 
 and see deluded millions fleeced, cajoled, and cheated, 
 and the neck of humanity trod into the kennel of fana- 
 ticism, to underprop the dignity of knaves, and conse- 
 crate the ravings of madmen? 
 
 Will he say that zeal, sincerity, and honesty, are only 
 virtues, when enlisted in his regiment, and subservient 
 to the schemes of his ambition ? 
 
 Or would he say, that, should such a change of mind 
 take place in him, the like of which, he hath seen take 
 place in minds not inferior to his ; he would, himself, upon 
 that change, forthwith throw from him all the honour- 
 able sentiments that now animate his honourable heart, 
 renounce all heroism of character, and become the sub- 
 mitting slave and truckling coward that he would have 
 an Infidel to be ? — 
 
 Why then, Sirs! by your own honour and honourable 
 sentiments, judge ye the part which it should become a 
 man to act (just for a moment on the supposition that 
 the wheel of chance had once in a century thrown up 
 such a man,) as in maturer life should have discovered 
 that those things which he had once held to be true, 
 were not true; that his simplicity had been imposed on, 
 that in his state of unresisting infancy, he had been 
 
16 
 
 inoculated with a disease fatal to thousands, but 
 which, the fortune of his manhood's strength had hap- 
 pily thrown out of his constitution, and he had become 
 restored to the happiness of a perfection of intellectual 
 health, which only those who enjoy can appreciate or 
 desire ; but which to w r ant, is to be somewhat more of 
 the beast than of the man, to want all that gives dignity 
 to reason, and sweetness to existence. 
 
 The sun itself in the visible heavens, is not more 
 glaring to the eye than is the glaring fact of the unpre- 
 cedented increase • the wide spread and unresisted 
 march of Infidelity. Where, ten or twenty years ago, 
 an Infidel was rarely to be met, now myriads may be 
 encountered. Not a well-educated family is there in 
 England, that numbers not among its members, an 
 avowed, or a suspected Infidel : nay, not an individual 
 is there who meets another whom he suspects of being- 
 more knowing than himself, but he suspects him at the 
 same time, of being none the better Christian for his 
 better knowledge. 
 
 The age of Puritanism, the times in which the expir- 
 ing embers of fanaticism which smoulder among the 
 indistinguishable rubbish of worn out conceits, were 
 jirst kindled, compared to the happier day in these re- 
 spects, on which our fate has thrown us, would make it 
 seem that the mind of man was no longer what it was. 
 
 But medical science has ascertained the solution of 
 this phenomenon. It is now known, that the human 
 species are, and have been, subject to the reign of various 
 diseases, which after having prevailed forages, become 
 gradually, and sometimes suddenly, or in the course 
 only of one or two generations, entirely extinct. 
 
 On the extinction of these diseases, or men’s becom- 
 ing less liable to them than their ancestors had been ; 
 the moral as well as physical characters of men become 
 capable of infinite improvement : and the sons and 
 daughters of a more wholesome generation in finding 
 themselves immune from the diseases which plagued 
 

 17 
 
 their forefathers, will find themselves in like degree su- 
 perior to the conceits and follies which their diseases had 
 entailed on them. 
 
 Thus the scrofulous knots and indurations which are 
 found in the soft and pulpy substance of the lungs; and 
 which being there situated, cause consumption and 
 asthma ; when the like obstructions block up the func- 
 tions of the still softer and more delicate substance of 
 the brain; do precisely, on the same law of physical 
 action, produce the religious character , and that indis- 
 position to take the pains of thinking, and that invinci- 
 ble indolence and lassitude of mind, which constitutes 
 the essence of sincere faith. 
 
 These schirosities and tubercles of the brain, are 
 found to be becoming every day of less frequent oc- 
 currence. The disease is on the retreat. The parts of 
 the brain, so long impeded by these tumours, have been 
 observed in innumerable instances, but most frequently 
 in the prime of youth, or perfection of manhood, to 
 have thrown them off, and thereby to have recovered 
 their essential and healthy action. So that the happy 
 individual, without any account that he can give of the 
 secret workings of the vis-medicatrix naturae for his de- 
 liverance, begins, as he supposes, to think for himself, 
 and only having begun to think, is astonished that he 
 should not have perceived before, the reality of things 
 which his disease had obliterated his faculty of per- 
 ceiving, and which have burst like the discoveries of a 
 new sense, on his awakened capabilities. 
 
 Having as good a claim to the credit of competent 
 information on these subjects, as the Royal (College of 
 Surgeons, can guarantee in those who hold the honour 
 of its diploma; (which honour that learned body has 
 conferred on me,) I am competent to stake that dis- 
 tinction in challenge of credit for the anatomical accu- 
 racy of the physiology on which I insist ; and to avow 
 that it is known to their august body, and to all phre- 
 nologists and anatomists, that the brain is subject to 
 
 B 
 
 % 
 
IS 
 
 these affections r and that these affections, and these 
 alone, are the proximate causes of all the differences that 
 appear in the development of religious character. « 
 
 And I would put it to the conscientiousness of the 
 most religious man on earth, who dare trust himself to 
 contemplate his own anatomy ; whether he be not con- 
 scious, that what he calls his religious frames and feel- 
 ings, vary as his health varies ; and that one-half of 
 •the strength of his faith, depends on the state of his 
 nervous system, -and the other half too. 
 
 But not so, with those whose wicked trade it is, to 
 inoculate men with this disease, who insert the deadly 
 virus under the soft skin of unresisting infancy, who 
 persuade the patient that the hectic flushes of the fever 
 they have induced, are the bloom of health ; that the 
 ravings of his delirium, are the inspirations of infinite 
 wisdom^. that his madness is his happiness; that he 
 would become a lost man if he were to recover his reason, 
 and that those who seek to cure him, are his enemies. 
 
 These men, (indeed the greatest enemies of man, and 
 as far as they themselves are uninfected by the plague 
 they spread, of all mankind the worst,) have found it 
 decent to spoon into the gaping mouth of scepticism, 
 the composing draught of a pretence to Historical 
 Evidences. They have pretended that the Christian 
 faith, was founded upon facts ; that their figments were 
 real personages ; and that the miraculous events which 
 they relate, were historical verities. 
 
 On this ground then, they may be met. On this 
 ground, I come to meet them. If it be firm beneath 
 their feet, what have they to fear ? Can I unmake ve- 
 rities ? Can I destroy facts ? Can either they or /, 
 make that which shall appear to be truth, appear to be 
 false ; and break down the everlasting distinctions be- 
 tween fact and fable? 
 
 If the truth be with them, even on their side, aye all 
 on their side ; in the opposition to which I call them ; 
 I am more, and more faithfully the Minister of Truth 
 
19 
 
 than they are, paying the only homage that can be ac- 
 ceptable to truth, showing her no favour. 
 
 In the strength of these convictions, I was induced, 
 after the failure of a similar attempt in Ireland, in 
 which I hardly escaped from murderous violence; to 
 institute in the metropolis, an arrangement for the pur- 
 pose of calling together the most learned, pious, and 
 zealous of my reverend brethren, and ofall other conscien- 
 tious and competently learned persons, to form what 
 should be called The Christian Evidence So- 
 ciety ; in the weekly meetings of which, myself and 
 they, should, (after the alleged most primitive and apos- 
 tolical usage,) hold ourselves ready to reason with the 
 people, to relieve the perplexities of scepticism, and 
 encounter the objections of Infidelity. 
 
 I had the happiness of presiding, through the course 
 of three years, at ninety-three public discussions ; and 
 had established the Areopagus of the Christian Evi- 
 dence Society, on such a respectable foundation, as 
 provoked assault of a more calm and calculating, but 
 not less wicked character, than that from which I had 
 escaped in Dublin. — Good Christian people ^were 
 pleased to fasten their Christian accusations on me, and 
 cast me into prison. 
 
 The Christian Evidence Society , under my auspices, 
 my presidency, and my avowal, had put forth its mani- 
 festo, in respectful challenge to all ministers and com- 
 petently learned professors of the Christian religion, 
 to come forward and disprove if they could, the four 
 grand propositions, therein maintained. To wit, 
 
 First. That the Scriptures of the New Testament 
 were not written by the persons, whose names they bear. 
 
 Secondly. That they did not appear in the times 
 to which they refer. 
 
 Thirdly. That the persons of whom they treat never 
 existed, and (as in that proposition involved,) 
 
 Fourthly. That the events which they relate, never 
 happened. 
 
 b 2 
 
20 
 
 These propositions, which at any rate were either true 
 or false : and if false — the more egregiously false, the 
 more easily to be shown to be so : were encountered 
 by the never-failing resource of tyranny, its power to 
 punish. The strong arm of the law was called in: and 
 three indictments for alleged blasphemy, were prose- 
 cuted to the ruin of the Areopagus, to the imprisonment 
 of its founder, and to the breaking up of every thing, 
 but of the virtue of a heart inspired with the love of 
 truth ; and with that love, with courage to maintain, and 
 fortitude to suffer for it. 
 
 The gloomy hours of solitary imprisonment, afforded 
 a leisure (which few men enjoy, and no man would 
 wish) for the further prosecution of these important 
 studies; and after the completion of a controversial 
 work, entitled “ Syntagma” of the evidences of the 
 Christian Religion, being a vindication of the Manifesto 
 of the Christian Evidence Society: with the 
 further diversion of supplying Fifty Letters, on 
 coincident subjects, to the weekly numbers of “The 
 Lion,” my whole remaining energies and leisure were 
 devoted to the solution of the great problem, that has 
 for the last ten years, engaged my solicitude; and which 
 had certainly never before been solved. That is, 
 
 If Christianity had not the origin which Christians 
 have been taught to believe that it had, what was its 
 origin ? 
 
 Behold the answer! The Diegesis. 
 
 The Diegesis, or first general narrative, was the 
 name of that religious romance, which the Egyptian 
 monks, the Essenes or Therapeuts, read in the Uni- 
 versity of Alexandria, as apart of their divine worship; 
 and had preached in the different colonies, or missionary 
 stations which they had formed, in Rome, Corinth, 
 Ephesus, Philippi, Colosse, Thessalonica; and generally 
 throughout the then known world, many years, ages, or 
 certainly any number of years before the period assigned 
 as that of the birth of Christ 
 
21 
 
 This Diegesis, was the first draught, from which 
 our first three canonical Gospels, (and the thirty-nine 
 apocryphal Gospels which are of still earlier date, than 
 the canonical Gospels,) are plagiarisms: that is, compi- 
 lations in which the real fact of their being no more 
 than compilations, is not acknowledged; and the false 
 appearance of being original compositions, is set forth. 
 
 This Diegesis, contained the substance of the San- 
 scrit romance of the Incarnate God , Ciirishna, w'hich 
 the monks of Egypt had derived from their Brahminical 
 ancestors. In accordance with their professed Eclectic 
 philosophy; (which consisted of what they called “con- 
 centrating the rays of truth wherever scattered, through- 
 out the world, into one bright focus,”) they amalgamated, 
 or mixed up this Hindostanee romance, with the no less 
 fabulous, but no less sacred adventures of the Phoeni- 
 cian God, Yes, or Bacchus , a personification of the 
 sun; whose name in full length, in Greek letters, and 
 surrounded with the rays of glory, (the universal and 
 never-to-be-mistaken emblem of the sun) constitutes to 
 this day, the mystical three letters, i. h. s. on the altars 
 and pulpit-cloths of our Christian pagodas. 
 
 Read but those letters, as what they are, Greek, and 
 not Roman letters; and, i. h. s. is jes; and to this 
 Greek name, attach only the Latin termination us, and 
 you have the result, Jesus, the monkish-latin name 
 of the Syrio-Phcenieian Bacchus. Jesus, and 
 Chrishxa together, make the compound Jesus 
 Christ; whose whole story, life, doctrines, miracles 
 and mysteries, were the subject matler of that Gospel 
 according to the Egyptians , which was first called the 
 Diegesis ; and which Diegesis was read anions: the 
 Therapeuts of Egypt, many years before the Augustan 
 era, (that is, before the age which ill luck has fixed as 
 that of the birth of Christ.) 
 
 This untoward admission has fallen from the highest 
 and earliest authority that could be quoted on the 
 subject; the great ecclesiastical historian Eusebius 
 

 22 
 
 Pamphilus, in the 16th chapter of the 2nd book of his 
 Ecclesiastical History ; where, detailing the account 
 which Philo, who was himself a member of the Thera- 
 peutan college, had given of the Therapeutan doctrines, 
 at a time when Jesus Christ, (if such a person ever 
 really existed,) could have been not more than ten years 
 of age ; he expressly states his opinion ; that certain 
 Diegeses, which they called their ancient writings , 
 contained the very matter of the gospels and epistles 
 since constituting the New Testament. 
 
 Ta^a 8’ eiKog a ap%aiwv nap avroip eivai (rvyypappara, 
 
 ivayyeXia, k at ra e rwv anoaroXwv y patpac, Anjyriastc Tt riva c, 
 ( Kara to hkoq,) ra»v naXat npotypTivv ipprtvtvriKac, tmaToXai, 
 ravra uvai.* 
 
 The astonishment and confusion of Dr. Lardner, 
 upon stumbling upon the threshold of this blue cham- 
 ber, induced him to bang the door in the face of 
 curiosity, and say no more on’t: as it induced me, for 
 that very reason, to prosecute the inquiry to all conse- 
 quences that it might lead to, and proclaim the result 
 which Lardner feared to look on. 
 
 I found that Dr. Lardner himself, had been con- 
 strained by overwhelming evidence, to admit, that 
 every one of the epistles of the New Testament, had 
 been written before any one of our four Gospels. Yet 
 every one of these epistles implies the existence and 
 universal acceptance of gospels, already known and 
 believed at the time, and any time anterior to the time, 
 when those epistles were written. 
 
 But the Gospel of St. Luke, the most respectable of 
 the four that are deemed canonical, (in a passage whose 
 sense by “ a bald translation,” eludes the observance of 
 the unlearned reader,) expressly makes the admission 
 that that gospel really was , and pretended to be no 
 more, than, “ a setting-forth-in-order or more metho- 
 dical arrangement of that self-same legend of the monks 
 of Egypt — the D i eg esi s. 
 
 * Euseb. Eccl. Hist. lib. 2, cap. 16, fol. cd. Colonise Allobrofjnm 
 1612, p. 60, ad literam, D. linea 6. 
 

 23 
 
 E7rt(Sr)7rep noXXoi iirt^tiprioav avara^aaOai AIHTH2IN ntpi 
 T(ov TrfirXiipo<popiyjevii)v £v rjjuiv irp ay fiarwv ; tcaOwg vapeSoaav 
 rj/utv oi a iv ap\t )g avronrai (cat vmjptTai ytvoptvoi tov Xoyov. 
 ESofc k irapriKoXov9r)KOTi avwdtv tt aaiv aKpi(3u>c, ica0£wr)C 
 trot ypaxpai, Kpariare OtotyiXt, iva tviyvipQ irepi iov Karr}\iiOi)Q 
 Xoyujv Trjv aaipaXeiav. 
 
 “ Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set 
 forth in order the Diegesis of those things which we 
 very well understand ; and , so forth , I thought I might 
 as well take it in hand too.” 
 
 I give therefore to the world, in the work which 1 
 have for these reasons, entitled the Diegesis, “ a dis- 
 covery of the origin, evidences, and early history of 
 Christianity, never yet before, or elsewhere so fully and 
 faithfully set forth.” 
 
 In this work, the demonstration is in every respect, 
 perfect, and absolutely complete ; That the writers of 
 the four Gospels, are no such persons as Christians have 
 been led to believe them to be ; and consequently that 
 Christians have been, and are deceived. 
 
 That the writings which pass as gospels according to 
 Matthew, Mark, and Luke, (for critics have almost 
 done with attempting to defend that of St. John,)* are 
 only versions according to Matthew, Mark, and Luke; 
 who each of them drew from some one, and the same ; 
 or from some different previously existing translation of 
 the Diegesis. 
 
 As this Diegesis itself, long anterior to the epocha 
 assigned as that of the birth of Christ, as it is demon- 
 strated to be, was a rendering into the language of 
 Egypt, of the original history of Chrishxa, which 
 was contained in the most distinguished of the eighteen 
 Puranas of the Brahmins; that is, in that called the 
 Bh ag a vat Pur an a, which the Brahmins ascribe 
 to the inspired pen of the sublime Vyasa, who is 
 stated to have flourished, (and astronomical observations 
 
 * Bretschneider, and our Bishop Marsh for that. 
 
24 
 
 confirm the fact, that lie flourished,) in Hindostan, 
 fourteen hundred years, before the Christian era.* 
 
 This high antiquity of the story of Chkishna, had 
 been admitted by the pious and learned Sir William 
 Jones, (who had read the Bhagavat in the original,) 
 in the most express terms, “ that the name of Chrishna, 
 and the general outline of his story, were long anterior 
 to the birth of our Saviour, and probably to the time of 
 Homer, we know very certainly .’’f 
 
 This date of fourteen hundred years before the com- 
 mencement of the Christian era, had been announced 
 in the History of Ancient India, and in the Life of 
 Chrishna, published from a manuscript in the British 
 Museum, by the learned and ReverendThomas Maurice, 
 (a conservator of that Museum,) as “ resting on solid 
 ground of information Though afterwards, in a 
 series of letters addressed to those Right Reverend 
 and Most Reverend Fathers in God, the Lords, the 
 Bishops, and Archbishops of the Episcopal Bench, he 
 would, (with reason enough ) recal an admission that 
 would stand so awkwardly by the side of his other 
 admission, that “ such is the series of parallel facts and 
 passages, so strikingly consonant in many respects with 
 those recorded of our Saviour, that every mind capable 
 of a moment's reflection , must consider the former as 
 imitations of the latter .Ӥ 
 
 The Brahmins are thus charged with being the 
 forgers, without any conceivable motive why they 
 should have forged, what they could as well have 
 invented ; and are alleged to have vampt up their 
 evidence of the remoter antiquity, by an ingen. ous 
 astronomical calculation of back reckonings. 
 
 But out, alas! for even this evasion! It can be 
 shown, (and by the learned Professor Playfair of Edin- 
 burgh, it has been brought to proof,) that the Brahmins, 
 
 * Ibid, preface, p. 2. 
 
 t Asiatic Researches, vol. 1, p. 259. 
 
 J Preface to Indian Sceptic Refuted, 2. § Ibid, p. IK). 
 
25 
 
 to have made such back reckonings, must have been well 
 acquainted with the most refined of the theoretical im- 
 provements of modern astronomy, as discovered by Sir 
 Isaac Newton, and perfected very lately by the philoso- 
 phers of France. It has been established beyond all 
 resistance of controversy, that the worship of Chrish- 
 na, was in general prevalence in India, in the time of 
 Alexander the Great. The statue of this god is found 
 in the very oldest caves and temples, throughout all 
 India. Their churches were built in the form of crosses ; 
 and “ the inscriptions in them, are in a language used 
 previously to the Sanscrit, and now totally unknown 
 even to the Brahmins themselves, as may be seen at this 
 day, among other places, in the city of Seringham, and 
 in the temple of Malvalipuram." * 
 
 Nor is it necessary to show that the monks of Egypt, 
 who read the Diegesis, in their ecclesiastical esta- 
 blishment at Alexandria, and in all the missionary colo- 
 nies they had formed, in Asia, Europe, and Africa ; so 
 many years before the Augustan era, had imported or 
 adopted the foolish story of their Incarnate God, 
 from foreigners, or professors of a religion opposed to 
 their own : 
 
 Nor even that “ the Sublime Vyasa,” the scribe of 
 the Bhagavat Purana, who is so clearly shown to have 
 flourished fourteen hundred years before our date of the 
 birth of Christ, was the first author of that evangelical 
 romance : 
 
 Nor that there was ever any general importation or 
 sudden adoption by one country of the superstitions of 
 another ; since the clearest astronomical calculations 
 have been found to confirm the accuracy of the highest 
 authorities of historical evidence — the testimonies of 
 Herodotus, who flourished 484 years before, and of 
 Pomponius Mela, who wrote only 45 years after our 
 fictitious era — “ that Egypt had been governed by a 
 succession of Hindoo princes, for upwards of thirteen 
 
 * Diegesis, p. 177- 
 
26 
 
 thousand years; and had preserved astronomical 
 annals for one hundred and ninety-sir thousand years ; 
 and that, since the Hindoos came into Egypt, “ quater 
 cursus suos vertissi, sidera ac. Sotem"* — that the Sun and 
 Constellations had changed their courses four times ; that 
 is, that the sun had passed through four signs of the 
 zodiac : which, on the admission of its having passed 
 through half the sign which preceded those four signs, 
 and three-fourths of the sign which followed them, 
 makes the eleven thousand three hundred and forty 
 years, which Herodotus has assigned, precisely ; it re- 
 quiring 2160 years for the sun to pass backwards 
 through a sign of thirty degrees, at the rate of seventy- 
 two years to a degree. 
 
 These accuracies of astronomical calculation, are 
 supported by the fact of the Hindostanee or Indian 
 character still discernible in all the remains of Egyptian 
 antiquity; and by the undesigned admissions of all 
 who have had occasion to treat, or to allude to, the 
 colonization of Egypt. 
 
 “ Quaque pharetratae vicinia Persidis urget 
 Et viridem Egyptum, nigra fcecuudat arena 
 Et diversa ruens septem discurrit in ora 
 Usque coloratus amnis, dexexus ab Indis.f" 
 
 “ For where with seven-fold horns mysterious Nile 
 Surrounds the skirts of Egypt’s fruitful isle ; 
 
 And where, in pomp, the sun-burnt people ride 
 In painted barges o’er the teeming tide; 
 
 Which pouring down from distant India’s lands, 
 
 With darkened waters, fructifies the sands.’’ t 
 
 The Nile itself, from the dark colour of its waters, in 
 the Sanscrit tongue is frequently called the Ch r i s h n a .§ 
 And on its annual rising to the height of the transverse 
 beam of the crosses, which were set up along its banks 
 to ascertain the depth and extent of its inundation, 
 
 * Pomponius Mela, Book I. cap. ix. v. 97, which he takes from 
 the Euterpe of Heroditus. 
 
 t Georgic iv. line 291. 
 
 J Dryden’s translation a little altered. 
 
 ^ Maurice’s Indian Sceptic, p. 80. 
 
27 
 
 would, iu the strongly metaphorical language of the 
 Egyptians, be naturally represented, as Ch rishna cru- 
 cified for their salvation.* 
 
 Thus, Sirs, have we proof demonstrative, proof irre- 
 sistible, proof against which no counter proof can be, 
 or be pretended, that the whole story of Jesus Christ, is 
 nothing more than an Eastern talc, that no such person 
 as Jesus of Nazareth ever existed; and that the whole 
 system of religion, in any way associated with preten- 
 sions of his name and authority, isas false as God istruc. 
 
 And as in the solution of a quadratic, the discovery 
 of the hidden quantity, relieves all the difficulties of 
 the problem, unravels every possible involution, dove- 
 tails into every angle, and leaves no room for doubt 
 remaining; — so, have we in this great discovery, a satis- 
 factory explication of that entire want of historical evi- 
 dence, under which the pretended Jewish origin of this 
 “ eaitiabilis super stitio,' is found to labour; and reason 
 enough, and more than enough, for the at length de- 
 tected forgery of every passage of ancient history, that 
 has been adduced to countenance that pretension, 
 
 The Anaphora of Pilate to Tiberius, 
 
 The Correspondence of Christ and Abgarus, 
 
 The Inscription to Nero, 
 
 The Testimony of Phlegon, 
 
 The Admissions of Porphyry, 
 
 The Acknowledgments of Celsus, 
 
 The Recognitions of Josephus, 
 once the proud bulwarks of pretended Christian evi- 
 dence, have been surrendered by Christians themselves, 
 are no longer defended — no longer defensible. 
 
 The equivocal, (in the highest degree equivocal,) testi- 
 monies of Pliny and Tacitus, stand on the brink of 
 the same fate. Not a vestige, not a trace remains to 
 prove that the existence of Jesus Christ, as a man , had 
 been so much as asserted, within the term of a hundred 
 years of his alleged epiphany. 
 
 * The DiegesivS, p. 206. 
 
28 
 
 All accounts of such an entity, hitherto pretended, 
 are distinctly traceable to the reckless hardihood of 
 Christian forgery ; and had been devised for the wicked 
 purpose of making that appear to be true, which was 
 known not to he so; for the purpose of administering 
 fuel to the fever of fanaticism, and to bar off all advan- 
 tages of an occasional lucid interval of reason : by set- 
 ting up Romance upon the pedestal of History ; and en- 
 forcing Reason herself to underprop the impostor’s 
 falsehood, and the madman’s dream. 
 
 “Tanta fuit primis seculis fingendi licentia, tarn 
 prona in credendo facilitas, ut rerum gestarum fides 
 exinde graviter laboraverit ” — is the admission of the 
 most learned Fell, Bishop of Oxford : an admission of 
 no more than any other Bishops would admit, as well as 
 he ; if with half his learning, they had inherited a quar- 
 ter of his honesty. 
 
 “ So great was the licence of forging ; so desperate the 
 rage of believing in the first ages ; that the credit of any 
 thing reported of those times, must have been hugely sus- 
 picious 
 
 If it had been only with -those who sincerely believe 
 the Christian religion, that Infidelity had to contend ; 
 its victory would long ago have been won : but it is 
 those who do not believe, that are its chief supporters. 
 Our war is not with the faithful, but with the faithless: 
 not against sincerity and simplicity, but against hypo- 
 crisy and fraud : not against the sheep, but against the 
 wolves in sheep’s clothing — those merciless wolves, who 
 are always the persecutors of virtue, and the oppressors 
 of innocence ; who keep up what they know to be untrue , 
 only because it keeps up them; and who work men's 
 minds into the fever of religion, for the sake of putting 
 out the eyes of their reason; and rendering them the 
 dupes of their craft, and the vassals of their power. 
 
 To pretend any longer that -Infidels insist only on ar- 
 guments that have already been answered, or refuted ; 
 is to discover the grossest ignorance of what their argu- 
 
29 
 
 ments really are, and in that ignorance to find the only 
 excuse for what such a pretence really is — the grossest 
 falsehood. 
 
 We have become better acquainted with the evi- 
 dences of the Christian religion, than it was possible for 
 the Lardners, Watsons, or Paleys of Christianity to have 
 been. 
 
 We have means of information, which they had not. 
 
 We are in possession of intelligence, the result of 
 more extensive research, of more impartial inquiry, and 
 of more recent discoveries ; which have disproved their 
 statements, falsified their calculations, exposed their 
 errors, and destroyed their systems. 
 
 To pretend, therefore, to refer the anxious mind for 
 the solution of its doubts, to any defence of the Chris- 
 tian religion, in which these more recently emerged ob- 
 jections are unnoticed ; is only parallel in absurdity and 
 wickedness, to the sophistry that would pretend that 
 there was enough to be learned of the sciences of che- 
 mistry and medicine, from the bulky folios of the alchy- 
 mists and barber-surgeons, of a hundred years ago : and 
 that it was impossible that any man of science of the 
 present day, could be wiser than Paracelsus, Bombas- 
 tus, Van Sweeten, and Boerhaave. 
 
 Men, Brethren, Inhabitants, (Citizens,) of this — 
 (as it may be ) — All I claim in the maintenance of the 
 honourable challenge which I have given — the most 
 honourable, that man could give, (or a better man 
 than he, accept,) — is Fair Play ; is your protection of 
 that right in us, which you would justly assert for your- 
 selves — the right of Free Discussiox ; that ye hold 
 the balance righteously in weighing the merits of the 
 arguments I have offered, and of those whose powers of 
 refutation I come here, to seek, to court, and to engage. 
 
 If Christianity be founded in truth, it hath existed 
 long enough to show what it could do to make mankind 
 wiser and happier than they might otherwise have been. 
 
 If it be founded on fallacy and fable, it must at least 
 
30 
 
 be time enough to try the experiment whether they 
 might not be as wise and happy as they are, without 
 being deceived ; without being gulled into virtue, and 
 kept within the bounds of morality, by impositions prac- 
 tised on their understanding’s. 
 
 And be we never so wrong, in thus traversing the 
 country to give your clergy so much labour to counteract 
 our sophistries, to expose our ignorance, and to pre- 
 serve the precious immortal souls of their flocks from 
 the poison they charge us with endeavouring to disse- 
 minate; at least we are not laying that additional labour, 
 on those who can decline it under any plea that their 
 shoulders were breaking down before, and that they were 
 over-earning the wages of the vineyard. 
 
 All I ask is, credit for being actuated by motives of 
 the sincerest charity to all men, upon my mind’s sin- 
 cerest conviction; which I have already borne to judg- 
 ment and to prison ; and which I am still ready to bear 
 “ to prison and to death:’’ and the determined purpose of 
 my heart, upon that conviction, never to surcease from 
 being the assailant of Christianity ; nor to do less than 
 the utmost that I can, to wean all minds from it, and to 
 set all hearts against it. 
 
 Great Cause of all effects ! if thine all-pervading 
 Essence be conscious of the wonders it produces ; and 
 if to thee, “ all hearts be open, all desires known, and 
 from thee, no secrets can be hid and thou hast seen 
 in this heart, a thought or purpose that could justly 
 make a creature thou hast made, hostile to me — let not 
 thy mercy spare, but let thy justice strike. 
 
 “ If I am right, thy grace impart, 
 
 Still in the right to stay ; 
 
 ■ If I am wrong, O teach my heart 
 To find that 'better way.” 
 
 DELENDA EST CARTHAGO ' 
 
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