.\ MaA5:» YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 1939 THE ANSWER <£itett tig fbt <&oj$|)tl TO THE AQlBIBIiam (DV AIMS. ACB1B83 BEING STRICTURES SUGGESTED CHIEFLY BY THE WORKS, STYLED THEOLOGICAL, OF THE LATE THOMAS PAINE. By THOMAS MULOCK. " But where shall wisdom be found 1 and where is the place of understanding 1 Man knoweth not the price therefore ; neither is it found in the land of the living. God understandeth the way thereof, and He knoweth the place thereof— And unto man He said, Behold the fear of the Lord, tha't is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding." Job, xxviii. 12, 13, 23, 28. " But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the begin ning who they were that believed not, and who should betray him." John, vi. 64. __UmDon : PUBLISHED BY A. A. PARIS, 53, LONG ACRE, 1819. I J-53 3! Printed by A. A. Paris, 53, Long Acre, London. PREFACE. i. HE following reflections are presented to the Public with a confidence which cannot warrantably mingle with the meditations of writers who take their topics from the things of time. Lavishly as the world awards fame to its literary favourites, they, and they only, can be said to write for enduring repute, whose pens are privileged to trace the spiritual realities of the everlasting Gospel. Their subject secures their success. Divine truth has its special mission to the minds of men, and will infallibly leach all ofthe human race, whom its glorious tidings are ordained to gladden. Cheered and invigorated by this unearthly persuasion, the scribe instructed unto the king dom of God, is spiritually assured that his labour is not in vain in the Lord. He drops the seed of sound doc trine, as he runs with patience his predestined race through the wilderness of this world ; calmly convinced that the God of the Bible will give a triumphant- testimony to his own immutable truths, and manifest his almighty power, by directing those mysterious verities home to the hearts of his own peculiar people. For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thi ther, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth end bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goeth out of my IV. mouth : it shall not return to me void ; but it shall ac complish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I send it. The design of the ensuing work is too simple to need much prefatory analysis. It is an attempt, under the guidance of Him without whose sustaining inspiration those professing themselves to he wise become fools — to meet the Atheism of our days, and of all days, by the pure power of the religion of the Bible. That religion is altogether supernatural. To know God, we must be taught of God, not by fanatical impulses, the fervid .coinage of our own corrupt conceptions ; but by the spiri tual application of his most holy word to our regenerated minds. The Lord revealed himself to Samuel by the word of the Lord. They who may hope to find food for en thusiasm in the following pages, will meet with a deserved disappointment. / speak forth the words of truth and soberness. The Gospel, when received in its heavenly purity and simplicity into the renewed understanding, im parts a spiritual soundness of mind to the true Christian, which even philosophy, in her sagest mood, can but gravely mimic. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men ; and the weakness of God is stronger than men. May the Spirit of the living God accompany with his omnipotent influences such portions of this work, as are written in strict conformity to his sacred word. The superadded misery of mankind, in countries where Chris tianity is recognized as an institution, has always arisen from the depraved desire of countenancing the semblance of religion, by some plausible perversion of the great truths of the Bible. In our immediate country, and very specially in our own times, false religion has engendered evils more difficult to eradicate than those which are hy pocritically traced to the agency of avowed Atheism. The land of Bibles, as it has been emphatically desig nated, is the land of theological controversy — of daring impiety — or of rank fanaticism ; but certainly is not the region where real religion — the spiritual, supernatural re ligion of the glorious Gospel, can be truly said to flourish. To the spread of counterfeit Christianity may be scripturally ascribed the supplementary wretchedness of nations professing the Christian Faith. Behold I am against them that prophesy false dreams, saith the Lord, and do- tell ihem, and cause my people to err by their lies, und by their lightness; yet I sent them not, nor com manded them : therefore they shall not profit this people ct all. The religion so confidently taught in this day of delu sion, is a system of fraud and imposture, garbed in the vesture of formal godliness. We have forsaken the God ©f our fathers, and we are penally visited with that gross and desperate darkness which men madly mistake for heaven's own light. The pretended preachers of the Gospel overpass the deeds of the wicked, by presuming to proclaim truths, of whose spiritual significance they are wholly ignorant. Ye have not his word abiding in you : for whom God hath sent, him ye believe not. The most formidable opponents of Christianity at pre sent existing in our world, are undoubtedly those teachers. VI. and professors falsely named evangelical, who, however parcelled into sects intensely inimical to each other, are nevertheless fully agreed in avoiding, or reprobating, the fundamental doctrines of the everlasting Gospel. Like Herod and Pontius Pilate, the most determined disputants are made friends together, when the truth as it is in Jesus is about to be sacrificed. We must look spiritually into Holy Writ, if we desire to have our present condi tion, as a people, faithfully made known to us. Through the wrath of the Lord of Hosts is the Land darkened. Our national malady is a total destitution of the know ledge of the true God. Amidst all the gorgeousness of our Church Establishment, and the less ostentatious, but Rot less sordid, zeal of variously denominated dissenters, the population of Great Britain is sunk into heathenism as absolute as that of China or Hindustan. Therefore my people have gone into captivity, because they have no know ledge ; and their honourable men are famished, and their mtdtitude dried up with thirst. The dry rot of sin has eaten aw&y the energy of our most excellent institutions, and the wisdom of the wisest among us can go no further than attempting to expel evil by evil. / will get me unto the great men, and will speak unto them ; for they have known the way of the Lord, and the judgment of their God : but these have altogether broken the yoke, and burst tfie bonds. Upon the spiritual knowledge of God in Christ, re- Tealed in the glorious Gospel, depends the present and everlasting welfare of the race of Adam ; and, by the un changeable appointment of the Most High God, human *#-Ui_) ate so ordered, that society is not susceptible of Vll. any solid improvement, other than that which shall be gently and gradually achieved by the progress of divine truth. Where that truth is profligately perverted, there will be clearer tokens of divine wrath, in the public pre valence of crime and misery, than in countries swallowed up in the most abject superstition and idolatry. _ Such is the case of England ; and we may justly infer that false religion lies at the root of our national dis tresses and disorders. Our preachers are prophets of the deceit of their own heart, and their deluded hearers are sinners upon system. It would be unqualified blasphemy to suppose that the Gospel is purely preached in a coun try so stained with every variety of transgression as our land unquestionably exhibits herself at present. But if they had stood in my counsel, and had caused my people to hear my words, then they should have turned them from their evil way, and from the evil of their doings. The great truths of Christianity must be realized in spi ritual minds, before they can be noticed as influencing principles running through the lives of true believers. The knowledge of Christ must precede our walking, even as he walked. May the verities of the everlasting Gospel contained in the following sheets be accompanied with the light and unction of the Eternal Spirit to the mind of the reader. This can only be, as the Holy Ghost shines into the spiritual understanding, and graciously discloses the deep things of God, as abidingly registered in the Bible. Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as -of ourselves ; but our sufficiency is of God. The writer can confidently declare, in the spirit of the great VIII. Apostle, though widely distant from his attainments, I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you. To the censure or approbation of sects and parties he is utterly indifferent. He writes to the ignorant, and therefore he writes authoritatively ; without feeling any other anxiety than the fearfulness of having understated those truth* which proclaim the entire depravation of human nature. Thou, therefore gird up thy loins, and arise, and speak unio them all that I command thee : be not dismayed at their faces, lest I confound thee before them, N. B. — The passages printed in Italics are all quoted from the Scriptures, and may be readily verified by refering to any Con cordance. The miniature edition of Brown's Concordance is the most accessible. ERRATA. Page 12, line 3 from bottom, before " world" dele " own." 41, 10, for " probatory," read " probationary." 56, 8, after " caused" add " the." 80, 7, after " world," add " will." 83, for " Natural Philosophy," read " Natural Theology" 93, Note, for " homanos," read "Romanos." 101, for " Druids," read " Dryads." THE ANSWER GIVEN BY THE GOSPEL, WHEN tlie great Apostle of the Gentiles found ..1 Ephesus certain disciples who had ostensibly em braced the faith of Jesus, lie addressed to them this brief, but significant and truly important interro gative, — Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed ? By belief is here manifestly meant, an assent of the natural understanding, to the doctrinal truths and historic details of the Gospel — a mental perception and carnal persuasion of the character and credibility of the Christian dispensation as preached by the Apostles, and predicted in that sure word of prophecy to which we are enjoined to take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place. But the context as clearly establishes the awful con clusion, that all such attainments in religion are per fectly compatible with a total destitution of that Spirit, whose especial office it is, to guide the erring feet of apostate man into ways of pleasantness and paths of peace ; illuminating his darkened under standing, purifying and regulating his vile and in- B 10 ordinate affections, and graciously constituting him a partaker of that divine nature, which our first parents wholly forfeited, as well fof their posterity as for themselves, when Adam by transgression fell. Until this blessed Spirit, in its regenerating and re newing influences, be communicated in God's ap pointed way and season to such of the children of men as, in his own wise and holy purpose, he has ordained to eternal life, there cannot exist any real religious belief in the soul of man. True faith is, we are scrip turally assured, the faith of God's elect, and is wrought in them by his mighty and mysterious operation. Man in his natural state is declared to be alienated from the life of God, through the ig norance that is in him, and consequently his re storation to spiritual life is stated to be altogether supernatural. A man can receive nothing except it be given to him from heaven. Such is the destroy ing energy of original sin, that the human race, in their unretrieved state, possess no capacities for comprehending their relations to God or to each other. — There is none that understandeth. Mind and conscience are defiled. The whole intellectual constitution of man is despoiled of its primitive glory, perverted in all the marvellous variety of its powers and functions, and rendered utterly inca pable of entertaining any spiritual apprehensions of Divine Truth. In order to illustrate this most scrip tural representation of the actual condition of un regenerate man in all ages, it may be remarked that 11 his faculties have ever been most eminently exer cised in corrupting, denying, or deriding the truths which God has been pleased to promulgate to an undone world. There is in the mind of man, not only a natural bias to evil, but a depraved dexterity in endeavouring mischievously to mar what is es sentially excellent. They are wise to evil, but to do good they have no knowledge. The world, we are told, by wisdom knows not God. The most exalted speculations emanating from the most vi gorous, original, and richly stored minds are charac terised as philosophy and vain deceit, and the elo quence with which they are occasionally embellished, is designated, words to no profit, but to the sub verting of the hearers. In perfect conformity to these statements, we find that men of the loftiest ta lents, in the world's estimate, are, if possible, more inimical to revealed truth, than thinkers of an in ferior stature of mind. Their whole array of intel lectual strength and accomplishment is, like Go liath's might and military equipment, paraded for the purpose of defying the armies of the living God. And this observation applies as cogently to reason ing religionists as to avowed opponents of Chris tianity. The knowledge of the Truth as it is in Jesus, is the gift of God bestowed upon his Elect, re generated people, who, by the teachings of the Eternal Spirit, are made progressively acquainted with the hidden treasures contained in the Sacred Scriptures. b2 12 The canon of Holy Writ is the perfect lam of the Lord converting the soul, and we may rest assured that nothing short of an omnipotent agency can work in our hearts the belief of the glorious vereties thus divinely developed in tlie Bible. All the professed piety of the " numbers num berless," who, confiding in their natural capabili ties, invigorated and refined by education, have proposed to scan the spiritual mystery of the ever lasting Gospel, is at once disenchanted of its spe- ciousness, when the first principles of the doctrine of Christ are revealed to a genuine convert, renewed in the spirit of his mind. The reveries of enthu siasts, or the soberer subtleties of more plausible pietists, serve only to supply the truly awakened soul with varied proofs of the complete corruption of human nature. Notwithstanding the delusive brilliancy with which speculative men have varnished their religious views — notwithstanding the struggle made in every age to elevate sectaries into saints, and to shape the Gospel into elaborate systems of dogmatic divinity — the Christian is privileged to be hold true religion, all that constitutes the life and power of real godliness, lying virtually within the limits of God's spiritual elect church. A seed shall serve him. From the fall of Adam to the present hour, God has seen but two descriptions of human beings in this our own world, his own peculiar peo ple, made such by adoption and grace, according to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ 13 Jesus — and the children of the Devil, ivho shall be punished with everlasting destruction, from the pre sence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power. All are by nature alike dead in trespasses and sins. All, as soon as they are born, go astray. All, when unwithheld by the restraining grace of the Preserver of Men, are alike inclined to manifest the inherent wickedness of their hearts, by the visi ble sinfulness of their lives. Grace, free, sovereign, special grace, makes the only difference that de serves a thought, between the children of Adam. As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. Whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son. Moreover, whom he did predestinate, them he also called : and whom he called, them he also justified ; and whom he justified, them he also glorified. Such is the developement of the divine principle in the soul of man, and such the progress of the glo rious work of Redemption, with reference to the whole number of the elect successively subtracted from this present evil world. The salvation of a sinner, covenanted in the council of heaven from all eternity, is made known and supematurally confirm ed to him in conversion. The varying numbers of the truly converted have, in the successions oi' time, composed the spiritual flock of Christ J a royal priesthood, an holy nation, intuitively instructed to shew forth the praises of him who hath called them out of darkness into his marvellous light. 14 Whatever distinctive appellations may have been assumed by religious formalists, all true wisdom and understanding in the knowledge of Jesus Christ has been exclusively possessed by God's believing people, to whom in regeneration his deep things are revealed. They, and they only, can appropriate the experience of the Apostle when he proclaims the privilege of those who follow Christ in the regener ation, But we see Jesus. As the fruit and effect of Jehovah's electing love, and distinguishing mercy, certain of the sons and daughters of Adam, who are by nature children of wrath even as others, are quickened by Hie poAver of the Holy Spirit efficaci ously applying the preached or written word to their souls. To them life and immortality are brought to light by the gospel: by the influence of overcom ing grace conquering their corruptions, and defeating the devices of their arch Adversary, they are divinely determined to know nothing but Jesus Christ and him crucified. They live willing worshippers and spiritual subjects in a kingdom of grace, and are translated by death into a kingdom that cannot be moved, of unspeakable blessedness and eternal glory. I have judged it expedient to submit to tlie reader these preliminary considerations, interlaced with and verified by scripture citations, as a befitting intro duction to a series of strictures on what are termed the Theological Writings of Thomas Paine. In proceeding to meet the vaunted champion of infidel- ity, I fearlessly proclaim on the authority of God's immutable word, the fundamental truths upon which all real religion must ever rest. I desire to combat the impieties of the Age of Reason, not with antag onist arguments drawn from the armoury of carnal contention, but with those spiritual weapons which are mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds. I wish also to be enabled to cast to a measureless distance all supposed aids furnished by fanaticism — th£ fervid flights, or gloomy dogmas, of pretended followers of Him who is made to us of God Wisdom, as well as righteousness, and sanc tification, and redemption. The Spirit that resides in tlie truly taught Christian is the Spirit of power and of love, and of a sound mind; and those glori ous qualities of the new creature gradually soften and subdue the pride and persecuting propensities of the human heart. They who discern most distinctly those depths of depravity which form the sinful ele ment of the natural man, and to which the frightful blasphemies of Paine are entirely traceable, will, under the Divine guidance, be led to look to the hole of the pit whence they are digged; and thus glorify the exceeding riches of that grace, by which they have been rescued from corresponding crimin ality. Whilst deprecating the horrors of undisguised Atheism, they will compassionate the wretched out cast from hope and happiness, who has toiled to multiply the number of deluded wanderers from the narroiv way that leads to life eternal. True toler ance is a flower that cannot grow in the field of i<; nature, but is planted by the finger of God in a renewed heart. In the mind of every human being uninfluenced by the pure truths of the Bible, there exists, how ever artfully concealed, an evil principle prompting us to excommunicate presumed error, and to visit with vengeance the propagators of opinions hostile to our own carnal creeds. Gospel forbearance to wards our fellow7 men is a rule of right altogether supernatural, and utterly beyond the reach of ethical philanthropy. For we ourselves, says St. Paul, were sometimes foolish — living in malice and envy, hate ful and hating one another. The dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of cruelty — and though moral suasion may apparently abate this ferocity by giving a new direction to persecution — irritating minds instead of torturing bodies — yet the_ unerring word of truth unalterably assures us, that to the Lord alone, belong mercies and forgivenesses ; and that until instructed by his good Spirit, we are strangers to genuine tenderness for those who faint, or those who fall. But never does the treacherous turpitude of our nature exhibit such relentless ran cour as when false religionists affecting to vindicate the violated majesty of God, triumphantly anathem atize infidels more intrepid than themselves. All history sacred and prophane contributes to attest the truth of this proposition. The religious dogmatist, or formalist, has in every age, whilst indulging his own culpable ambition of poAver, or popularity, or repute lor superior holiness, cried out with Jehu 17 Come and see my zeal for the Lord. The same spirit that exasperated St. Paul, previous to his conversion, to Breathe out threatnings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, has actuated persecutors of all sects and parties in every region of the globe where any of the sons of Adam have been assembled. Whether we survey the unity of untruth, which marks the errors of the church of Rome — or the variable delusions, and simulated sanctity of every generation of puritans — we shall behold man universally intolerant, and writing in characters of blood his protest against the plainest precepts of the Gospel. This is a diseased habit.of mind, springing from the sin of our na ture — the world's malady, not to be cured but by a miracle of grace. Philosophy, the day dream of contemplative pride, here discloses her nothingness _ — and counterfeit religion will persecute while she preaches. And thus the Christian arrives at a con clusion which no political projector — no cloud- capt theorist of moral melioration — no self-seeking evangelical enthusiast will ever cordially acquiesce in, viz. that the Gospel which is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth, is the only mean of working profitably upon mankind, and of moulding that sinful and shapeless mass into spi ritual comeliness and social symmetry. Until the true religion of Christ shall shine into the hearts of rulers, and human institutions shall be peacefully re-adjusted, according to the book of the manner of his kingdom, all positive improvement c 18 of society may be considered as wholy visionary- God has presented us in his revealed word with the mirror of the eternal mind, upon which we are com manded intently to gaze ; that we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, may be changed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. As well might we hope to pluck the stars from their spheres, as to discover any other agency by which nations, kindreds, people and tongues, can be elevated on the scale of being, than that of the word of God. As his almighty purposes shall manifestatively ripen towards their final accomplishment, this great truth will be graven upon the minds of men. The scrip tures will be resorted to as the infallible repository of all true knowledge, testifying as they do of Christ in ivhom are hid all the treasures of wisdom ; and there will be perceptible approximations to that state of society so sweetly pictured in the page of inspiration. Let not the wise man glory in his wis dom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches : but let him that glorieth, glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the Lord, which exercise loving kindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth; for in these things I delight, saith the Lord. The case of Thomas Paine considered simply with reference to his disbelief of revelation, has no thing peculiar in it. It is the case of all men by ' nature : The fool saith in his heart, there is no God; 19 and however covertly our atheism may be shrouded from ourselves, and from the observation of others, notliing can be more solemnly true than that the God of heaven never becomes the object of our worship until his glorious Christ is revealed to our regenerated minds. Man, in his natural state, be his attainments what they may, is destitute of all spiritual apprehension and belief of tlie Gospel. The grasp of mind which embraces the most remote and abstract relations of the things of time and sense, cannot seize upon a single scriptural truth. The apostle declares con cerning sages who had soared to the height of fleshly wisdom, and whose restless speculations had travelled through every topic of earthly enquiry, that, professing themselves to be ivise they became fools. And until, in the dispensation of the fulness of times, God shall subdue liuman genius and learn ing into a spiritual subserviency to his divine designs, it will be made continually evident that truth — the truth mantled in the mystery ofthe Gos pel — is as effectually opposed by the unhallowed wisdom, as by the gv.. And wc are further entitled to conclude, that whenever false religion — mongrel Christianity — in its infinitely diversified forms, shall have won its way amongst a willingly misled people, undisgnised prophaneness, with all its associate horrors and attendant crimes, will infallibly infest the land. The prophets walk in lies, they strengthen also the hands of evil doers. Bold blasphemers exultingly confound the corruptions intruded by unregenerate professors into the truths and worship of God, with those holy doctrines and spiritual ordinances which radiate from the sublime simplicity that is in Christ. Infidel cavillers are lynx-eyed in detecting not only the speculative absurdities, but the practical incon sistencies of hollow, hypocritical pretenders to godliness, who are ever, at bottom, the most deter mined adversaries of true Christianity. The name of God, said the great apostle, to the conspicuous religious professors of his day, is blasphemed among the Gentiles through you. Conscience-seared scep tics who have flung off all external reverence for religion, discerning the fallacy and imposture with which visible churches teem, sedulously represent those abuses as necessaiy consequences of the Christian scheme unfolded in the Bible. From laying bare the chicanery of contending sects they proceed to arraign the authority, and dispute the authenticity of those lively Oracles which spiritually interpreted to renewed minds, reveal the mysteries of (he kingdom of heaven. 23 Thus it is that avowed Atheism is linked in wiih the form of godliness, and that featiess scoffers at divine truth, constitute an undoubted, though dis claimed part of that vast synagogue of Sal tot, which is mainly composed of austere self-righteous zealot;-'. God is graciously pleased to open up this mystery