PART IV.

New York:
PETER ECKLER, PUBLISHER,
35 Fulton Street.
THOMAS EBSKINE.
THE NEW I PUBLIC LIBRA ^
TILD)!:N FC^UNDAllON.
INTRODUCTION.
IT is a matter of surprise to some people to see Mr. Brskine act as counsel for a crown prosecution com- menced against the right of opinion : * I confess it is none to me, notwithstanding all that Mr. Erskine has said before ; for it is difficult to know when a lawyer is to be believed ; I have always observed that Mr. Erskine, when contending as a counsel for the right of political opinion, frequently took occasions, and those often dragged in head and shoulders, to lard what he called the British Constitution, with a great deal of praise. Yet the same Mr. Erskine said to me in conversation, were Governments to begin de novo in England, they never would establish such a damned absurdity (it was exactly his expression) as this is. Ought I then to be surprised at Mr. Erskine for inconsistency ?
In this prosecution, Mr. Erskine admits the right of
* The prosecution of Williams for publishing the Age of Reason was not a "crown prosecution," but was commenced (according to Lord Campbell's Lives of the Lord Chancellors, vol. vi, page 392) by " The Society for the Suppression of Vice and Immo- rality," and this Society, acting as prosecutors, retained Erskine for their counsel. His course in this matter, after having so eloquently defended Paine before the Court of King's Bench for publishing the Rights of Man, shows that while Erskine was an earnest advocate for political liberty, he was also an active opponent of religious freedom. It is this inconsistency in conduct and reasoning that Mr. Paine criticises and condemns; and Mr. Erskine virtually admitted his error by returning his retain- ing fee after the trial, and declining " being longer concerned for the Society," and also by pleading for mercy for Williams after his conviction and before hissentence. His plea, however, was in vain, and Williams was sentenced to a year's imprisonment, with hard labor, in the House of Correction for the county of Middlesex.— £^c-t/^r.
266 AGE OF REASON.
controversy ; but says the Christian religion is not to be abused. This is somewhat sophistical, because, while he admits the rights of controversy, he reserves the right of calling that controversy abuse : and thus, lawyer-like, undoes by one word what he says in the other. I will, however, in this letter keep within the limits he pre- scribes ; he will find here nothing about the Christian religion : he will find only a statement of a few cases, which shows the necessity of examining the books handed to us from the Jews, in order to discover if we have not been imposed upon ; together with some observations on the manner in which the trial of Williams has been con- ducted. If Mr. Erskine denies the right of examining those books, he had better profess himself at once an ad- vocate for the establishment of an Inquisition, and the re-establishment of the Star-Chamber.
THOMAS PAINE.
A LETTER TO THE HON. T. ERSKINE,*
ON THE PROSECUTION OF THOMAS WILLIAMS,
FOR PUBLISHING THE AGE OF REASON.
OF all the tyrannies that afflict mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst : every other species of tyranny is limited to the world we live in ; but this attempts a stride beyond the grave, and seeks to pursue us into eternity. It is there and not here — it is to God and not to man — it is to a heavenly and not to an earthly tribunal that we are to account for our belief; if then we believe falsely and dishonorably of the Creator, and that belief is forced upon us, as far as force can operate by human laws and human tribunals, — on whom is the criminality of that belief to fall? on those who impose it, or on those on whom it is imposed ?
A bookseller of the name of Williams has been prosecuted in London on a charge of blasphemy, for publishing a book entitled the Age of Reason. Blas- phemy is a word of vast sound, but equivocal and almost indefinite signification, unless we confine it to the simple idea of hurting or injuring the reputation of any one, which was its original meaning. As a word, it existed
* Mr. Paine has evidently incorporated into this Letter a portion of his answer to Bishop Watson's Apology for the Bible, as in a subse- quent chapter of that work, treating of the book of Genesis, he ex- pressly refers to his remarks in a preceding part of the same on the two accounts of the creation contained in that book, which is in- cluded in this X^XX^x.— Editor,
268 AGE OF REASON.
before Christianity existed, being a Greek word, or Greek anglofied, as all the etymological dictionaries will show.
But behold how various and contradictor>^ have been the signification and application of this equivocal word. Socrates, who lived more than four hundred years before the Christian era, was convicted of blasphemy for preach- ing against the belief of a plurality of gods, and for preaching the belief of one god, and was condemned to suffer death by poison. Jesus Christ was convicted of blasphemy under the Jewish law, and was crucified. Calling Mahomet an impostor would be blasphemy in Turkey ; and denying the infallibility of the Pope, and the Church, would be blasphemy at Rome. What then is to be understood by this word blasphemy? We see that in the case of Socrates truth was condemned as blasphemy? Are we sure that truth is not blasphemy in the present day? Woe, however, be to those who make it so, whoever they may be.
A book called the Bible has been voted by men, and decreed by human laws to be the word of God ; and the disbelief of this is called blasphemy. But if the Bible be not the word of God, it is the laws and the execution of them that is blasphemy, and not the disbelief. Strange stories are told of the Creator in that book. He is represented as acting under the influence of every human passion, even of the most malignant kind. If these stories are false, we err in believing them to be true, and ought not to believe them. It is, therefore, a duty which every man owes to himself, and reverentially to his Maker, to ascertain, by every possible inquiry, whether there be sufficient evidence to believe them or not.
My own opinion is decidedly that the evidence does not warrant the belief, and that we sin in forcing that belief upon ourselves and upon others. In saying this, I have no other object in view than truth. But that I
AGE OF^ REASON. 269
may not be accused of resting upon bare assertion with respect to the equivocal state of the Bible, I will produce an example, and I will not pick and cull the Bible for the purpose. I will go fairly to the case : I will take the two first chapters of Genesis as they stand, and show from thence the truth of what I say, that is, that the evidence does not warrant the belief that the Bible is the word of God.