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BELIEFS OF UNBELIEVERS.
A
*
LEOTU«E
DELIVERED BY THE
.
>
REV. 0. B. FROTHINGHAM,
IN BOSTON, U.S.
>
PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SCOTT,
MOUNT PLEASANT, RAMSGATE.
��THE BELIEFS OF UNBELIEVERS.
----- —-----N a Swedenborgian book written thirty years ago on
the inspiration of the Bible, one finds a descrip
tion, copied from an official report made to the govern
ment by a Mr James, of a “ horrid desert” occupying
hundreds of square miles of the territory between the
Mississippi river and the Rocky Mountains. The
picture of this desolate waste, with its unsightly and repulsivevegetable growths, its swarming locusts (on which
the Mississippi hawk swooped and fed), its venomous
and enormous snakes, is a thing to haunt the reader’s
dreams. But now through this region the Pacific
Railroad runs, and one steams away through the
golden, far-off West, looking vainly from rear plat
forms of cars for this land of darkness and the shadow
of death, and finding instead a region capable of sup
porting an immense agricultural population, the future
site of pleasant homes. The great American desert is
a myth. Similar accounts have been handed down to
us of intellectual and moral deserts in Europe and
elsewhere—great spaces of territory or of time, covered
with the prickly thorns of disbelief, cursed with poison
ous vegetable growths, infested with deadly serpents,
made hideous by unclean animals, awful with the dark
flappings of demoniac wings. Such a district the
Roman empire before the coming of Christ was long
supposed to have been; and it is the more liberal
scholarship of our own generation which has shown it
I
�t
4
Beliefs of Unbelievers.
to us in fairer colours—taught us that then and there,
* even, men hoped, and trusted, and prayed, and believed,
' and endeavoured, and attained—that the empire had
soinething to bestow on Christianity, as well as Chris
tianity on the empire—that the time and state were
neither worse nor better than they should have been,
but lay directly in the track of historic progress. We
know that human nature exhibited there all its attri
butes, its best as well as its worst; that it produced
sages, reformers, and saints; grew philosophers by the
dozen ; noble men and women by the score; that it
rectified laws, remedied abuses, restrained crime, re» * ,'A
buked sin, and in the usual way pushed itself out into
the light and atmosphere of virtue. Renan makes it
pretty clear that the middle of the second century, so
long regarded as given over to the devil, was neither
worse nor better than it ought to have been, and Lecky
shows that the Roman empire neither experienced con
version nor needed it. One by one the deserts are dis
closed in their native fertility, and the shapes of moral
grandeur are revealed in spots where nothing was
r ’’;.
supposed able to exist. In like manner a beam or two
of illumination may well be thrown into the dreaded
shadow-land of so-called infidelity, by bringing to the
light of day the beliefs of the unbelievers. With the
worst side of infidelity the church-going world is
familiar enough. It will be allowable, to day, to pre
sent the best side of it. But nothing shall be unfairly
extenuated or exaggerated, since the only thing worth
our having is the truth.
In every age of Christendom there have been men
whom the church named “ infidels,” and thrust down
into the abyss of moral degradation. The oldest of
these are forgotten. The only ones now actively ana
thematised lived within the last hundred years, and
owe the blackness of their reputation to the assaults or
superstitions that still are powerful, and the dogmas
that are still supreme. The names of Chubb, Toland,
L .
�The Beliefs oj Unbelievers.
Tindal, of Herbert of Cherbury, Shaftesbury, and
Bolingbroke, though seldom, spoken now, are men
tioned, when they are mentioned, with scorn and
horror. The names of Voltaire and Rousseau recall at
once sermons and verdicts that our own ears have
heard. The memory of Thomas Paine is still a stench
in our nostrils, though he has been dead sixty years—
so deep a stamp of damnation the church fixed on him.
Even a man as well intentioned as Adam Storey Farrar,
who must have studied his themes for himself, falls into
the vulgar slang of the pulpit when speaking of these
men who dared to reject the prevailing beliefs of Chris
tendom. It will be years before the grass will be al
lowed to grow green on their graves. Disbelievers they
were. He claimed for them that honour. It is their
title to immortality. Doubtless they were deniers,
infidels, if you will. They made short work of creed
and catechism, of sacrament and priest, of tradition
and formula. Miraculous revelation, inspired Bible,
authoritative dogma, dying Gods and atoning Saviours,
infallible apostles and churches founded by the Holy
Ghost, ecclesiastical heavens and hells, with other fic
tions, their minds would not harbour. They criticised
mercilessly the drama of the redemption, and spoke
more roughly than wisely of the great mysteries of
the Godhead. But, after their fashion, they were
great believers. In the interest of faith they doubted;
in the interest of faith they denied. Their nay was a
backhanded method of pronouncing “ yea.” They
were after the truth, and supposed themselves to be
removing a rubbish-pile to reach it. Toland, whose
“ Christianity not Mysterious” was condemned to the
flames by the Irish Parliament, while the author fled
for protection to England, professed himself sincerely
attached to the pure religion of Jesus, and anxious to
exhibit it free from the corruptions of after times. So
Thomas Paine wrote his “Age of Reason” as a check
to the professors of French Atheism. One author in
�6
The Beliefs of Unbelievers.
1646 enumerates 180 “flagrant heresies,” one of which
was: “ That we may walk with God as well as the
patriarchs.”
These unbeliefs were born of the spirit of the age.
It was a time of terrible shakings. The axe had fallen
on the neck of a king, and the halberd had smitten the
images of the saints. Scarcely an authority stood fast,
and not one was unchallenged. The infidels felt this
spirit first. Fidelity to its call was their faith. They
believed in the sovereignty of reason, the rights of the
individual conscience. They had that faith in human
nature which is the faith of faiths. It is a faith hard
to hold ; and these infidels found it so in their time.
If anything is clear, it is that faith is large in propor
tion as it dares to put things to the proof. Fear and
laziness can accept beliefs ; only trust and courage will
question them. To reject consecrated opinions demands
a consecrated mind—at all events, the moving impulse
to such rejection is faith—faith in reason ; faith in the
mind’s ability to attain truth; faith in the power of
thought, in the priceless worth of knowledge. The
great sceptic must be a great believer. None have so
magnificently affirmed as those who have audaciously
denied; none so devoutly trusted as they who have
sturdily protested. Not willingly do good men under
mine deep-planted beliefs or throw precious hopes
away. Small pleasure does it give to noble minds to
pull down roofs beneath which for ages people have
found shelter. If they are indifferent to others’ sorrow
they must have some thought for themselves. Is there
pleasure in having ill-will, hate, persecution, in order
that they may belittle the world and themselves ? Is
it such a privilege to be without faith in the world
that men are willing to lay down their lives for it ? Is
it true, as I read lately on a sarcastic page, that “ the
most advanced thinker of our times takes an enlight
ened delight in his father, the monkey ? When he
has sunk his pedigree as man and adopted as family-
�The Beliefs of Unbelievers.
7
tree a procession of baboons, superior enlightenment
radiates from his very person, and his place of honour
is fixed in the illuminated brotherhood.” I know of
none who profess such a creed, but if there be any such,
what martyrs so devoted as they, who are willing to
abrogate humanity in the cause of knowledge, and to
immolate their immortal being on the altar of creative
law ! The great provers have dared to prove because
they were sure that their proving must result in the
establishment of truth.
The beliefs of the unbelievers, being fundamental,
are few. The creed of the infidel is short, but few nobler words have been written than some of the utter
ances of Shaftesbury, Bolingbroke, and other English
infidels. Francis W. Newman’s creed is: “God is a
righteous governor, who loves the righteous, and an
swers prayers for righteous men;” but this may be
abbreviated by omitting the last clause. Speaking
more particularly of some of the half-forgotten English
infidels, the creed of Herbert of Cherbury was a uni
versal religion implanted in the minds of all men;
Charles Blount’s that God was to be worshipped by
piety alone ; Tindal asserted the immutability of God
and the perfection of this law; Lord Shaftesbury
opposed the sensational philosophy of Locke, and main
tained the existence of an immutable principle of faith
and duty in the breast; Anthony Collins received a
letter from Locke, in which occurs this sentence:—
“ Believe it, my good friend, to love truth for truth’s
sake is the principal part of human perfection in this
world and the seedplot of all other virtues; and if I
mistake not, you have as much of it as I ever met with
in anybody;” Thomas Chubb referred Christianity,
like any other religion, to the law written on the heart;
Bollingbroke taught belief in the existence of a supreme
being of infinite wisdom and power. In England
infidelity planted itself on reason and common-sense,
stood by the broad facts of nature, maintained the unity
*
♦
�8
The Beliefs of Unbelievers.
of God, the order of the world, and the welfare of all
creatures in it.
French infidelity was of a different cast, for it was
born of different experiences. The French infidel was
by necessity a revolutionist. France had neither free
press, free parliament, nor free debates. There were
no public meetings and no discussions. A government
decree forbade the publication of any book in which
questions of government were discussed ; another made
it a capital offence to write a book likely to excite the
public mind; a third denounced the punishment of
death against any one who spoke of matters of finance
or who attacked religion. Besides the worship of
reason and the search for truth, it was a fiery and pas
sionate protest against injustice. There was no free
dom in the France of Voltaire’s time. Almost every
French writer of that epoch, whose writings have
survived the age in which they were produced, suffered
fine or imprisonment, or the suppression of his works.
Voltaire was again and again imprisoned. Rousseau
was exiled, and his works publicly burned. The whole
intellect of France, thus thwarted, insulted, goaded to
madness, rose in insurrection against the government.
But the only hopeful way of assailing government was
to assail the church. Religion was weak in comparison
with royalty. Divinity hedged the king but not the
priest. The clergy had greatly degenerated in charac
ter, and had forfeited by their hypocrisy the respect
even of the immoral. Thus the church offered the
first point to the attack of the outraged genius of France.
That attack was too headlong and furious ; the church
recovered from it and heaped infamy on the names of
its enemies. But that offal-heap is disappearing, and
we see now that even these sinners lived and died in
the faith. Their courage was kindled at the upper
and not the nether fires. The love of truth and of
humanity constrained them, and their foes were dog
matism and superstition.
�The Beliefs of Unbelievers.
9
One cannot do justice to the faith of these men by
a bare enumeration of their religious opinions ; but it
is interesting to know that Voltaire believed in a per
sonal God and trusted in immortality. The inscription
on his tomb—“ He combatted the Atheists ”—wears
an impressive look. I read Voltaire’s confession of
faith in sentences scattered all over his pages, which,
written most of them in heart’s blood, attest the fact
that this terrible infidel had a soul of faith great
enough to save him. It saved many beside. The
soul of Voltaire quickens France to-day, a soul of re
volution, but of regeneration as well. The inspiration
of Diderot was the spirit of intelligence, not the spirit
of unbelief. His atheism was the protest of a glowing
heart against a freezing divinity. His belief in a great
God instead of a little one. Can any good thing be
urged for materialists like Helvetius, or atheists like
Dr Holback ? Their articles of faith were indeed few.
They rose in such wrath against the church that they
struck away the last vestige of religion, leaving neither
God nor immortality. Man was for them an ingenious
piece of mechanism—the universe a machine. But
they taught an obedience to the laws of nature, which,
if fully carried out, would almost make God’s kingdom
come on earth as it is in heaven. Sensible men have
done talking about the infidelity of Rousseau—the
apostle of sentiment in religion, the prophet of the
conscience, the passionate eulogist of Jesus. The sen
timentalists win glory to-day by their repetitions of his
thoughts on the absolute goodness of God and the
large hospitalities of heaven. Our republican state is
not more indebted to him for its idea of man than is
our church for its idea of deity.
We come to Tom Paine—his name was Thomas,
but that name being Christian is not yet given him
by respectable people—Tom Paine, “ the foul-mouthed
infidel,” the “ ribald blasphemer,” “ the man of three
countries, and disowned by all-—English in his deism.
�io
The Beliefs of Unbelievers.
American in. his radicalism, French in his scoffing
temper,” the hugbear of the priest, the anti-Christ of the
preacher. They that deny to him beliefs have never
read his writings—they that refuse to him a faith
must explain his heroism as they can. The “ Age of
Reason,” dreadful book, which all revile because none
read it, opens with this statement: “I believe in
one God, and no more ; and I hope for happiness
beyond this life. I believe in the equality of man;
and I believe that religious duties consist in doing
justice, loving mercy, and endeavouring to make our
fellow-creatures happy.” “The world my country;
to do good my religion,” was this unbeliever’s motto ;
and to him we owe this exquisite definition: “ Re
ligion is man bringing to his Maker the fruits of his
heart.” There was a soul of faith in him ; and in
these days he would take rank with our beloved
Theodore Parker.
Character was the test of conviction, and these
unbelievers must be judged by their acts. They were
not saints, and very few men are. Their character
would compare favourably with any of the so-called
believers of their age. There were few to speak a
word for the atheist Diderot; yet for a few such athe
ists the church would not be made worse. Clergymen
had copied the small virtues of Voltaire, multiplied
them by ten, and perfumed them with asafetida, while
his great virtues were beyond their comprehension.
The prominent traits of Paine’s character were bene
volence, tenderness to the weak, and hatred of wrong
and oppression. When we test the faiths of our un
believers by their works, we find them men, like the
rest of us, sharing the faults, sometimes the vices, of
their times, but all had a certain nobility of soul, and
some were heroes. Lord Barrington speaks of “ the
virtuous and serious deists ” of his time. Taylor calls
Herbert of Cherbury “ a man of religious mind.” Sir
James M'Intosh describes Shaftesbury as “ a man of
�The Beliefs of Unbelievers.
11
many excellent qualities; temperate, chaste, honest,
and a lover of his country.” “ The principal traits in
the character of Voltaire,” says Jules Barin, “ were
benevolence, tenderness to the weak, hatred of wrong
and oppression.” Indeed Voltaire’s grand acts of
heroism are well known to all who have read anything
about him— his devoted efforts to obtain a reversal of
the sentence against the family of Jean Calas—victim
at once of sanguinary superstitions and brutal laws—
an effort which lasted three years, “ during all which
time,” he declares, “ I reproached myself with every
smile as if it were guilt ”—was only one of his selfsacrificing attempts to .aid the weak and oppressed.
We find him paying the debts of the poor, restoring
the fallen fortunes of one and another, making himself
a benevolent providence wherever he found suffering.
Surely at the end he could say, “ I have fought a good
fight, I have kept the faith.”
The new day-spring that is coming over the hills
has reached even the low grave of Thomas Paine, and
is covering it with flowers. The foul spectres that
gathered there no longer appear to those that have eyes
to see. Every true American should know at least
something of the great qualities of Thomas Paine.
Every true American should know that it was he who
struck the key-note of the Revolution by his “ Common
Sense.” Every true American should know that his.
“ Crisis,” written in an hour of extreme discourage
ment, electrified the army, put a soul into the country,
and was worth to the failing cause of independence
more than an army with banners. His first sentence,
“ These are the times that try men’s souls,” is still the
patriot’s battle-cry in the last struggle. Every true
American should know and should love to remember
that when these two publications were having an
enormous sale—the demand for the former reaching
not less than 100,000 copies, and both together offered
to the author profits that would have made him rich—
�12
The Beliefs of Unbelievers.
that man, poor and overworked, refused a cent of re
muneration for his toil, and, like a prince, nay, rather
like a true friend of man, freely gave the copyright to
every State in the Union. Every true American should
know and delight to tell how Thomas Paine, in his
period of public favour and of intimate friendship
with the founders of the government, declined to accept
any place or office of emolument, saying, “ I must be
in everything, as I have ever been, a disinterested
volunteer. My proper sphere of action is on the com
mon floor of citizenship, and to honest men I give my
hand and my heart freely.” Every true American
should know and should not forget that when the
State of Virginia made a large claim on the general
government for lands, Thomas Paine opposed the claim
as unreasonable and unjust, though at that very time
there was a resolution before the Legislature of Virginia
to appropriate to him a handsome sum of money for
services rendered. He knew it when he wrote. He
knew what would be the effect of his writing ; but not
for any private considerations would he hold back his
protest. Every true American will be glad to know
that Paine, though an Englishman, had such love for
republican institutions that he declared he would rather
see his horse “ Button ” eating the grass of Bordentown
or Morrisania than see all the pomp and show of
Europe.
No private character has been more foully calumni
ated in the name of Gfod than Thomas Paine’s. Dead
now for more than sixty years, few people care, per
haps, whether he was slandered or not j but, speaking
as a historian alone, one would be justified in demand
ing attention to a fully detailed vindication of this
name, so remarkable in our own annals. Speaking
not as a historian, but as a free-religionist, surely one
may be allowed a brief space wherein to show that
infidels had their virtues as well as their beliefs ; that
the territory occupied by the unbelievers is not a
�The Beliefs of Unbelievers.
13
barren desert, bnt a fruitful domain wherein the
humanities dwell and the angels sing. All the gravest
charges against Paine have been utterly disproved, and
have fallen to the ground. We have left, the memory
of a man full of zeal for God and for humanity—not
a saint, indeed, but surely not a sinner above all who
dwelt in Jerusalem. He drank more brandy than was
wise, or would now he deemed dignified, but the
eminent Christians of his time more than kept him
company. He was no dandy, but is dandyism reckoned
an apostolic grace ? He used snuff, but is snuff-taking
so much more heinous than smoking, which is said
to be a clerical weakness, that it makes all the difference between the believer and the infidel? He lost
his temper sometimes, but what amount of orthodoxy
will make it sure that a good man's temper shall never
fail ? There were magnificent moments in this much
maligned life. It was one of them when the French
Assembly met, to order the execution of Louis XVI.,
and Thomas Paine protested in the name of liberty
against the deed. “ Destroy the king,” he cried, “but
save the man. Strike the crown, but spare the heart.”
The members, in a rage, would not believe their ears.
“ These are not the words of Thomas Paine,” resounded
from every side of the chamber. “They are my
words,” said the undaunted man. But they cost the
hero his reputation, and came near costing him his
life.
Ah, what do we not owe to the few who have had
the courage to disbelieve ! The men who bore hard
names through life, and after death had harder names
piled like stones over their memories ! The men who
lived solitary and misunderstood, who were driven by
the spirit into the wilderness ; who were called infidels
because they believed more than their neighbours;
and heretics because they chose the painful pursuit of
truth in preference to the idle luxury of traditional
opinion; and atheists because they rested on a God so
�14
The Beliefs of Unbelievers.
large that the vulgar could not see his outline; and
image breakers because they adored the unseen Spirit;
and deniers of the Christ because they affirmed the
Eternal Word ! What do we not owe them, who went
about shaking their heads, and murmuring no with
their lips, their hearts all the while saying yes to the
immortals 1 They, after all, are the builders of our
most splendid beliefs. Almost all our rational faiths
we must thank them for, liberators that they are ! It
is they who have hunted the old devil from the high
ways and byways of creation. To them we owe
deliverance from witchcraft, priestcraft, and the mani
fold shapes of superstition. They have taught us to
read the Bible with open eyes. They have interpreted
the sweet humanity of Jesus. Who but they have
practically taught us the preciousness of the eternal
life, have rescued us from the tyranny of creeds, and
purchased with their blood the soul-freedom which is
our birthright ? We will cry with Erasmus : “ Holy
Socrates, pray for us.” We will say with Schleiermacher: “Join me in offering a lock of hair to the
shade of the rejected Saint Spinoza. Full of religion
was he j and full of the Holy Ghost.” And if there
were a louder voice calling on us to lay tears, vows, and
purposes on the graves of all faithful infidels and be
lieving unbelievers, we would say amen and amen.
TURNBULL AND SPEARS, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.
�
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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The beliefs of unbelievers: a lecture
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Frothingham, Octavius Brooks
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Place of publication: Ramsgate
Collation: 14 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Printed by Turnbull and Spears, Edinburgh. A lecture delivered in Boston on January 8th 1871.
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Thomas Scott
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[1871]
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G5467
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Agnosticism
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Agnosticism
Conway Tracts
Unitarianism