doctrine of that Church of which this is the Book of Common Prayer teacheth, that your Saviour driveth out Satan from whomsoever he will and does not leave it to be the choice of the individual as to which of these gods he will embrace and worship. It is a perfect drivelling to say, that, if we do not drive out Satan, it is our own fault, when that Satan is represented as possessing more than human influence. Ah! Judge Bailey! Your Gods are contemptible things. Your notes on the book of Common Prayer despicable. We have another laughable note, on the Epistle for Tuesday in Whitsun week, Acts chap. viii. ver. 14, &c. "Then laid they (Peter and John) their hands on them, and they received the Holy Ghost." In a note on the word laid, &c. you say: "This was a point on which the Apostles could not well be deceived. They must have known whether the persons on whom they laid their hands did receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." How were they to know? You should have told us how! In a note, near at hand, you explain “in the spirit," as being a vision, or trance, that is, in a dream: and if this be a correct explanation, I understand spiritual matters better than I was aware of; for, I get "in the spirit” at times. I thank thee, Judge, for telling me what "in the spirit" means. It seems, by this explauation, that all religion, all spiritual matters, have their foundation in dreams. There is much to warrant this, both in the Old and in the New Testament. And as we begin to know what value to set upou dreams, we shall begin to reject this nonsense which is founded upon them, called religion and spiritual matters. Parson Wait of Bristol visited me the other day, and assured me, that the body as well as the spirit was to rise again to an immortal identity; but, I presume, that I may now content myself, upon your authority, that this was one of his dreams. In a note, on the Gospel, which follows the aforesaid Epistle, you say: "if the means are bad, it is not unfair to infer, that the end cannot be good. You may judge by what he does, whether a man is an impostor, or not." May I not apply this axiom to your conduct towards me? May I not say, that, if your religion or Christianity were good, you would never have resorted to such means, as those you have towards me and others, to protect it? May we not judge you to be a religious imposter, since you fear and menace all serious discussion upon the matter of your religion? Can your end be good, since you adopt such means to attain it? Can-enough, you stand convicted as a religious imposter, as a bad man. We are now come to TRINITY SUNDAY! You felt thè difficulty of the subject; and, instead of attempting to elucidate the matter with your pen, you have gone to Hooker for some words wherewith to make a note. The Collect prays, that the Almighty Trinity will give faith to the faithful to worship the Unity. Better had it prayed for knowledge to understand the mystery of the Trinity in Unity. Faith without knowledge is nonsense. In fact, there can be no real faith, where there is no knowledge of the thing to rest upon. Have you faith in the Trinity? Say what you know of the Trinity, that we, Anti-Trinitarians, may know on what your faith rests. But you confess, that you have no knowledge upon the subject—and where there is no knowledge, I repeat, there can be no faith. One of the Epistolarians of the New Testament has said, that, "Faith is the evidence of things not seen:" as if there can be evidence where no man has seen to make a true narrative! Upon the head, that" Faith is the evidence of things not seen," nothing more is evidenced than that such Faith is evidence of fables. I will give your note upon the subject. 66 Upon the subject of this great mystery, it may not be amiss to notice, with some little alteration, the humble language, of the great Hooker, Book 1, s. 2, p. 71. Dangerous it were for the feeble brain of man to wade far into the na ture of the Most High; whom although to know be life, and joy to make mention of his name, yet our soundest knowledge is, to know, that we know him not as indeed he is, neither can know him: and our safest eloquence concerning him is our silence, when we confess, in humble contemplation, that his glory is inexplicable, his greatness above our capacity and reach. He is above, and we are upon earth; therefore it behoveth our words to be wary and few.'" I perfectly agree with Hooker, that the less there is said about God the best, even to a total disuse of the word; but then, how did the recommendation tally with his profession as a Priest, where he was incessantly talking about that God, which he here confesses, in a serious mood, that he knows nothing about, and that, where there be ignorance, silence is the greatest eloquence? How does this recommendation tally with that priestcraft, which is incessantly prating lies about the God and his attributes? Cannot you see the contradic tion, the inconsistency, Judge Bailey, now it is so plainly placed before you? Hooker says, that it were dangerous for the feeble brain of man to wade far into the nature of the Most High. If the brain of man be not strong enough for the enquiry, can you point out an animal that has a stronger brain, or more qualified for the task? The brain of man is strong enough for any enquiry; but it cannot convert fables into truth, shadows into substance, nor spirits into realities. Again, can you tell me how high the "Most High" is, and by what criterion you ascertain the highest thing or place? Where do you point, when you say above the earth-above a globe that presents every degree of its surface to every degree of the two hemispheres? Come, Judge Bailey, tell us something more explicit about this "Most High above the earth." I agree with Hooker, that our soundest knowledge, in this age of idolatry, is to know our own ignorance about the word God. This makes the whole difference between you and me, Judge Bailey, that I do and that you do not confess that you know your ignorance upon this matter. I am honest enough to confess ignorance, you still more ignorant are not. There you may see, that you and your humble great Hooker are assailable at all points. I would not be a Christian, to be so harrassed, for a trifle! Perhaps, you will refer me to the fourth chapter of the Book of Revelations, which is here substituted for the Epistle to this Collect, as a description of Heaven and the Most High. The Most High God leads us to infer, that there are lower Gods. The first thing I find in this chapter, is that there are doors or a door in heaven! To keep out what? The Devil? Or was a door made just to make St. Peter a placeman ? How earthly, how material are all your spiritual things and places, ben fairly examined! W The second thing we learn is, that speaking trumpets are in use in heaven. We are not told who spake through them; but we may easily fill out the omissions by the following dialogue, supposing an angel in heaven (it could not be very high) bawling to Saint John on earth. ANGEL. (with a large speaking trumpet) St. John, A-hoi! St. John, A-hoi! St. John A-hoi! D'ye hear me, you material reptile, you creeping thing, you vile insect, d'ye hear, earth born? ST. JOHN. Hallo! Hallo! In the name of God-who be you? what d'ye want? ANGEL. "Come up hither, and I will shew thee, things which must be hereafter." 'And immediately," St. John, after being very drunk," was in the spirit;" for the Book of Revelations must have been wholly written when its writer was high in spirits. I know nothing, that approaches so near to spiritualism, as drunkenness. It elevates us above every thing material; and for this reason, I have resolved never to be again drunk. Drunkenness is precisely suited to the spirit of a Christian. It spiritualizes his whole body. St. John in heaven, he does not tell us whether he stood inside or outside the door, nor whether St. Peter was yet appointed door keeper; but whether inside or outside the door, he saw "a throne, and one sat on the throne, to look upon like a jasper and a sardine stone"-a very pretty statue, doubtless, if it were carved from a brilliant. It must beat the Jupiters and all the Pagan Gentry, who were made out of common marble, or something far inferior to jasper and sardine stone. I dare say, that the chisel of Phidias never produced any thing like this spiritual Jewish God; though it was employed upon something more solid and more tangible. And there was a rainbow round about the throne, insight like unto an emerald. An emerald is a green stone, and this must have been an Irish Rainbow, such as the King saw in Ireland. But St. John was so far fuddled, so high in the spirit, as to forget, or too ignorant to know, that there cannot be a rainbow without rain on the one side and a sun on the other. And if we are to have rain in heaven, all is not false that the Swedenborgains preach we shall want pattens and umberallas and houses for shelter, and coal or wood fires to dry ourselves after being caught in a shower. I see plainly, if St. John was really inspired to write this account of heaven, all is not to be fun, frolic, love and pleasure there. It is rather an odd and appalling circumstance, that none of the visionists, none of those who have been in the spirit, have ever seen any women in heaven. This circumstance has made it a question with the Mahometan women, whether they are to be restored to virginity, like the mother of Jesus, and admitted into Paradise. I can tell the Christian women, for their comfort, that it is a hundred to one against their admission to heaven- -SO they had better join me and partake of my material paradise. "Out of the throne there proceeded lightnings and thunders." It must have been a cloudy and stormy concern, and such as does not afford us much idea of comfort. A fig for such a heaven! I thought we were to have some fine place, where all was to be summer and love, harmony and serenity. Instead of that, we are to have thunders, and lightnings, and rains, and the very devil's work over again. I suppose, Jehovah will amuse himself with another deluge, when he gets tired of us and repents. Again, there are to be all sorts of odd beasts in heaven, full of eyes before and behind! Why, zounds, Judge Bailey, I thought the Priests told us, that man was the only beast that had a soul to be saved. How comes it to pass, then, that there are to be beasts and birds in heaven? I am very glad, that I have ceased to be a Christian: I'll go to no such place. The beasts full of eyes and covered with wings, it seems, are to have the preference, or in the aristocratical slang, the precedence of poor human nature spiritualized! You, Chrstians, will be brought to a pretty pass in heaven! When the Beasts give the signal, you must fall down and worship the brilliant Jehovah! And you, Judge Bailey, seem to hint, in a note, that the Beasts are to be let into all the secrets of Jehovah "to understand God's mysteries" and and to "fly about every where and fulfill God's commands!" And pray, what are you and other Chrstians to do? To wait upon the -beasts? To clean and feed this heavenly menagerie? This is a very pretty picture of God and heaven! I'll exhibit it in doggrel. HEAVEN, A MONGREL SONG, IN MIXED METRE, RHYME AND NO RHYME, to be sung to all tunes, by all who aspire to the possession of a hole or corner in the celestial mansion with one door! Ahem! Ahem! Aha! Clear the wind-pipe before you begin. Мотто. Book of Revelations, chapter the fourth. I. A door and a throne. A God like a stone. A Rainbow and Lightning, |