"We have, in the third place, a very strange account of a serpent that talked with Eve, and enticed her to oppose God. I must confess, we have not yet known that this beast could ever speak, or utter any sort of voice, beside hissing. But what shall we think Eve knew of this business? If she had taken it for a dumb animal, the very speech of it would have so frightened her, that she would have fled from it. If, on the other side, the serpent had from the beginning been capable of talking and haranguing, and only lost his speech for the crime of having corrupted the faith of Eve, certainly Moses would have been far from passing over in silence this sort of punishment, and only mentioning the curse of licking the dust. Besides this, will you have the particular species of serpents, or all the beasts in Paradise, to have been imbued with the faculty of speaking, like the trees in Dodona's grove? If you say all, pray what offence had the rest been guilty of, that they also should lose the use of their tongues? If only the serpent enjoyed this privilege, how came it about that so vile an animal (by nature the most reverse and remote from man) should, before all his other fellow brutes, deserve to be master of so great a favor and benefit as that of speech?
"Lastly, since all discoursing and arguing includes the use of reason, by this very thing you make the serpent a rational creature. But I imagine you will solve this difficulty another way; for (say the sticklers for a literal interpretation) under the disguise of a serpent was hid the Devil, or an evil spirit, who, using the mouth and organs of this animal, spoke to the woman as though it were a human voice. But what testimony or what authority have they for this? The most literal reading of Moses, which they so closely adhere to, does not express anything of it; for what else does he seem to say, but that he attributes the seducing of Eve to the natural craftiness of the serpent, and nothing else? For these are Moses's words:—'Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field that the Lord God had made.' Afterwards, continues he:—'The serpent said to the woman, yea, hath God said,' etc.—But besides, had Eve heard an animal, by nature dumb, speak through the means of some evil spirit, she would instantly have fled with horror from the monster.—When, on the contrary, she very familiarly received it; they argued very amicably together, as though nothing new or astonishing had taken place. Again, if you say that all this proceeded from the ignorance or weakness of a woman, it would on the other side have been but just, that some good angels should have succoured a poor, ignorant, weak woman; those just guardians of human affairs would not have permitted so unequal a conflict; for what if an evil spirit, crafty and knowing in business, had, by his subtlety, overreached a poor, weak, and silly woman, who had not as yet, either seen the sun rise or set, who was but newly born, and thoroughly inexperienced. Certainly, a person who had so great a price set upon her head, as the salvation of all mankind, might well have deserved a guard of angels. Aye, but perhaps (you will say) the woman ought to have taken care not to violate a law established on pain of death. 'The day you eat of it you shall surely die,', both you and yours; this was the law. Die! what does that mean, says the poor, innocent virgin, who as yet had not seen anything dead, no, not so much as a flower; nor had yet with her eyes or mind perceived the image of death—viz., sleep, or night? But what you add concerning his posterity and their punishment, that is not all expressed in the law. Now no laws are ever to so distorted, especially those that are penal. The punishment of the serpent will also afford no inconsiderable question, if the Devil transacted the whole thing under the form of a serpent; or if he compelled the serpent to do, or to suffer things, why did he (the serpent) pay for a crime committed by the Devil? Moreover, as to the manner and form of the punishment inflicted on the serpent, that from that time he should go creeping on his belly, it is not to be explained what that meant. Hardly any one will say, that prior to his catastrophe the serpent walked upright, like four footed beasts; and if, from the beginning, he crept on his belly like other snakes, it may seem ridiculous to impose on this creature as a punishment for one single crime, a thing which, by nature, he ever had before. But let this suffice for the woman and serpent; let us now go on to the trees. I here understand those two trees, which stood in the middle of the garden, the tree of life, and the tree of good and evil. The former so called, that it would give men a very long life, although, by what follows, we find our forefathers, prior to the flood, lived to very great ages, independent of the tree of life. Besides, if the longevity, or immortality of man had depended only upon one tree, or its fruit, what if Adam had not sinned? how could his posterity, diffused throughout the whole earth, have been able to come and gather fruit out of this garden, or from this tree? or how could the product of one tree have been sufficient for all mankind?"
Such is a condensed abstract of Dr. Burnet's seventh chapter of "Archæologia." The eighth chapter equals the above in boldness; but far exceeds it in breadth of logic and critical acumen, without, however, appearing so iconoclastic or so vulgar. The next chapter abounds in classical quotations, the Creation of the world and the Deluge is the theme on which so much is advanced, at a time when such language was greeted with the stake and the prison. We cannot calculate the effect of Burnet's works on the clerical mind; but this we do know, that since his day, there has progressed an internal revolution in the tenets of the church, which, in the last generation, gave birth to the neology, now so destructive of the internal peace of the churches. Neology has not come from Deism, for this power assails the outworks of Christianity; while the school of criticism is but a severe pruning knife of internal verbiage. Although the language quoted is harsh, the arguments common-place, which, although true, are now discarded by the educated Freethinker; yet if for no stronger language than this men were imprisoned only ten years ago, what must we say to the moral courage which could publish them 150 years ago? There must surely have been greater risks than in our day; and when a man dare hazard the highest power of the church for the duty of publishing unpopular sentiments, it is clearly our duty to; enshrine him as one of the guardians of that liberty of thought, and speech, which have won for us a freedom. we cherish and protect. Let the earth then lie lightly over the priest-Freethinker, Thomas Burnet.
A. C. [ [!-- H2 anchor --] ]
THOMAS PAINE.
"The wise by some centuries before the crowd,
Must, by their novel systems, though correct,
Of course offend the wicked, weak, and proud,
Must meet with hatred, calumny, neglect."
Thomas Paine, "the sturdy champion of political and religious liberty," was born at Thetford, in the County of Norfolk, (Eng.,) 29th of January, 1737. Born of religious parents (his father being a Quaker, and his mother a member of the Church of England,) Paine received a religious education at Thetford Grammar School, under the Rev. William Knowles. At an early age he gave indications of his great talent, and found pleasure, when a boy, in studying poetical authors. His parents, however, endeavored to check his taste for poetry, his father probably thinking it would unfit him for the denomination to which he belonged. But Paine did not lose much time before experimenting in poetry himself. Hence we find him, when eight years of age, composing the following epitaph, upon a fly being caught in a spider's web:—
"Here lies the body of John Crow,
Who once was high, but now is low;
Ye brother Crows take warning all,
For as you rise, so you must fall."
At the age of thirteen, after receiving a moderate education in reading, writing, and arithmetic, Paine left school, to follow his father's trade (stay-making.) Although disliking the business, he pursued this avocation for nearly five years. When about twenty years of age, however, he felt—as most enterprising young men do feel—a desire to visit London, and enter into the competition and chances of a metropolitan life. His natural dislike to his father's business led him to abandon for a period his original occupation, and, after working some time with Mr. Morris, a noted stay-maker, in Long Acre, he resolved upon a seafaring adventure, of which he thus speaks:—
"At an early age, raw, adventurous, and heated with the false Heroism of a master [Rev. Mr. Knowles, Master of the Grammar School at Thetford] who had served in a man-of-war, I began my fortune, and entered on board the Terrible, Captain Death, from this adventure I was happily prevented by the affectionate and moral remonstrances of a good father, who from the habits of his life, being of the Quaker profession, looked on me as lost; but the impression, much as it affected me at the time, wore away, and I entered afterwards in the King of Prussia privateer, Captain Mender, and went with her to sea."