Above, Junius also casts an aspersion upon the term infidel. Mr. Paine was very tender upon this point, and could not bear to be taunted with infidelity. He says: "Infidelity is believing falsely. If what Christians believe is not true, it is the Christians that are the infidels."—Remarks on R. Hall's sermon. In the Examination of the Prophecies, he concludes with this sentence, emphasized as follows: "He that believes in the story of Christ, is an infidel to God." He also defines infidelity as being unfaithful to one's own convictions. In the Age of Reason, part i, he says: "Infidelity consists in professing to believe what he does not believe." He also uses the word as synonymous with atheist, in his Discourse to the Theophilanthropists, as will be seen by reference to page [163] of this book.
I have heretofore given the views of Junius on Prayer. See page [172]. It now remains to give Mr. Paine's views. In his Letter to Samuel Adams he says: "A man does not serve God when he prays, for it is himself he is trying to serve; and as to hiring or paying men to pray, as if the Deity needed instruction, it is, in my opinion, an abomination."
They both believe in the divine justice of retribution and future punishment. Junius says: "The divine justice of retribution seems now to have begun its progress. Deliberate treachery entails punishment upon the traitor. There is no possibility of escaping it."—Let. 66. "A death-bed repentance seldom reaches to restitution."—Dedication.
Mr. Paine says, in Crisis, ii, to Lord Howe: "How many you have thus privately sacrificed we know not, and the account can only be settled in another world." And in Crisis, v, to the same man, he says: "You may, perhaps, be unwilling to be serious, but this destruction of the goods of Providence, this havoc of the human race, and this sowing the world with mischief, must be accounted for to him who made and governs it."
But I will give a positive affirmation of the fact. In the Age of Reason, near the close of the Second Part, he says: "The existence of an Almighty power is sufficiently demonstrated to us.... We must know, also, that the power that called us into being can, if he pleases, and when he pleases, call us to account for the manner in which we have lived here; and therefore, without seeking any other motive for the belief, it is rational to believe that he will, for we know beforehand that he can.... The probability that we may be called to account hereafter, will, to a reflecting mind, have the influence of belief; for it is not our belief or unbelief that can make or unmake the fact. As this is the state we are in, and which it is proper we should be in, as free agents, it is the fool only, and not the philosopher or even the prudent man, that would live as if there were no God."
Religiously, he can quite properly be classed with Theodore Parker. He stands close at his side, and, having preceded him, a shoulder higher. Yet, in this regard, Mr. Parker treats him with contempt.