One of the most alarming signs of this age is the ignorance and recklessness of the youthful assailants of the Bible. Our cities, villages and public places of resort are thronged with swarms of these Lilliputian volunteers in the cause of skepticism. Apprenticed striplings, and sprigs of law and physic, whose whole reading of standard authors on general [pg 177] science, religion, or morality, in ordinary duodecimo, equals not the years of their unfinished, or just completed minority, imagine that they have got far in advance of the vulgar herd, and are both philosophers and gentlemen if they have learned at second hand, a few scoffs and sneers at the Bible, from Paine, Voltaire, Bolingbroke, or Hume. One would think, could he listen to their impudence, that Bacon, Newton, Locke, and all the great masters of science, were very pigmies, and that they themselves were sturdy giants of extraordinary stature in all that is intellectual, philosophic and learned. These would-be baby demagogues are a public nuisance to society, whose atheistic breath not unfrequently pollutes the whole atmosphere around them, and issues in a moral pestilence among that class who regard a fine hat and a cigar as the infallible criteria of a gentleman and scholar.
These creatures have not sense enough to doubt, nor to think sedately on any subject; and therefore, we only notice them while defining the ground occupied by the unbelievers of this generation. They prudently call themselves skeptics, but imprudently carry their opposition to the Bible, beyond all the bounds embraced in their own definitions of skepticism. A skeptic can only doubt, never oppugn the gospel. He becomes an atheist, or an infidel, bold and dogmatic, as soon as he opens his mouth against the Bible.
Were we philosophically to class society as it now exists in this country in reference to the gospel, we should have believers, unbelievers, and skeptics. We would find some who have voluntarily received the apostolic testimony as true; others who have rejected it as false; and a third class who simply doubt, and neither receive nor reject it as a communication from heaven. But, though, unbelievers, while they call themselves skeptics, often wage actual war against the faith and hope of Christians, still their actual rejection of the gospel has no other foundation than pure aversion to its restraints and some doubts as to its authenticity. The quagmire of their own doubts, be it distinctly remembered, is the sole ground occupied by all the opponents of the gospel, whether they style themselves antitheists, atheists, theists, unbelievers, or skeptics.—Alexander Campbell, in 1835.
Infidelity, And The French And American Revolutions In Their Relations To Thomas Paine.
Infidels can not free themselves from the bands which tie the universe to its God. Every effort has been fruitless. Not one writer among all their hosts has been lucky enough to avoid the use of Christian terms that are in direct antagonism with their speculation and positions. It will be interesting to review, occasionally, their literature.
Speaking of Thomas Paine, Mr. Ingersoll says: “Every American with the divine mantle of charity, should cover all his faults.” What use has Col. Ingersoll or any other infidel for the word divine? The term is thus defined: Pertaining to the true God; (from the Latin divinus; from deus, a god) proceeding from God; appropriated to God; or celebrating His praise; excellent in the supreme degree; apparently above what is human; godlike; heavenly; holy; sacred; spiritual. As a noun: one versed in divine things or divinity; a theologian; a minister of the gospel; a priest; a clergyman. Zell's Encyclopedia.
Again, Mr. Ingersoll says, “Upon the head of his father, God had never poured the divine petroleum of authority.” So much the better for the race. What would infidels do if they had the authority? “Hume is called a model man, a man as nearly perfect as the nature of human frailty will permit.” He maintained that pleasure or profit is the test of morals; that “the lack of honesty is of a piece with the lack of strength of body;” that “suicide is lawful and commendable;” that “female infidelity, when known, is a small thing; when unknown, nothing;” “that adultery must be practiced if men would obtain all the advantages of this life; and that if generally practiced it would, in time, cease to be scandalous, and if practiced frequently and secretly would come to be thought no crime at all.”
Lord Herbert taught that the “indulgence of lust and anger is no more to be blamed than thirst or drowsiness.”
Voltaire contended “for the unlimited gratification of the sexual appetites, and was a sensualist of the lowest type; nevertheless he had the amazing good sense to wish that he had never been born.”