Abstract
Thomas Paine’s The Age of Reason, published in two parts (1794 and 1795), was certainly not the first attack by a deist on revealed religion, the Bible, and Christianity. For nearly a hundred years, the fortress of Christianity had been assailed by a cadre of deists who argued that religious truths must conform to reason, and that divine revelation was either unreliable or dangerous superstition.1 The defenders of Christianity in Europe and America did not sit idly by as the basis of their faith was questioned, and for a hundred years they had met the deist threat squarely, and, in their opinion, with triumph.2 As many of Paine’s detractors were only too happy to point out, there was very little “new” in The Age of Reason, and Paine was frequently charged with being little more than a plagiaristic imitator of previous British and French deists. American minister G. W. Snyder, for example, called The Age of Reason “nothing but a jumble of sentences, which the author borrowed from … deistical writers” such as Thomas Hobbes, John Toland, Anthony Collins, Thomas Chubb, Matthew Tindal, David Hume, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and the arch-infidel Voltaire.3 A pseudonymous Scottish author even slyly suggested that perhaps The Age of Reason would be more aptly named “The Age of Plagiarism.”4
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Notes
On earlier deist controversies, see James A. Herrick, Radical Rhetoric of the English Deists: The Discourse of Skepticism, 1680–1750 (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1997).
G.W. Snyder, The Age of Reason Unreasonable; or, The Folly of Rejecting Revealed Religion (Philadelphia, PA: William Cobbett, 1798), 31–32. For British opinions of Voltaire, see Bernard N. Schilling, Conservative England and the Case against Voltaire (New York: Columbia University Press, 1950).
Lover of Truth, Revelation, the Best Foundation for Morals (Edinburgh: J. and J. M’cliesh, 1798), 4.
A Churchman, Christianity the Only True Theology (London: Vaughan Griffiths, 1794), 5.
Beilby Porteus, A Charge Delivered to the Clergy of the Diocese of London, at the Visitation of that Diocese in the Year MDCCXCIV (London: F. and C. Rivington, 1794), 23.
Ibid.
Ibid.
For more on Paine’s writing style, see James Boulton, “Tom Paine and the Vulgar Style,” Essays in Criticism 12 (1962): 23; Thomas Clark, “A Note on Tom Paine’s ‘Vulgar’ Style,” Communication Quarterly 26 (Spring 1978): 31.
Thomas Jefferson to Francis Wayles Eppes, January 19, 1821, in Family Letters of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Edwin Morris Betts and James Adam Bear (Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 1966), 438.
American Citizen, A Letter to Thomas Paine, in Answer to His Scurrilous Epistle Addressed to Our Late Worthy President Washington: And Containing Comments and Observations on His Life, Political and Deistical Writings, &C. &C. (New York: John Bull, 1797), 1.
British concerns over Paine’s appeal to the lower classes had already been sharpened during the huge pamphlet war of the early 1790s that erupted over Paine’s defense of the French Revolution in Rights of Man. For an excellent summary of the controversy over Rights of Man, see chapters 5 and 6 of Gregory Claeys, Thomas Paine: Social and Political Thought (Boston, MA: Unwin Hyman, 1989). See also Yuval Levin, The Great Debate: Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and the Birth of the Right and Left (New York: Basic Books, 2014).
Thomas Taylor, An Answer to the First Part of The Age of Reason (Manchester: G. Nicholson, 1796), 3.
David Wilson, Answer to Payne’s Age of Reason (Perth: R. Morison, 1796), 38–39.
Thomas Paine to Daniel Isaacs Eaton, December 4, 1795, in The Complete Writings of Thomas Paine, ed. Philip S. Foner, 2 vols. (New York: Citadel Press, 1945), 2:1384.
William Cobbett, “Paine’s Age of Reason,” Political Censor 4 (May 1796): 389.
Eusebius, Gentleman’s Magazine 68 (January 1798): 33–34.
Daniel Dana, Two Sermons, Delivered April 25, 1799: the Day Recommended by the President of the United States for National Humiliation, Fasting and Prayer (Newburyport, MA: Angier March, 1799), 45.
The number of different editions has been somewhat systematically compiled in Thomas R. Adams, A Check List of the Separately Printed Works of Thomas Paine (unpublished, Philadelphia, 1954). This work is available at the University of Michigan library. A German translation of the first part of The Age of Reason was published in Germany under the title Untersuchungen Über Wahre Und Fabelhafte Theologie. Von Thomas Paine. Aus Dem Englischen Übersetzt Und Mit Anmerkungen Und Zusätzen Des Uebersetzers Begleitet (Deutschland: n.p., 1794). A German edition of the second part of The Age of Reason was published in Paris with the title Das Zeitalter der Vernunft. Zweyter Theil. Eine Untersuchung über die wahre und fabelhafte Theologie (Paris 1796).
Moses Hoge, “Letter from Shepherd’s-Town,” August 12, 1799, quoted in James Smylie, “Clerical Perspectives on Deism: Paine’s The Age of Reason in Virginia,” Eighteenth-Century Studies 6 (Winter 1972–1973): 219.
Francis Place, The Autobiography of Francis Place (1771–1854), ed. Mary Thale (Cambridge University Press, 1972), 159. Place’s partner in this publishing venture, Thomas Williams, would spend a year in jail for blasphemy for printing this cheap edition of The Age of Reason. See “Proceedings against Thomas Williams for publishing Paine’s ‘Age of Reason,’” in A Complete Collection of State Trials, ed. T. B. Howell (London: T.C. Hansard, 1819), 653–720.
Sheffield Iris, October 3, 1794, quoted in Gregory Claeys, Thomas Paine: Social and Political Thought (Boston, MA: Unwin Hyman, 1989), 184.
John Pershouse to James Pershouse, 1802 undated letter. John Pershouse Correspondence and Papers, 1749–1899 collection at the American Philosophical Society Library. For more on Paine’s return to the United States, see Jerry W. Knudson, “The Rage around Tom Paine: Newspaper Reaction to His Homecoming in 1802,” New-York Historical Society Quarterly 53 (1969): 34–63.
Beilby Porteus to Hannah More, in Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Mrs. Hannah More, ed. William Roberts (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1835), 424.
For evidence that More did not write this tract, see Anne Stott, Hannah More: The First Victorian (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 145–146.
Will Chip, A Country Carpenter’s Confession of Faith (London: F&C Rivington, 1794), 20.
Ibid., 11.
Ibid., 6.
John Malham, A Word for the Bible (London: Allen and West, 1796), vi.
Ibid.
Ibid., 2.
Richard Watson, An Apology for the Bible, in a Series of Letters, Addressed to Thomas Paine (Philadelphia, PA: W. Young, Mills & Son, 1796), 8.
Ibid.
Ibid., 202.
Ibid.
Richard Watson, An Apology for the Bible in a Series of Letters, Addressed to Thomas Paine … Fourth Edition. (London: T. Evans, 1796).
Elias Boudinot, The Age of Revelation, or, the Age of Reason Shewn to Be an Age of Infidelity. (Philadelphia, PA: Asbury Dickins, 1801), xix–xx.
Ibid, xxi.
Ibid
Ibid, xx–xxi.
Ibid, xx.
Paul C. Gutjahr, An American Bible: A History of the Good Book in the United States, 1777–1880 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999), 10–11.
Delaware Waggoner, An Investigation of that False, Fabulous and Blasphemous Misrepresentation of Truth, Set Forth by Thomas Paine, in His Two Volumes, Entitled The Age of Reason, Dedicated to the Protection of the United States of America (Lancaster, PA: W. & R. Dickson, 1800), 2–3.
Ibid.
Ibid., 13, 17.
Ibid., 26.
The Folly of Reason. Being our Perfect and Unerring Guide, to the Knowledge of True Religion (New York: Tiebout and O’Brien, 1794), iii–iv.
William O’Connor, Candid Remarks, on Pain’s Age of Reason (Cork: Robert Dobbyn, 1795), 4.
Elijah Wallace, Universal Alarm, or Age of Restoration (Dublin, 1798), 1.
Ibid., 13.
Ibid.
A Layman, A Defence of the Bible; in Reply to Thomas Paine’s Age of Reason: Compiled from the Answers to that Book (Huddersfield: J. Brook, [1796?]), 3.
Moses Hoge, Christian Panoply (Shepherd’s-Town, VA: P. Rootes & C. Blagrove., 1797), 251.
Moses Hoge, “Letter from Shepherd’s-Town,” August 12, 1799. Quoted in James Smylie, “Clerical Perspectives on Deism: Paine’s The Age of Reason in Virginia,” Eighteenth-Century Studies 6, no. 2 (Winter 1972–1973): 219.
William Gahan, Youth Instructed in the Grounds of the Christian Religion: With Remarks on the Writings of Voltaire, Rousseau, T. Paine, &c. Intended as an Antidote Against the Contagious Doctrines of Atheists, Materialists, Fatalists, Deists, Modern Arians, Socinians, &c. (Dublin: T. M’Donnel, 1798), ix.
Ibid.
Ibid., vi. Ironically, at the same time that he criticized Paine for his unoriginality, Gahan borrowed quite freely (and without attribution) from fellow-Irishman William Jackson’s 1795 prison-cell tract Observations in Answer to Mr. Thomas Paine’s “Age of Reason” (Dublin: G. Folingsby, 1795).
Uzal Ogden, Antidote to Deism. The Deist Unmasked; or An Ample Refutation of All the Objections of Thomas Paine, Against the Christian Religion, 2 vols. (Newark: John Woods, 1795), 2:303–304.
Uzal Ogden, The Theological Preceptor; or Youth’s Religious Instructor (New York: John Holt, 1772).
“Proceedings against Thomas Williams for publishing Paine’s ‘Age of Reason,’” in A Complete Collection of State Trials, ed. T. B. Howell (London: T.C. Hansard, 1819), 663, 669.
Abbé Barruel, Memoirs, Illustrating the History of Jacobinism (London: T. Burton and Co., 1797); John Robison, Proofs of a Conspiracy Against all the Religions and Governments of Europe (Edinburgh: Printed for William Creech, 1797); Jedidiah Morse, A Sermon, Delivered at the New North Church in Boston, in the Morning, and in the Afternoon at Charlestown, May 9th, 1798 (Boston, MA: Samuel Hall, 1798).
William Cobbett, The Bloody Buoy Thrown Out as a Warning to the Political Pilots of America (Philadelphia, PA: Benjamin Davies, 1796), ix.
[John] Padman, A Layman’s Protest against the Profane Blasphemy False Charges, and Illiberal Invective of Thomas Paine (London, 1797), 192–193, 225.
Protestant Lay-Dissenter, Remarks on a Pamphlet Entitled the “Age of Reason” (Dublin: P. Byrne, 1795), 97.
Ibid.
Rachel Hope Cleves, The Reign of Terror in America: Visions of Violence from Anti-Jacobinism to Antislavery (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 8.
Andrew Broaddus, The Age of Reason & Revelation (Richmond, VA: John Dixon, 1795), 4.
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Hughes, P.W. (2016). Irreligion Made Easy: The Reaction to Thomas Paine’s The Age of Reason. In: Cleary, S., Stabell, I.L. (eds) New Directions in Thomas Paine Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137589996_7
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